Posts Tagged ‘iTunes’
Is Google preparing to challenge iTunes in the cloud?
February 18th, 2010 | 
Author: As the four biggest record companies wait to hear more about a proposed iTunes cloud music service, word comes now that Google has kicked the tires on a start-up specializing in cloud media.
Google has showed interest in possibly acquiring Los Angeles-based Catch Media, a company that intends to help make it simple for consumers to enjoy their digital movies, music, and books across numerous different hardware and service platforms, according to sources with knowledge of the negotiations. It’s unclear whether talks between Google and Catch have gone beyond informal discussions.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt (left) and Universal Music Group CEO Doug Morris prepare to shake hands at the Vevo launch party two months ago.
(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)
If Google did acquire the company, it could help the search giant keep pace with Apple’s expected efforts to take iTunes to cloud computing. Last month, CNET reported that Apple has spoken to the top labels about plans to offer a streaming music service free of charge to consumers. Before agreeing to any new licensing deals, the labels are waiting for Apple to supply more information.
A Google spokesman responded to a request for comment by writing: “While we’re always talking to various people about various things, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation.” A representative from Catch declined to comment.
Catch doesn’t offer or store content. The company wants to be to digital media what Plus, Cirrus, and ATM networks are to the banking industry. Catch has developed a technology that helps hardware companies and service providers register, track, route and clear digital media as it moves across different platforms.
If Catch has its way, consumers will one day access media from different vendors and devices as easily as people withdraw money from any available ATM.
Founded in 2003 by brothers Boaz Ben-Yaacov and Yaacov Ben-Yaacov, Catch is focused on cloud-based music at this early stage in its development, sources said. In order to enable the cross-platform accessing of songs, Catch has licensed music from all four major record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Music.
Conceivably, Catch is one way Google could equip Android cellphone owners with a means to access their iTunes music libraries.
Google’s interest in a start-up focused on cloud music has sparked speculation within the recording industry about the search engine’s music plans.
According to a December story in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Google was attempting to buy Lala, but Apple won out.
In December, Apple paid more than $80 million to acquire the company, which enables users to store a copy of their music libraries on the its servers and then access those songs from anywhere they can connect to the Web.
Barely two months prior to Lala’s acquisition, Google made news by partnering with the streaming service on a music-search deal. One music industry source said Google began circling Catch soon after losing Lala.
Because Google was pursuing an acquisition of Lala, some in the music industry see the search engine’s interest in Catch as part of a larger effort by Google to go deeper into digital music.
According to music sources, the industry would welcome a new music venture from Google CEO Eric Schmidt with open arms, sort of like how the chiefs of three of the largest labels literally welcomed Schmidt to the Vevo launch party in December.
Google’s YouTube has already become one of the Web’s biggest music outlets. Music videos at YouTube and Vevo, a site created by three top labels with YouTube’s help, attract millions of viewers each day.
The music industry has said for years that it would prefer an iTunes rival to emerge. As Apple and Google’s businesses increasingly begin to collide, who better than to face down Jobs and Apple than Schmidt and Google?
Source :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10455535-261.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Posted in Apple, Entertainment, Google, media, Mozilla | 
Tags: Apple, Catch-Media, Google, iTunes, movies, multi-media, Music | 
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Music publishers: ‘copyright should be technology neutral’
Composers, music publishers, and songwriters have told federal lawmakers that regardless of whether music is distributed to consumers via TV, DVDs or digital download, they need legislative help to ensure they get their fair share.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a story about how some of these groups want iTunes and other Web music retailers to pay performance fees for downloads of TV shows and films. They also want online music stores to cough up fees for 30-second song previews. Those revelations didn’t go over well with many techies.
But to get a better understanding of what the artists want from Congress, I asked David Israelite, president and CEO of the National Music Publishers Association, to forward me a copy of a March 10 letter written to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee by a consortium of trade groups representing songwriters, composers, and publishers. He agreed.
In the letter, signed by Israelite and representatives of such groups as Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI); American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP); and Songwriters Guild of America, the consortium wrote: “Technology should not be used to strip rights from songwriters, composers and music publishers. The choice of certain audiovisual delivery systems or methods over others should not result in a diminution of creators’ rights or royalties.”
The group later made this statement: “There is no question that copyright should be technology neutral” and asked Congress to make “a clarification to the copyright law” that specifically says that “the public performing right is implicated in digital downloads” of audiovisual works that feature music.
“We believe Congress intended the current law to be platform neutral,” the music consortium wrote to the Senators. “The conflicting interpretations demand clarification, for without it, performing right income of songwriters, composers and publishers is seriously threatened.”
The lobbying efforts of the songwriters, composers and music publishers continues.
All of this started with the shift in the way the public consumes media. Songwriters and publishers have for a long time collected performance fees from broadcast TV networks and film studios, but now more and more consumers are watching films and TV shows downloaded to their iPods or laptops, which at this point aren’t considered public performances.
A federal district judge court ruled in 2008 that “there is no copyright protection for the public performance right when a work containing music is digitally transmitted for future playing or viewing” the consortium wrote in the March 10 letter.
The music creators have appealed the decision.
How is this the consumer’s problem?
To critics, composers, songwriters and publishers are asking for a guarantee that they will get paid for public performances even if there isn’t any public performance.
Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Web users and technology companies, disagrees with the argument that copyright should be technology neutral.
“The Copyright Act has never been technology neutral,” von Lohmann said. “The (Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s) Safe Harbors only applies to online services. There are areas that apply only to cable and satellite providers. The Copyright Act is always trying to strike a compromise.”
He added that music creators already collect other licensing fees, for such things as synchronization rights and he maintains, iTunes or other music retailers shouldn’t be responsible for making up losses for music creators.
“The copyright owner is going to get paid,” von Lohmann said. “Whether it’s called a performance or a reproduction the copyright owner is going to get paid. This is just a turf war between middlemen about who is going to take a piece off the top. The copyright office has tried to broker some sort of solution between the various parties for years with little success.
“We’ll get some more guidance from the courts soon,” he continued, “but I doubt that will be the last word. As (Israelite’s) letter suggests the parties can all go fight it out in Congress now.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10370513-261.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
