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Megaportal Yahoo has thrown its hat into the subscription music service ring. Yahoo has entered into a pact with Duet, itself a joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment and Vivendi Universal’s Universal Music Group. Under the arrangement, Yahoo will offer its users the ability to stream--not download--music from the two record labels, which include songs by artists such as Elton John, U2, Bruce Springsteen and Jennifer Lopez. Eventually, the songs will be downloadable. Yahoo will not be Duet’s only distributor, but it is the first. The deal arrives right on the heels of several other fee-based music-distribution announcements. MTV, for one, will begin offering downloads and streaming from all five major record labels (see below). RealNetworks and Microsoft plan to follow suit, although all the record labels don’t back them. Analysts remain skeptical about these sorts of individual deals, noting that music consumers will want broad, centralized service encompassing all available music. The deal also marks another attempt on Yahoo’s part to diversify its revenue sources.
Amazon pulls NASCAR autopsy links
Online retailer Amazon.com has rid itself of links to a web site that plans to publish autopsy photos of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt. Also, Amazon has pulled its ads from the site in question, called Websitecity.com. Websitecity.com, according to reports, now features the autopsy photos of two other NASCAR drivers, Rodney Orr and Neil Bonnett, who both died in 1994 in crashes in Daytona races. Amazon says that the autopsy photos are too graphic, so it has terminated the ad and links arrangements. As of early this morning, Websitecity was inaccessible. In requesting access to Earnhardt’s autopsy photos, the dot.com is in a race with the Orlando Sun Sentinel, which wants to see and analyze the Earnhardt postmortem shots. However, the Sentinel says it does not plan to publish them. Websitecity is in court fighting a Florida law that renders it a felony for a medical examiner to release autopsy photos without court approval.
MTV takes to peddling music files over the web
Starting later this month, MTV will peddle downloadable music files off its web site, in a partnership with RioPort.com. Tunes from all five major record labels will be available. Think of it sort of as what Napster would have looked like if the record labels had invented it--on MTV.com, downloaded songs will cost just about the same as they would in a record store. Roughly 10,000 music files will be available through MTV’s and VH1’s internet radio sites. If web users hear a song they like on the online radio stations, they can click a button and buy it. RealNetworks announced earlier this week that it would launch a similar service. MTV says that about half of the songs that it plays on its cable networks will be downloadable from the web site by year’s end.
Hackers hit government networks
Hackers trespassed on at least 155 government computer networks last year, according to a congressional review. In all, 32 federal agencies suffered from outright attacks from hackers all over the globe, the review concluded. The House Oversight and Investigations Committee found that agencies are slipshod about network security, leaving citizens’ Medicare, medical and other personal data easily accessible to the world. Last month, the committee asked 15 agencies to report on their compliance with the national government’s security standards--and found that some agencies weren’t even sizing up their security on a regular basis like they’re supposed to. Also, the FBI is probing 102 different cases of break-ins to federal computer systems. According to security experts, federal security falls short--just five to 10 percent of government agencies make use of automated security software.
Financial Times will chop 10% from FT.com
The internet branch of the Financial Times stands to lose about 10 percent of its 350-person staff. Forty positions will be cut in all; most of them will be in the United Kingdom. FT.com and FTYourMoney’s newsrooms will be affected, as eight journalists from FTYourMoney will be let go, along with four from FT.com. The Financial Times’ parent company, media giant Pearson, says it is making the cutbacks in order to get rid of staff redundancies. The company has not revealed how much money the firings will save it. The layoffs at FT.com are another hint that tough financial times seem to hurt financial-news web sites in particular. Earlier this week, TheStreet.com laid off 20 percent of its workforce-- following right behind Dow Jones’s WSJ.com, which announced last week that it would lay off an unspecified number of staff members.
Prez Dubya swears off using email
Speaking yesterday at a convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, President George W. Bush says he has rejected email as a communications medium since taking office. Previously an inveterate emailer, Bush is now concerned that his private email correspondence as president could become subject to freedom of information laws. Beyond that there is the undeniable fact that email is notoriously easy to intercept and generally lives on long after it has been sent--witness the messages that turned up between Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp. Bush went on to affirm that if there are any freedom of information requests, his administration will cooperate, so long as national security isn’t compromised.
April 6, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
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