RIAA
goes global with song-swapper suits
The Recording Industry Association of America has
decided it’s not just Americans who deserve its wrath. The RIAA filed
its first batch of lawsuits against song swappers living abroad, adding
247 lawsuits to the more than 2,000 it already has filed in the U.S. The
suits target people living in Canada, Italy, Germany and Denmark, charging
that they made available thousands of songs for others to download via
peer-to-peer services like Kazaa and WinMX. Not all of the alleged
copyright infringers have been identified yet, as the RIAA is often
working off screen names. Europe is considered the next major
battleground in the song-swapping fight because no legal download store
has caught on there the way iTunes and Napster have here.
Study: Working
women are webbie women
If
she's at work, she's probably online. That's what a study of working
women's media usage and buying habits, released today by The Washingon
Post Co.'s washingtonpost.com and Nielsen//NetRatings, suggests. Working
women, defined as those over 18 who have
internet access at home or at
work, seem to be feeling the squeeze. Sixty percent of web-using working
females said they have little time for their personal lives, 12 percentage
points higher than the response from working men. Not surprisingly,
working moms cited the most harried schedule, with 70 percent saying they
didn’t have enough time for their personal life. Still, 80 percent of
working women watch TV for an hour a day or more
and 60 percent
are online more than 60 minutes a day (more than 75 percent of those
at vice president or higher level),
though less
than 10 percent spend an hour with magazines or newspapers. Ninety
percent do shopping research online.
Microsoft
slashes Xbox price by $30
Microsoft Corp. made has
semi-cellar-dwelling a bit more
affordable and alluring. The company reduced the selling price of the Xbox
gaming console by $30 to $149 starting today. The move was an attempt to
cut into the market share of U.S.-leading Sony PlayStation, which
currently sells for $180. Xbox is currently the No. 2 console in the
country. Third-place Nintendo began selling its GameCube system for $99
last year. Although Microsoft has not released its profit margin on the
Xbox, industry experts estimate that the company has lost $1.5 billion, a
figure expected to climb as sale prices
plummet. Console makers
turn a profit on software and royalties paid by video game publishers to
cover hardware losses. Microsoft has sold 8.7 million Xbox units in the
United States and 13.7 million worldwide, nearing a company goal set last
summer to sell 14.5 million to 16 million units worldwide by the end of
June. By comparison, Sony has sold 25 million consoles in the United
States and 78.5 million worldwide.
From
WB to AOL, 'Everwood' available online
If
you’re in one of those areas that doesn’t get the WB, rejoice – you
can see what all the fuss is over the hot teen drama “Everwood” next
week. The March 29 broadcast of the WB’s Monday 9 p.m. rerun will be
available for download on AOL for Broadband the next day. The show will be
downloadable the entire week, in its long form or broken into segments.
It’s believed
to be the first time a primetime TV show has been available
online (legally, at least) so
soon
after its airing.
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