Netflix this morning announced renewed distribution deals with two major content providers, Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Both agreements encompass physical and digital distribution of movies and, in the case of Fox, TV programs. And yes, they include 28-day windows between street date and Netflix catalogue availability for new releases.
Details after the jump. → Read More
I have a secret to tell you. I’m a fan of the Fast & Furious franchise. Actually, the second one sucked really badly. But I’m not reviewing the fourth installment in the riveting saga here, just the Blu-ray iPhone app. → Read More
Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for such a thing to transpire. I think it’s safe to say that most of us have seen vending machines spewing out electronics at airports and other random establishments for some time, so this bit of news should come as no surprise. → Read More
According to ENI, Universal Studios have struck a deal with Hasbro and Dreamworks to bring those cuddly killing machines known as Transformers to the Hollywood-based Universal theme park in 2011. You’ll be even more surprised to know that the Universal theme park in Singapore will be getting it a full year before us. It was, after all, introduced in Asia long before the US, but it’s… → Read More
The US Department of Justice has launched an anti-trust probe into Total Music, the proposed music service from Universal and Sony BMG. As we wrote in October 2007, Total Music would offer free music to end users by charging device manufactures or ISPs. The earlier figures mentioned $90 per device for access to Total Music, based on $5 per month over 18 months. According to The Register, Universal… → Read More
Try as they might, HD DVD isn’t going down without a fight. Whether these titles were lined up before the WB announcement is anyone’s guess, but a few blockbusters are slated for this quarter. I didn’t see Beowulf (2/26) and I think the reviews were mixed, but it’s an exclusive as is American Gangster (2/19) and Bee Movie (3/11). I didn’t see the Seinfeld movie, but I… → Read More
[photopress:vhddvd.jpg,full,center] HD DVD? What’s that? Universal has ended its HD DVD exclusivity arrangement and Paramount’s HD DVD contract has an escape clause. Should Paramount exercise that clause, and there’s no reason not to at this point, Blu-ray would have thoroughly won this silly “format war.” Now we can get back to the important business of arguing over… → Read More
Do I really need to endorse this one? It’s Van Damme in HD. Sure, it’s not his best movie (“Blood Sport” gets my vote), but it’s in HD! He does the splits as he does in every movie. Pick up Universal’s “Timecop”, you know you want to. Amazon → Read More
Deutsche Grammaphon. Ever heard of it? Doesn’t matter if you have or not. It’s owned by Universal Music and has decided to build its own classical music download site, where the MP3s are DRM-free and encoded at 320kbps. Single tracks run for $1.29 unless they’re over 7-minutes long, in which case they cost $1.99. That’s a slight departure from how classical music is offered… → Read More
Doug Morris over at Universal Music Group has a hard job — he has to sell dying media to plugged-in consumers. For a hundred years, recorded music has come on platters of plastic called “discs” or “records.” You used to be able to sell those discs at a considerable mark-up in order to fund artists’ cocaine habits and to ensure that music company CEOs can afford… → Read More
Apparently Universal Music Group – which has been dipping its toes into DRM-free waters this year – is none too worried about music pirates getting into classical music. Deutsche Grammophon, a German classical music company founded in 1898 and owned by Universal, will be launching on Wednesday an online store for MP3s called DG Web Shop. The store will offer 24,000 albums and box sets… → Read More
The latest brainwave from the besieged music industry is the proposal to offer free music to end users via the Total Music brand. Spawned by Universal Music, Total Music looks likely to sign the big four record labels and a range of smaller firms as well, with Sony BMG on board and Warner Music looking as it will be as well. Free is the ultimate selling point in market side economics, because… → Read More
Universal CEO Doug Morris is looking to partner with Sony BMG and Warner to develop "a new music subscription service that will try to loosen Apple’s grip on the online music market." → Read More
It’s hard being NinjaMan, Ninja of the Future. Just ask the stewards on my last flight. They had to put up with me looking like a total moron and loving every minute of it. Why? Because I was wearing the Myvu Universals, a pair of video glasses for the iPod — or any other device with a video output — that basically turns you into the coolest guy on the plane. These glasses allow… → Read More
After one too many “unreasonable threats”, video site Veoh preemptively sued Universal Music last month in federal court, seeking a declaratory injunction to bar Universal from taking legal action. Now it seems Universal has finally made good on some of those threats. Universal is suing the startup for copyright infringement, using some strong language in an L.A. court hearing today. Universal… → Read More
Universal Music Group will sell DRM-free music until January to test consumer demand for being able to do as we please with music that we legitimately purchase. The test tracks will be offered through many major music services with the notable exception of iTunes. → Read More
Eminem, who peaked in 2000, has filed a lawsuit against Apple, which peaked on June 29, 2007. The lawsuit centers on the whether or not Universal Music, which publishes Eminem’s hot beats, can deal directly with Apple with regard to selling music online. It seems Em wants more of a cut of that sweet, sweet iTunes money and doesn’t like how Universal can make deals with Apple without… → Read More
Not much info on these HOT SCOOPS, but Matt Drudge is reporting that Universal Music Group will not be renewing its iTunes contract with Apple. This means that the iTunes Music Store is going to lose a lot of tracks and customers will soon follow. With the iPhone just released, I’m sure Apple is going to beef up iTMS promotions but this could pose a major setback for everyone, both Apple and… → Read More
A new class action lawsuit is upon us and yet again, Apple is the target. This time, independent music label Dawg Music is suing Apple, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music for selling its catalog without consent or compensation. The two major labels here have not only screwed Dawg Music out of royalty checks, they’ve also made illegal hard copies of music not owned by them. Piracy… → Read More
We all know by now that the Zune is certainly not the hottest DAP on the market. But after dealing with Microsoft and their “points” system and the crappy music store for Zune, we’re finding out that some of the songs you may have bought can’t be shared with other Zunes—not that you’d find another one near you anyways. The culprits? Sony and Universal. → Read More
, one of which is a movie about an ugly beast who gets angry, and the other about a Marvel comic book character. As one of the only studios to support HD DVD directly, Universal is putting all its chips into one can of salsa, whereas a few others are doing both formats. In any case, this is the first we’ve heard of a studio dropping support for a next-gen format. A sign of things to come? → Read More
Well it was bound to happen, the big labels are starting to see the light. Universal announced plans today to offer its entire catalog of music for free through a startup service called SpiralFrog. The project is supported entirely by ads. Users of SpiralFrog will be able to load its proprietary software and play Universal songs in Windows Media Player and on two portable devices, the iPod is not… → Read More
If you’re familiar with this story, see the updated details at the end. Universal Music, the corporate parent behind labels like MoTown, Geffen Records and many more, announced this morning that they will be making their entire catalogue available for free download through New York based startup SpiralFrog.com starting this fall. SpiralFrog will offer free downloads wrapped in a still… → Read More
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