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Please
note that most dates on this page link to articles in the Boycott-RIAA
news archives or other publications.
The date shown is when the article was posted and not necessarily
the day the events described took place.
January 12 -- They Might Be Giants topped the worldwide
chart for legally downloaded music sales in 1999, according to
EMusic.com. The Redwood City-based MP3 music web site said Phish
was in second place, followed by Bush, the Goo Goo Dolls and
Hypnotic Records Compilations...
June 6 -- Koch Entertainment entered into an exclusive
digital music delivery agreement with EMusic.com. The two companies
will now work together in selling Koch's music catalog on the
Internet, available for purchase and download in MP3 format.
Koch's music catalog features music from The Kinks, Lynch Mob,
Michael McDermott, Mo Thugs, The Nixons, Dee Snider, Lucinda
Williams, and others. It was also Koch Entertainment who brought
us the Pokemon TV Soundtrack. In a few years, they're gonna give
William Hung a record contract.
June 23 -- Looking at EMusic.com's stock is like flushing
a toilet, you see things going down the tubes. In the past year,
the company's stock has gone from a high of $35.00, to a low
of $1.93, with the present value of $2.25 a share. Due to these
poor figures, EMusic was recently forced to downsize their employee
force by 20 percent. In hopes of rallying revenue, the master
minds behind the company have come up with an unlimited download
subscription service.
What this means is that instead
of paying 99 cents for every MP3 downloaded, visitors will pay
a monthly or yearly fee and will be given access to download
an unlimited amount of MP3s.
July 4, 2000
EMusic.com has announced a deal made with Hewlett Packard which
will have the company selling $3 million dollars worth of MP3's
to HP through March 31, 2001. HP will be offering a free two-month
subscription to EMusic in a promotion of their new rewriteable
CD-R drives.
"HP research has shown
that 80 percent of our customers use CD writers to burn MP3 files
from the Web and create custom music CDs," said Christy
Tappy, HP marketing manager, leaving us all to wonder how the
other 20 percent burn MP3 files from the Web and make custom
CDs...
July 24 -- EMusic.com has decided to go the way of a
subscription service by offering unlimited downloads for a monthly
fee ranging from $10-$20. The beleaguered digital audio site
will continue to offer individually sold tracks as well as the
new subscription service. In all, there are about 125,000 available
songs in the catalog that are downloadable through this service.
EMusic will share the revenue generated from this service with
both the record companies and music publishers from whom they
have licensed this music.
November 21 -- In quite a bold move, EMusic.com has announced
they are planning to launch an initiative designed to prevent
the illegal distribution of EMusic songs using the Napster service.
Starting today, EMusic will use software that includes "acoustic
fingerprinting" technology to identify songs on Napster's
service that infringe on the rights of EMusic's artist and label
partners.
Reportedly before EMusic made
the decision to use fingerprinting, the two companies did discuss
the problem. EMusic proposed a consumer-friendly way to stop
the unauthorized distribution of their licensed songs, but obviously
no agreement was reached. Napster's suggestion was to provide
the names of Napster users who are distributing EMusic tracks
so their accounts can be blocked, but EMusic wasn't interested.
Here's what Gene Hoffman, EMusic
president and CEO, had to say about working with Napster on the
issue:
"Over the past several
months, EMusic has continually offered to work in good faith
with Napster on this issue. We have proposed a number of viable
solutions -- including detailing to Napster a fairly simple technology
that would effectively block the unauthorized sharing of our
music files without disrupting Napster users' accounts. Napster's
unfortunate and inflexible response has been that EMusic's only
course of action is to request that offending users' accounts
be cut off completely. Although we feel that Napster could easily
implement a more consumer-friendly solution, we will begin supplying
this information on an ongoing basis."
December 19 -- EMusic.com sues mp3.com for using content
from the 13,000 albums that they have made deals with around
600 various record labels to use. The suit also brings in six
independent record labels on the side of EMusic, claiming that
MP3.com violated copyrights by offering them online without permission.
EMusic.com
-- 2001
January 12 -- EMusic
has announced that it is reducing its overhead operating costs
by reducing its staff by 66 people, around 36% of its current
staff.
A growing trend in the industry,
Emusic stated that the corporate restructuring is aimed at reducing
expenses and focusing the company on its two core sources of
revenue - advertising and promotional revenue through RollingStone.com,
and downloadable music sales through EMusic.com.
With the reduction in staff,
EMusic stated it is expecting to save an estimated $16 million
dollars over the next year.
"We have taken today's
actions in order to withstand the combined effect of widespread
illegal distribution of digital music and the significant market
decline for Internet advertising. Although we are proud of our
achievements and our company has been able to show continued
progress, we cannot ignore the external challenges we continue
to face. In light of these challenges, we have reduced our expenses
further with the objective of retaining sufficient cash to see
us through to cash flow positive operations." Gene Hoffman,
EMusic's president and CEO.
February 12 -- The
9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules that Napster may be held liable
for contributory copyright infringement. Stocks on Wall Street
for digital music companies soared.
EMusic.com (EMUS) has seen
its stock fall as low as $0.25 in the past year, but with today's
Napster ruling the stock jumped an astounding 69.23%, to $0.68.
This is good news for the company because if the stock hadn't
shown signs of life, NASDAQ officials were threatening to drop
it from the market.
Earlier today Gene Hoffman,
President and CEO of EMusic.com, issued a statement in respect
to today's court decision in the Napster case: "We are pleased
that the district court will be issuing a new injunction against
Napster that will effectively block the unauthorized distribution
of music files. This should establish a clear foundation for
the growth of legitimate music download services on the Internet
-- where artists, labels and consumers all have a voice in how
digital music is enjoyed."
EMUS was not the only digital
music company to show profit from the market, MP3.com's MPPP
also had a substantial gain. The stock jumped to $4.59, up 8.09%.
With a 52-week high of $33.50 MPPP still has a long way to go,
but the increase is a welcome boost for investors.
Among others in MP3's space,
Launch Media (LAUN) is unchanged at $1.72 and Artistdirect (ARTD)
is rallying 20% to $0.75 cents.
March 8 -- EMusic
files a copyright infringement suit against Napster accusing
it of unfair business practices. EMusic
bills itself as "the premier source for legitimate MP3s"
and pays artists for each music download off its subscription-based
web site. EMusic is accusing Napster of unfair competition because
Napster's business is based upon illegitimate use of copyrighted
material.
May 8 -- EMusic
has announced that its subscription service has grown to a respectable
170,000 tracks available, packing in the works of over 8,000
artists.
EMusic has been steadily increasing
the amount of music available through the service over the past
few weeks with thousands of new tracks additions. A quick snapshot
of some of the artists available through the service include:
They Might Be Giants, Bush, Violent Femmes, Green Day, Pennywise,
Rancid, NOFX, Elvis Costello, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom
Waits, DJ Spooky, Sasha & Digweed among many others.
EMusic is offering a free 30
day trial of their "EMusic Unlimited" digital music
subscription service for those who would be interested in trying
the system out before deciding if it is worth paying the for
the subscription service. Memberships in the service run as low
as $9.99 a month for a year-long commitment.
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