Yahoo! News: Internet News: AOL unveils web shows from Jennifer Lopez, Mark Burnett (Reuters)

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AOL unveils web shows from Jennifer Lopez, Mark Burnett (Reuters) Oct 3rd 2011, 19:45 LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – AOL unveiled a slate of 15 web series on Monday boasting partnerships with the likes of Michael Eisner's Vuguru and Mark Burnett. Thanks to J-Lo., the company will also be re-launching a brand best known for fashioning Leif Garrett and Jonathan Taylor Thomas into teen idols -- Tiger Beat. The shows range from celebrity interviews to home makeovers to car talk. It represents one of the company's biggest investments in video content, which executives have made no secret of saying represents the best opportunity to prop up the embattled company's online advertising numbers. AOL also announced plans to collaborate with Jennifer Lopez, her company Nuyorican Productions, and Believe Entertainment Group to launch a new digital video series, "Tiger Beat Entertainment," an entertainment news and lifestyle show for teens and young adults. In addition to Lopez, the shows feature bigger names than traditionally appear in online series. Among the boldfaced talent are "Twilight"s' Jackson Rathbone who will appear in the action series "AIM High" Antonio Sabato Jr. who headlines the comedy "Little Women, Big Cars," and Heidi Klum who will oversee a better living show "Heidi Klum on AOL." Each program will be programed and distributed across AOL Huffington Post Media Group sites. The company said that AOL Video is one of the top-10 video platforms on the Web with 43.9 million unique viewers and 403.6 million U.S. streams per month. Highlights of the slate include: Women -- "Little Women, Big Cars:" From bake sales and soccer games to gossip and divorce, four moms navigate the comedy and drama of suburban life. Starring Ed Begley Jr., Antonio Sabato, Jr., Julie Warner and Kristy Swanson. Produced by Vuguru. -- "A Supermodel Stole My Husband:" A lighthearted makeover show in which a frustrated wife enlists an adored supermodel to help transform her husband. Produced by AOL Studios. -- "Heidi Klum on AOL:" A guide to fabulous living for everyday women, including fashion, beauty, parenting, lifestyle, fitness and nutrition. Produced by Full Picture. -- "Jocks & Jills:" Sports show meets "The View" in a fresh and funny sports talk show hosted by a rotating panel of diverse celebrity guests. Produced by Flavor Unit Productions. -- "Lost in Translation:" Reality series following a hip-hop DJ and famous 'Nuyorican,' as she attempts to learn Spanish, learn to cook, date and reclaim her Puerto Rican heritage. Produced by Flavor Unit Productions. -- "Fearless Living:" Based on her best-selling book "On Becoming Fearless," Arianna Huffington looks at the many aspects of living a fearless life -- from motherhood and parenting to beauty and health to navigating the workplace to friendship, relationships and aging gracefully. Produced by AOL Studios. General -- "The Tanning Effect:" Steve Stoute, best-selling author of "The Tanning of America," interviews entertainment icons and pop-culture thought leaders including Jay-Z and Pharrell Williams; the series is sponsored by State Farm. Produced by AOL Studios. -- "Sessions:" Original, exclusive performances with hitmakers such as Alicia Keys and Adele. Produced by AOL Studios. -- "Unscripted:" Celebrity co-stars interview each other -- with users' burning questions. Past talent includes Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Aniston, Robert Pattinson and Adam Sandler. Produced by AOL Studios. -- "You've Got:" Everyday, everyone from Barack Obama to Kevin Bacon to Paula Abdul tells the world what 'You've Got.' Produced by AOL Studios. Men -- "AutoBlog -- The List:" Hosts who consider themselves true automotive aficionados must tackle crazy car challenges from 'The List,' created by Autoblog's expert editors. Produced by AOL Studios. -- "The Interface:" Exclusive performances from breaking artists, including the best up-and-coming artists such as Mumford and Sons, Rogue Wave, Manchester Orchestra and The National. Produced by AOL Studios. -- "MMA Hour:" Get up close and personal with the celebrities of the MMA Fighting world, from the Web's best MMA Fighting resource. Produced by AOL Studios. -- "The Engadget Show:" Industry leaders and tech luminaries take the stage in front of one of the largest audiences of tech enthusiasts. Produced by AOL Studios. Teens & Young Adults -- "CliffsNotes Films:" Short, animated, irreverent versions of literary classics, produced by Mark Burnett, Coalition Films and AOL Studios and Executive produced by Josh Faure-Brac. Columbia Pictures' film Anonymous (in theaters October 28th) is the exclusive sponsor of the first six episodes. -- "AIM High:" TV broadcast-quality action series following Nick Green as he juggles high school with being a secret government agent. Starring Jackson Rathbone from "Twilight" and Aimee Teegarden from "Friday Night Lights." Produced by Warner Bros.

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Yahoo! News: Internet News: Rhapsody snaps up Napster to build market share (Reuters)

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Rhapsody snaps up Napster to build market share (Reuters) Oct 3rd 2011, 18:49 (Reuters) – Two of the longest-running names in digital music, Rhapsody and Napster, are combining in a bid to grow market share and stay ahead of newer rivals like Spotify, Rdio and MOG. Rhapsody, which is the largest U.S. digital music service with 800,000 subscribers, said Monday it would take over Napster, which is currently owned by retailer Best Buy Co Inc. Best Buy would receive a minority stake in Rhapsody on closing of the transaction, which is expected around November 30. The deal is stock based, but specific terms were not disclosed. Even as music sales have dropped significantly over the last decade -- with fans buying fewer CDs and piracy taking hold -- many start-ups and investors have been willing to place a bet on being the music retail or distribution outlet of choice for the 21st Century. But to date, digital music sales has been dominated by Apple Inc's iTunes Music Store. Napster's name is synonymous with the original "bete noire" of the music industry -- an illegal free music-sharing application founded by college dropout Shawn Fanning in the late 1990s. Roxio Inc bought the Napster name in 2002 after the original Napster was shuttered by major music labels' lawsuits. It was later sold to Best Buy for $121 million in 2008, and is estimated to have less than 400,000 subscribers. Rhapsody described Napster as the second-largest U.S. digital music service but did not reveal how many subscribers Napster has. "This deal will further extend Rhapsody's lead over our competitors in the growing on-demand music market," said Rhapsody President Jon Irwin in a statement. Rhapsody was spun off by Viacom Inc's MTV Networks and RealNetworks Inc early in 2010. While Rhapsody is the current digital music service market leader, it is facing fast-growing competition from London-based Spotify which launched in the U.S. in July. The new service, which already has some 2 million paying subscribers mainly in Europe, is said to be adding thousands of U.S. users weekly, according to various industry estimates. (Reporting by Yinka Adegoke in New York, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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Yahoo! News: Internet News: Yahoo joins ABC in online news partnership (Reuters)

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Yahoo joins ABC in online news partnership (Reuters) Oct 3rd 2011, 14:12 (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc and ABC News will create a news partnership that brings ABC's news-gathering operations to the Web search and advertising company's 100 million visitors each month. The partnership, which the companies announced on Monday, started with the debut of GoodMorningAmerica.com on Yahoo and three new online-first video series with ABC News correspondents and anchors. The first of the new shows is "Newsmakers," an interview series, which begins with a live interview with President Barack Obama by Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos. ABC News be the premier news provider on Yahoo News, while each side will maintain editorial control of their sites. ABC News is owned by Walt Disney Co. (Reporting by Jennifer Saba and Yinka Adegoke. Editing by Robert MacMillan)

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Yahoo! News: Internet News: Supreme court rejects Internet music download case (Reuters)

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Supreme court rejects Internet music download case (Reuters) Oct 3rd 2011, 14:44 (Reuters) – The Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that a traditional Internet download of sound recording does not constitute a public performance of the recorded musical work under federal copyright law. The justices refused to review a ruling by an appeals court in New York that the download itself of a musical work does not fall within the law's definition of a public performance of that work. The not-for-profit American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) appealed to the Supreme Court. It said the ruling has profound implications for the nation's music industry, costing its members tens of millions of dollars in potential royalties each year. ASCAP says more than 390,000 composers, songwriters, lyricists and music publishers in the United States exclusively license their music through the organization. It licenses nearly half of all of the musical works played online, according to the court record in the case. The federal government opposed the appeal. U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said the appeals court's ruling was correct and comported with common understanding and sound copyright policy. ASCAP argued that digital downloads were also public performances for which the copyright owners must be compensated. But a federal judge and the appeals court rejected that argument. At issue was a section of the Copyright Act stating that to perform a work means to recite, render, play, dance or act it either directly or by means of any device or process. "Music is neither recited, rendered, nor played when a recording (electronic or otherwise) is simply delivered to a potential listener," the appeals court ruled. Verrilli agreed. He said that the downloading itself was not a performance of the work and the musical work was not played during the transfer. Washington attorney Theodore Olson, a Bush administration solicitor general, represented ASCAP in the appeal. He said the appeals court ruling improperly narrowed the right to perform copyrighted musical works publicly and placed the United States in violation of intellectual property treaties and other international agreements. The Supreme Court denied the appeal without comment. The appeals court also ruled that fees paid by Yahoo Inc and RealNetworks Inc for licenses to play music on the Internet should be recalculated. That part of the ruling was not at issue before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court case is ASCAP v. United States, No. 10-1337. (Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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Yahoo! News: Internet News: BRICs push for bigger say in running of Internet (Reuters)

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BRICs push for bigger say in running of Internet (Reuters) Oct 3rd 2011, 14:49 NAIROBI (Reuters) – Campaigners for a loosely regulated Internet are alarmed at the risk to Web freedom from fast-growing BRIC and other emerging economies seeking more say in how the online realm is policed. They fear tighter government control by authoritarian countries will strangle the liberal culture which has allowed the still-young Internet to thrive as an engine of economic growth and innovation. China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan last month proposed to the United Nations a global code of conduct embodying among others the principle that "policy authority for Internet-related public issues is the sovereign right of states." China exercises comprehensive censorship and surveillance over its Internet population of half a billion, the world's biggest, while Uzbekistan is considered an "enemy of the Internet" by press-freedom group Reporters without Borders. "Some of those countries have a more authoritarian character, and so they're accustomed to interfering with what would otherwise be thought to be freedom of expression," Internet pioneer Vint Cerf told Reuters in an interview at last week's Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi. India, Brazil and South Africa have also proposed setting up a new UN body to form global Internet policies -- frustrated that their growing economic power is not reflected in the multiple bodies that together keep the Internet running. The BRICs are not alone in favoring more control. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has championed a law to deal with online copyright piracy by cutting offenders off the Internet, this year convened an Internet summit in Paris, the e-g8, where he made the case for more regulation. The issues at stake are complex. The same relative absence of regulation that has spurred enormous innovation and empowered the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring has also allowed the spread of child pornography and global online fraud. The Internet now accounts for 21 percent of GDP growth in mature economies, according to a recent McKinsey study, while its power to mobilize political opposition through sites like Twitter has alarmed governments from China to Iran to Egypt. Many governments are no longer content to share power in this crucial arena with companies, non-profit organizations, engineers and ordinary citizens through organizations they see as ineffectual. Currently, the Internet is run by a loose consensus of overlapping interest groups and institutions that have grown up as it has evolved from an academic network under the control of the U.S. government to a global, commercial powerhouse. Some of these come together once a year at the Internet Governance Forum, which was set up by the United Nations in 2005 in response to a general bewilderment that no one was in charge of something so big and important. But the IGF's lack of decision-making powers are increasingly frustrating many governments, whose attempts to stop cybercrime, copyright piracy or block content they consider undesirable are largely futile on the borderless Internet. "We are trying to go into a discussion that makes the participation -- and also the government participation -- of developing countries more effective," Romulo Neves of Brazil's Ministry of External Relations told Reuters in Nairobi. Neves was emphatic that the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) proposal was a draft and a compromise between three countries, and that Brazil supported the so-called multi-stakeholder model embodied by the IGF. But many delegates were not convinced, said Lesley Cowley, chief executive of British Internet registry Nominet which manages .uk domains. "The IBSA proposal for a new UN body that would provide oversight of the existing bodies in this field met with strong criticism from many of those present, who believe this would be an inter-governmental mechanism," she told Reuters. Cowley said she saw a "long and difficult debate" ahead -- a feeling echoed by Cerf, who said some means would need to be found to deal at least with issues like child porn and fraud. "If you don't have reciprocity, I don't know how on earth you ever get to the point where you can deal with some of the abuses on the Net," he said. "So I think there's a big debate that needs to happen, and the IGF may be the best place to start. It won't end there, but it is a place to start." (Editing by Chris Wickham and David Cowell)

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Yahoo! News: Internet News: Alibaba's Ma: "very interested" in buying Yahoo (Reuters)

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Alibaba's Ma: "very interested" in buying Yahoo (Reuters) Oct 3rd 2011, 13:38 PALO ALTO, California (Reuters) – Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is keen on buying Yahoo Inc if the opportunity presents itself and has held discussions with other potential buyers about options. Asked whether Alibaba might like to pick up the ailing U.S. Internet company, Ma told an audience at Stanford University that he would be "very interested in Yahoo." The former English schoolteacher later added that, were he to have his way, he would be eager to acquire all of Yahoo, not just the stake it owns in Alibaba. "The whole piece of Yahoo," Ma said in answer to a question from the audience about what part of Yahoo he was interested in. "China is already ours, right? It's already in my pocket." Yahoo shares leaped 5 percent to $13.80 in after-hours trading. Acquiring Yahoo could help Ma expand his online empire into one of the world's most important Internet markets. Ma also said he planned to spend the next year in the United States learning more about the country and the market. An Alibaba spokeswoman said Ma would be based in the San Francisco Bay area, but would travel across the country and would continue his operational duties as chairman and CEO of the Alibaba Group. Ma, who was speaking at the China 2.0 conference at Stanford, said he had not visited Yahoo to discuss a deal since he arrived in the United States 15 days ago. "We are probably one of the very few companies that really understand Yahoo USA very well," he said, referring to his company's long-running relationship with Yahoo, which dates back to 2005. That relationship has grown strained in recent years. Ma's attempts to buy back some of Yahoo's roughly 40 percent stake in his company were rebuffed by former Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz, who was fired earlier this month. Yahoo has received inquiries from multiple parties about "potential options," but the struggling company is expected to take months to decide its future. It has retained Allen & Co to help it conduct a long-term "strategic review." [ID:nS1E78M212] Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners is among the parties that have been in touch with Allen & Co, according to a source familiar with the matter. Yahoo's board has also started to look for a permanent CEO, but provided no details on its progress, or whether it hired an executive recruiting firm to oversee the search. At an all-hands meeting the day after Bartz was fired, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang said the company was not for sale, according to another source familiar with the matter. But analysts are staking good odds that Yahoo could eventually be acquired. Ma said he couldn't predict when a deal to acquire Yahoo might take place. "It's more complicated than we thought. And there's so many people interested in that. And we are also talking to them and they are talking to us," he said. "I cross my fingers, just to say we are very, very interested," Ma said. (Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Andre Grenon, Gary Hill)

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Yahoo! News: Internet News: Yahoo, ABC joining forces in news partnership (AP)

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Yahoo, ABC joining forces in news partnership (AP) Oct 3rd 2011, 13:28 NEW YORK – ABC News is joining forces with Yahoo to deliver more digital news content to their audiences. With the deal, the companies say ABC News content will be prominently featured on the Yahoo News and Yahoo front page. ABC made the announcement Monday on its "Good Morning America" program. The two news organizations have a combined online audience of more than 100 million people in the U.S. Yahoo News is the most visited news website in the world. The companies will also work together on selling advertising. The companies say ABC News will maintain editorial control of its sites and Yahoo will keep control of its sites. ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

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