Category: Software

MUMBAI: The Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) and online video social network YouTube have announced a licensing agreement that will allow songwriters, music composers and music publishers to earn revenue on YouTube.

This is YouTube‘s first collection society deal in India. YouTube generates revenue only when ads are displayed against YouTube partner‘s videos, which is then shared with such partners. In this case it would mean that Indian music publishers, composers and authors that are members of IPRS will derive their share of revenue from the society for their works accessed on YouTube.

IPRS CEO Rakesh Nigam said, “We are extremely delighted to do this deal with leading video site like YouTube, as this association will benefit our publishers/music companies, author and sister societies. As more users get online, consumption and monetization of music will increasingly happen on the internet and YouTube will drive it.”
 
YouTube director of product management Asia-Pacific Adam Smith said, “This is yet another step in YouTube‘s ongoing effort to help foster the creation of Indian content and reward local artists for original works available online. We are extremely pleased to have reached an agreement with IPRS that both fosters musical talent and enables this talent to receive payment for videos on YouTube.”

In India, YouTube has already signed deals with music labels like T-Series and Saregama who represent about 70 per cent of the songs from the Hindi film industry. This agreement will open up new opportunities for the entire music industry in India to leverage the YouTube platform as an additional distribution channel and revenue source.
 
Saregama India senior VP Adarsh Gupta said, “This agreement between IPRS and YouTube is surely a big step for the benefit of music industry. All the major stakeholders – the artist, the lyricist, the music director as well as the publisher who contribute to the making of a track – will now earn in a transparent manner. This association also opens an important additional revenue stream as digital content consumption is on a steady rise.”

Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, YouTube is succeeding in securing mutually beneficial agreements with associations representing artists and authors. Over the last few years, YouTube has signed deals including with Jasrag in Japan, KOMCA in Korea, Cash in Hong Kong, Must in Taiwan, APRA-AMCOS for Australia/New Zealand, Filscap in the Philippines, and Compass in Singapore.

MUMBAI: Google has finally launched an online music service. It has launched an Android music store to compete with iTunes and Amazon.com.

However, the service is available for Android users in the US only as Google has not done deals with record labels to allow it to sell songs globally. The view in the industry is mixed. Some feel that Google has arrived too late while others feel that competition is always healthy. It will result in services improving.

Google senior VP mobile Andy Rubin said, “Google Music is open in the US at market.android.com, and over the next few days, we will roll out the music store to Android market on devices running Android 2.2 and above. You can also pick up the new music app from Android Market and start listening to your music on your phone or tablet today.”
 
He noted that last May Google launched a beta service with a clear ambition: to help people access their music collections easily from any device. “Music Beta enabled you to upload your personal music collection (up to 20,000 songs) for free to the cloud so you could stream it anywhere, any time. Now the beta service evolves into a broader platform: Google Music. Google Music is about discovering, purchasing, sharing and enjoying digital music in new, innovative and personalised ways.”

The aim of Google Music he explains is to help consumers spend more time listening to their collection and less time managing it.
 
The store offers over 13 million tracks from artists on Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and the global independent rights agency Merlin as well as over 1,000 prominent independent labels including Merge Records, Warp Records, Matador Records, XL Recordings and Naxos. It has also partnered with the world‘s largest digital distributors of independent music including IODA, INgrooves, The Orchard and Believe Digital.

Music lovers can purchase individual songs or entire albums right from their computer or their Android device and they‘ll be added instantly to ones Google Music library, and accessible anywhere.

MUMBAI: Discovery Turbo, the channel dedicated to showing all aspects of motoring life, is now available on Reliance Digital TV.

The channel was already available on analogue cable and other DTH platforms in India like Dish TV, Tata Sky, Airtel Digital TV and Videocon D2H.

Discovery India senior VP, GM Rahul Johri said, “We have received tremendous response for Discovery Turbo across India, where people watch and connect with our engaging and unmatched content. The availability of Discovery Turbo on Reliance Digital TV expands the reach of the channel, as it continues to offer the best entertainment experience to our viewers.” 
 
Reliance Digital TV CEO Sanjay Behl added, “At Reliance Digital TV, we have been constantly engaged with enhancing the entertainment experience for our customers by providing them quality entertainment that spans across a wide spectrum of audience interests. With the addition of Discovery Turbo to our bouquet of over 250 channels, we are sure to delight our customers with the engaging content delivered to them through a superior technology platform ensuring an unmatched viewing experience.”

Discovery Turbo focusses on vehicles. It showcases Formula One cars, motocross and aircraft shows and car clubs.

Its shows include ‘American Choppers‘, ‘Monster Garage‘, ‘Fifth Gear‘, ‘Trick My Truck‘ and ‘Wheelers Dealers‘.

MUMBAI: US media conglomerate Disney, through its wholly owned subsidiary Disney Online, has acquired Babble Media – an online parenting platform featuring more than 200 influential mom bloggers.

The acquisition of Babble further strengthens the position of Disney Interactive Media Group‘s Moms and Family portfolio as a leading online resource for moms and families.

Disney Interactive‘s Moms and Family portfolio is a resource for parents today, giving them the online tools and information they need and the ability to share their experiences. Through the acquisition of Babble, Disney Interactive‘s Moms and Family business gains a blogging platform that elevates the first-person stories of parenthood.

Babble was formed in 2006. It named by Time Magazine as one of the 50 Best Websites of 2010 and by Forbes as one of the Top 100 Websites for Women. Its stable of bloggers contribute daily to parenting topics including pregnancy, child care, health, food, family activities as well as lifestyle topics such as home, fashion and family products. As the premier blogging platform for a new generation of connected parents, Babble has created a vibrant community of parents who support, encourage and celebrate the highs and lows of raising children.

Disney Interactive Media Group senior VP of Moms and Family Brooke Chaffin said, “Parents‘ relationships with Disney are founded in stories, and Disney‘s best stories are about families. We believe that Babble and Disney can harness the power of storytelling to inform, entertain and empower parents everywhere. With more than 3.9 million mom blogs in the US alone, Disney Interactive recognises and values the important and powerful role moms have taken on in new media.”
 
Babble co-founders Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman said, “We can‘t imagine a better next step than joining the world‘s leading media company for families, The Walt Disney Company, and look forward to bringing together Babble‘s resonant voice and community with Disney‘s expansive family audience, wide range of content and multi-media platform.”

MUMBAI: Arts Council England and UK pubcaster the BBC have announced a partnership to create The Space – an experimental digital arts media service and commissioning programme that could help to transform the way people connect with, and experience, arts and culture.

Launching in May and running until the end of October 2012, this pop-up service will challenge artists, arts and cultural organisations to collaborate with each other and with partners to capture and create a wealth of cultural experiences, drawing on the richness of the summer of arts of the Olympic year.

Arts Council England is investing ?2.5 million of its strategic digital innovation funds in commissioning grants for artists, arts and cultural organisations to create work to be shown in The Space. The BBC will contribute substantial support, providing the technology solution that will enable the arts, for the first time, to sit seamlessly together across the four key platforms of the digital media age: PC, mobile, tablet and connected TV. In addition the BBC will mentor successful applicants – particularly smaller organisations – through the creative process, with training and guidance where appropriate.
 
The Space will showcase work led and created by the arts and cultural sector, presenting that work in new, surprising and connected ways. The Space aims to re-imagine how arts, culture and media can collaborate and explore ways to make new experiences for audiences in the UK.

Arts Council England CEO Alan Davey said, “There are fantastic examples of arts organisations using digital technology to make their work live in different ways, have a life beyond the live event, and reach wider audiences. But so far organisations have been working in isolation as producers and distributors.

“What‘s really exciting about The Space is that it will provide a communal playground for arts and cultural organisations, for technology wizards, and for audiences – anyone who‘s open to new ways to connect with culture – to come in, to be creative, and to feed back about their experience.”
 
BBC DG Mark Thompson said, “Partnership lies at the heart of our vision for the BBC, and our partnership with Arts Council England is one that we value greatly. The enormous success of the BBC Academy/Arts Council Building Digital Capacity for the Arts programme has shown the appetite within the sector for a shared approach to skills development and technology innovation, and now we are able to take this much further.

“The launch of The Space demonstrates our shared commitment to bringing art to all, building on the BBC‘s great history of technical innovation and the Arts Council‘s ability to energise the arts world.”

The Arts Council‘s ?2.5 million Lottery-funded commissioning programme opens today for expressions of interest. Full guidance for applicants can be found on the Arts Council website.

MUMBAI: Regina King, star of US broadcaster TNT‘s drama series ‘Southland‘ will serve as social media ambassador for the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild (Sag) Awards airing live on TNT and TBS on 29 January 2012.

Through posts on Twitter and Facebook, King will serve as the online face for the awards, giving viewers access to behind-the-scenes moments during the weeks building up to the show, as well as from the red carpet.

King‘s duties as the Sag Awards social media ambassador will kick off when she announces this year‘s nominations on 14 December 2011. During the six weeks leading up to the 29 January simulcast of the award ceremony, King will continue to tweet and post about the Sag Awards, including updates on presenters and fashion.

She will also post updates during rehearsals and provide her thoughts and insights from the red carpet on the big night.

Only actors vote for these awards which makes them unique compared to other shows like the Oscar Awards.

BANGALORE: Independent mobile video service provider Vuclip has launched India‘s first independent mobile movie portal Starlight Cinema. Starlight Cinema will offer users the option of watching shortened feature films, movie clips, songs reviews and trailers from today‘s topmost films on even low-end feature phones without the need of downloading any application.

Starlight Cinema serves content from content providers including UTV Motion Pictures, Reliance Entertainment, Vega, Whacked Out Media and Maa TV. Vuclip claims that it has over 9000 movie clips from 350 movie titles in 13 Indian languages including Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Punjabi, Oriya, Rajasthani, Kashmiri, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. 
 
Vuclip VP – business development and managing director, India & Middle East, Salman Hussain, “In order to meet the ever-increasing demand for exclusive movie content on mobile phones, we are working with many of the key content providers to digitize more such movie clips from as many as 8,500 movies. We are keen to continue increasing our partnerships with the various movie- based content producers and aggregators to help them better distribute and monetise their content in an increasingly off-deck world. We are also launching dedicated mobile micro-sites for the various regional languages, beginning initially with one channel exclusively featuring South Indian movie clips.”

GroupM Regional Director Vinod Thadani says, “With the launch of Starlight Cinema, Vuclip has created unrivalled synergies between the growing mobile user base in India and the Indian movie craze through a mobile platform exclusively featuring movie clips which will present compelling advertising avenues.”

MUMBAI: Al Jazeera English is expanding its reach in India with launch on the leading direct-to-home (DTH) operator Dish TV.

With the deal in place, the channel will reach 11.7 million households across India and will be available to over 48 million individuals with the channel available in the family pack tier on channel 618.

Al Jazeera English MD Al Anstey said, “India is an emerging leader in today‘s globalised world, and a critical country for Al Jazeera English to broadcast across. We are confident that our coverage will be of enormous interest and value to audiences across India. 
 
“Through our vast network of reporters worldwide, we provide eye-witness reports from all corners of the globe. We are uniquely placed to deliver honest and in-depth coverage.”

Al Jazeera English is an international news channel, holding over 70 bureaus around the world which span six different continents. Launched in 2006, it broadcasts to over 250 million households across 130 countries, a number that is expected to grow as the channel expands throughout India.

Dish TV MD Jawahar Goel said, “We are proud to have Al Jazeera channel on our platform. Al Jazeera‘s launch on our platform will keep our family of 11.7 million subscribers connected and updated with latest in current affairs, issues and happenings across the globe.”

The international news provider has operated a bureau in New Delhi since its establishment five years ago.

MUMBAI: While the digital arena is growing with the spread of the mobile Internet the lack of communication between different partners including record labels, artists and producers is hindering the emergence of a new business model for the music industry. The players work in silos. This lack of communication has resulted in fragmentation of the industry. It is important for the industry if it wants to exploit digital to the fullest that there be life beyond the CRBT (caller ring back tones ) which was developed by telecom players and where telecom players call the shots. Ease of access and convenience will be key. Transparency will also play a big role as will the dynamics of being social in the digital sphere.

These were some points that emerged at a session at the third Nokia Music Connects forum called ‘Talking Digital and life beyond the CRBT‘ organised by Radioandmusic.com in association with Nokia.

The moderator was Mobilium International CEO Ralph Simon. The panelists were Hungama Digital Media Entertainment COO Albert Almeida, PPL CEO Vipul Pradhan, Sony Music director digital Vivek Paul, OnMobile director applications and voice products Kapil Raizada, Saavn.com co-founder Param Singh and Mime360 CEO Sameer Nigam.
 
Raizada made the point that at the moment the industry is not as fast as it should be to build innovative products in the digital space that would benefit the various stakeholders. “The current ecosystem doesn‘t foster innovation and creativity. Communication between the upstream and downstream players has to happen if products are to be developed that can beat the CRBT.”

Pradhan noted that the Indian music industry is divided whether you talk about labels, producers artists etc. He noted that CRBT happened by chance. While the revenue was welcome the penetration is less than 10 per cent of mobile users. He called it a fad and a telecom product. He noted that it was unfortunate that telcos believe that they should control music services. “It is content owners that must drive new services.” Looking at the future he believes that streaming on services on mobile present an opportunity. Nokia offers packages where one can have 20-40 songs of an artist. The good news is that bandwith is opening up. 3G is coming in.
 
Almeida though feels that the Indian market will not immediately jump into streaming. The comparative lack of spectrum is an issue compared to what is available in the US to mobile carriers. At the same time not enough has not been done by the various players. “It is embarrassing for us that telecom is dictating CRBT. We don‘t have the consumer as the focus. Bells and whistles have to come together to create an innovative product.”

This means the ability to look ahead and not just ask the consumer what he/she wants. He gave the example of Steve Jobs who had the vision to tell people what it is that they should want. Almeida is however optimistic that life will be happier after CRBT. Technologies are creating opportunities. The onus is on the players to exploit the opportunities. Piracy and regulation are issues that have to be dealt with. He recommended the carrots and stick approach. He said that when Hungama sold a song for a particular price there were doubts. However value as was delivered to the industry. “We have to deliver a delightful product that shows value to the consumer and then give something back to the content owners.”

MUMBAI: The Dutch international public broadcaster, Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW), is launching Lovematters.info and Lovematters.in, web and mobile sites, which offer reliable information about sexual health and relationships.

The sites support the right to safe and satisfying sex as pledged by the UN and WHO. Lovematters.info is the English version and Lovematters.in is in Hindi.

Love Matters handles issues such as safe sex, contraceptives and reproductive rights and homosexuality in a sensitive way and uses journalistic content to engage 18-30 year olds in a positive discussion on this subject.

RNW works closely with respected local experts on sexual health to tailor content for different regions.

Lovematters.info coordinator Michele Ernsting said, “With Love Matters we hope to make it possible to open up a discussion on a subject which is so important to every one of us. We hope to give people the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their sexual health.”

Radio Netherlands Worldwide country manager South Asia Amitabh Srivastava added, “With Love Matters we are trying to support the change which is so very required for the present generation and for that we are using all the futuristic technologies to get connected to our target group. Also the way we have explained issues here are quite informative in nature. We hope it will be a great source for information.”
 
The mobile version of Love Matters has tied up with Reliance and is available on their R World. The company also plans to tie up with other major telecom operators to provide the content on mobile phones. The site is a non-commercial model and is state funded.

RNW is launching a huge marketing campaign for the same. There will be below-the-line activities in universities and colleges and PRs. The sites will be actively promoted on the social media.

This format provides information in a private and anonymous environment which is easy to access.

At this moment the website is available in English, Hindi and Spanish. RNW plans to launch an English site for Africa in early 2012.