SoundExchange: Label your music if you want to get paid
SoundExchange, the establishment that has been tasked with collecting royalties for copyright holders and artists from music streaming services on the Internet, satellite radio and maybe traditional radio soon too, has told artists to label their music properly if they wish to receive their royalties.
SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson wrote in Billboard that the company actually has trouble finding out who owns the copyright to some songs it tracks and claims royalties for. He said the organization had about $40 million in royalties that it collected in 2008, which it could not distribute to artists and copyright owners because it couldn’t find them.
Why not? Because the copyright owners didn’t attach enough information to the song. Simson pleaded that at the very least, every song should include metadata identifying the artist, song name, album name, label or copyright owner.
SoundExchange also is holding $39 million for artists and copyright holders that simply have not registered with SoundExchange yet.
Judge dismisses lawsuit against Sony by disabled gamer
A Judge has dismissed a case brought against Sony by a disabled gamer who claimed that people with disabilities were being denied access to Sony services. The gamer, Alexander Stern, had sued Sony Corporation of America, Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sony Online Entertainment because his visual processing impairments made it impossible to use video games created by Sony.
According to the complaint, “his visual processing impairments prevent him from fully enjoying the video games manufactured by Sony, some of which are played on gaming systems with internet connections through which players in different locations can communicate and play with or against one another.”
The reference to “gaming systems with internet connections through which players in different locations can communicate” is essentially an argument that it qualifies as “public accommodation”, which would be necessary for a discrimination claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title III.
The court ruling denied that Sony services are a “place of public accommodation” and thus, cannot be held liable then for violating ADA Title III.
LG to bring 15-inch OLED TV to Austria in May
LG Electronics has announced that it will offer up a 15-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) television in Austria in May. This will be the world’s largest OLED television available when it launches. The LG 15EL9500 is only 3mm thick and provides an impressive contrast ratio of 10,000,000:1, response time of 0.001ms and what LG describes as “extremely low power consumption”.
“The OLED technology uses an organic material that can apply to very thin and even flexible surfaces. Therefore, the 15EL9500 is one of the slimmest TVs in our portfolio and is ideal for any trend-setter,” said Reinhard Huebner, Retail Marketing, LG Electronics Austria (translated from German).
PS3 still in first quarter of its lifespan, says Sony
Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton has made it abundantly clear this weekend that the PlayStation 4 is not coming any time soon.
Tretton says the PS3 is only “in the first 25% to 30% of this generation,” meaning there is at least 6 more years before a PS4 is sitting on retail shelves.
“I would say we’re sitting in the catbird seat,” Tretton added, via CVG. “We’ve just passed the third year of the PlayStation 3 and we’re just hitting our stride. And I don’t think anyone is saying, ‘This is a five-year cycle; what’s new on the horizon?’ I can’t even imagine what can be done technically beyond the PlayStation 3 in the near future. A question I often get is when we are going to see PlayStation 4. When somebody can craft the technology that exceeds what we’re able to do on the PS3, but we are still just starting to harness it.”
Although not related, Tretton also said he expected God of War III sales to “blot out the sun.”
All American Android phones to recieve update to 2.1 firmware
Androidandme has reported today that all American Android smartphones will be receiving an update to firmware version 2.1, although some will have features missing.
Notably included is the now aging T-Mobile G1, the first Android phone ever, which is still currently running firmware 1.6, like many other devices.
The report does note that some phone will have to be wiped first before they can be upgraded, which shouldn’t be too big of a problem as long as you backup your device beforehand. Some phones will also need to be connected to a PC for the install to work, although it is unclear which phones will need the extra effort.
The updates are expected to “still be on schedule for Q2 2010,” with the site saying the G1 and the myTouch 3G getting the update first.
Samsung HDTVs to have built-in Skype
Samsung and Skype have announced that the upcoming Samsung LED 7000 and 8000 series HDTVs will come with built-in Skype software allowing for video and voice chats via your TV.
The first model will begin shipping in the “first half of 2010.”
“Our consumers want their televisions to be a ‘one-stop shop’ for entertainment and communication delivered with the highest quality,” added Kevin Kyungshik Lee, Vice President of Visual Display at Samsung Electronics. “Including Skype on our TVs meets that expectation perfectly. We’re thrilled that Samsung’s consumers can now use our TVs to experience the rich video and voice communication that hundreds of millions of Skype users worldwide enjoy.”
The HDTVs were first introduced at the CES show last month.
You will need to buy and connect a camera, which is available through both companies, and obviously have a Skype account, which can even be created through the remote control of the TV.
“Increasingly Skype users want to communicate away from their computers, particularly when it comes to video calling,” says Jonathan Christensen, General Manager of Platform at Skype. “Thanks to Samsung, Skype is helping even more friends and families benefit from the meaningful connections that Skype’s video and voice calling provides.”
Palm WebOS 1.4 firmware details confirmed
Sprint has confirmed leaked WebOS 1.4 update details today, with many rumored features confirmed.
Video recording is coming, Adobe Flash 10.1 for the Palm Pre, and a Flash beta app for other Palm devices are also in the update.
Electronista says the “Universal Search now includes EAS (Exchange) GAL corporate address look up, while the application launcher now gives users more feedback. The Pre Button in the gesture area will now blink until a notification is acknowledged.”
Formatting, browser and time zone bugs have been fixed as well. Emails are now sortable and numbers can be dialed directly from SMS messages without need to load the contacts.
The update is expected tomorrow.
Sony admits PSP Go ‘confused’ buyers
Sony America publisher relations senior VP Rob Dyer has admitted this week that the PSP Go handheld “confused” buyers, and that sales have struggled.
Acknowledging another long-time criticism, Dyer says the expensive $250 price has not helped sales any, with the cheaper PSP-3000 model handily outselling its newer brother.
“Yeah, I think the higher price point didn’t help matters any,” Dyer said, via IpodNN.
Since the release of the PSP Go, Sony has done nothing but lose market share to the DS/DSi, and even the iPod Touch, which are cheaper and have big fan bases.
Wii to see shortages into next month
Being interviewed at the Nintendo Media Summit yesterday, Nintendo America president Reggie Fils-Aime has warned would-be buyers to expect hardware shortages of the Wii at least until the end of March.
Fils-Aime attributes the shortages to the unexpected record sales in December, where the company sold 3.8 million units.
“On the Wii hardware side, we are back to a situation where demand is exceeding supply and we’re going to be in that situation through the end of March,” says Fils-Aime. “You can’t sell 3.8m units in one month without that suction of demand pulling product through the distribution channel.”
The president continued: “It obviously caught us a little bit off-guard and we’re rapidly trying to rectify the situation.”
After selling the record amount of Wiis in December, sales fell off 31 percent in January, leading many analysts to ask Nintendo whether there was supply issues.
Cablevision to trial ‘personal TV channel’ for subscribers
Cablevision is set to trial a new concept service in New York, where it serves 3 million homes. A household with both Cablevision Internet access and cable television services will be able to take part. Basically, the service will use your Internet connection to stream pretty much anything from your computer screen to your television, delivered as your own personal TV channel through your cable.
Titled PC to TV Media Relay, Cablevision is offering the service to customers in an attempt to provide innovative and useful solutions for home media consumption as sites like Hulu become more popular. In order to use the service, a user only needs to install software on a Windows-based machines. Cablevision will market it as enabling online viewing on a television with the push of a button.
Pricing for the service has yet to be decided, and users of Macs will be included as soon as software for the platform is developed. The move follows a service from Comcast called On Demand Online, launched last year to offer cable programming to subscribers of both Comcast Internet and cable TV services.
“Linear video will, no doubt, continue to exist, and even to thrive, but broadband will by then almost inarguably be the core business for the cable companies,” Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett said, referring to how the cable sector will change over the next 10 years.
