Aug 1, 2003 12:00 PM, Compiled by Sarah Benzuly

WHERE'S WILLIE?

Columbia/Legacy recording artist Willie Nelson parked the bus at SIRIUS satellite radio in New York City to do an exclusive interview with SIRIUS host Lee Arnold. Later, Nelson stopped in at Bismeaux Studio (Austin, Texas) to record vocal and guitar tracks — produced by Ray Benson — for upcoming projects by The Mavericks and Toots and The Maytals, respectively. Cris Burns engineered.

ROXIO REVIVES NAPSTER NAME

With its recent $39.5 million acquisition of pressplay (the joint venture of Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment), Roxio obtained a legal digital music distribution infrastructure and catalog rights with the Big Five, with plans to launch a new legal online music service under the Napster brand.

“Online music is highly synergistic with our core business of CD/DVD recording and digital media software and will be of great interest to our global customer base of over 100 million digital media consumers,” Chris Gorog, CEO of Roxio, said. After adding new features, enhancing functionality and improving usability, Roxio will launch its service; details about the service were unavailable.

INTERNATIONAL SITE PROMOTES LEGIT MUSIC SERVICES

A new international initiative to battle online music piracy, www.pro-music.org, offers plenty of information for the music consumer, including a step-by-step guide to the process of making music (and the numerous individuals involved in each step), a piracy debate and FAQs about copyright law.

NLE BUYER'S GUIDE UPDATED

Offering more than 200 different hardware/software products for pro nonlinear video editing, Sypha's new-edition online guide (http://syphaonline.com) is now available. The guide includes turnkey systems, stand-alone appliances, video cards, software packages, disk recorders and servers for post. Search criteria now includes application, system type, operating system, video I/O type, cost range, AAF support, manufacturer and product name.

REALONE À LA CARTE, SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE DEBUTS

At $0.79 a pop, RealNetworks' RealOne Rhapsody digital music subscription service offers 330,000 tracks (including those acquired when Real bought Listen.com in April). Its biggest competitor, it seems, would be Apple's recently launched iTunes Music Store, which offers songs for $0.99 each; RealOne has a leg up, though, as it targets PC customers: a much larger customer base. Subscribers can burn full albums or custom-mix CDs, build their own Internet radio station or listen to preprogrammed stations, and browse music info and editorial recommendations. After a 14-day free trial, RealOne Rhapsody costs $9.95 a month.

JUDGE RULES P2P FILE-SWAPPING TOOLS ARE LEGAL

Federal court Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles in late-April ruled that Streamcast, owner of the Morpheus software, and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software. The RIAA and MPA sued these two sites in October 2001.

“Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends,” Wilson wrote in his opinion. “Grokster and Streamcast are not significantly different from companies that sell home-video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights.” According to the opinion, Wilson used the 1984 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the legality of Sony's Betamax VCR that helped establish the “substantial noninfringing use” clause.

The MPAA said that it plans to appeal. If the decision is upheld, however, it would lead to more energy being invested in further efforts to halt illegal file-sharing, including the recent attempt to deluge users' Instant-Messaging services with copyright warnings.

MY CABLE, MY MUSIC

Music Choice unveiled its My Music Choice service, which gives digital cable subscribers the ability to construct custom music channels; the service is integrated with and available on the SeaChange video-on-demand platform.

Users simply scroll through a few television screens that prompt them to pick genres (up to three) and subgenres (eight available), along with the mix for each genre. The service also delivers targeted promotions/advertisements that do not interrupt the music. “With a reach of 30 million homes nationally, coupled with unmatched viewer statistics for television or radio, My Music Choice is the choice for marketing partners looking to reach their targeted audience,” said David Del Beccaro, president/CEO of Music Choice.

Send Your “Current” News to Sarah Benzuly at sbenzuly@primediabusiness.com.