A wide array of United States broadcasters and online companies on Monday challenged a ruling from a panel of copyright judges that they say could cripple the emerging business of offering music broadcasts over the internet. They are asking the Copyright Royalty Board to reconsider key parts of its March 2 ruling.
Internet music broadcasters worry that a new ruling could put many of them out of business by drastically increasing the royalty payments they have to make to record labels and artists. The new rates, which are retroactive to last year, were decided last Friday by the United States Copyright Royalty Board.
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/ 4 December 2006
The Wall Street Journal, whose wide pages and text-rich look have long been an icon of the United States newspaper business, is about to undergo several changes that include cutting 7,6cm off its width. Along with the size reduction, which is equivalent to about one of its columns, the newspaper will add more colour and graphical elements, including greater use of photographs.
Telling stories is still the lifeblood of the newspaper business, but industry executives are worried they’re not doing a good job explaining one of the biggest stories of the day: the turmoil roiling their own industry. ”The world changed a lot, and we changed a little,” says the outgoing chairperson of the Newspaper Association of America.
Rupert Murdoch, the chairperson and CEO of News Corporation, said he plans to make several more acquisitions of online businesses in the coming months as his global media conglomerate makes the internet a ”major part” of its future growth. Murdoch said on Wednesday that News Corporation is in advanced talks to buy a controlling interest in an online search company.
Infinity Broadcasting, a terrestrial radio company whose business model is being challenged by the iPod phenomenon, is borrowing a page from its rival’s playbook. Next month, Infinity will convert an underperforming station in San Francisco to a format that will broadcast only ”podcasts,” or amateur recordings distributed via the internet that are intended for listeners’ iPods and other digital music players.
Wall Street Journal reporters plan to withhold their bylines from articles for two days this week as contract negotiations with their employer, Dow Jones, turn increasingly rancorous. The Independent Association of Publishers Employees, a union representing US reporters at the Journal, called on its members on Monday to withhold their bylines from stories in the Wednesday and Thursday editions of the paper.
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/ 19 January 2004
A British newspaper company announced a deal on Sunday with press baron Conrad Black to take over his controlling interest in Hollinger, the Toronto-based parent company of newspaper publisher Hollinger International. Hollinger International said it was removing Black as chairman and suing him to recover more than -million