Dot-coms are flocking to affiliate with Universal Music Group in the days after announcing it would start testing bluematter, a new digital music format. So far Music.com, EMusic’s RollingStone.com, RioPort, Launch.com and Lycos Music have teamed with UMG in the bluematter trials. Besides audio files, bluematter gives Netizens song lyrics and credits as well as photos and bios of artists.
A proposed settlement in the class action lawsuit against “Pokémon Go” developer Niantic could remove or change a number of Poké Stops and Gyms in the popular augmented reality game. The proposed settlement was filed in a California court on Thursday and applies to anyone in the U.S. who owns or leases property within 100 meters [...]
Qatari powerhouse beIN Media Group has rallied support from American sports and entertainment entities, including Discovery and Fox, behind its request that the U.S. government place Saudi Arabia on its watch list of top intellectual property offenders. The Doha-based broadcaster, a state-owned spinoff of Al Jazeera news network, accuses the Saudi government of harboring pirate broadcaster [...]
NBA Digital announced a deal with Facebook under which all NBA, WNBA, NBA G League and NBA 2K League game recaps will be available on Facebook Watch worldwide. The video recaps will span every game during the season, including the Summer League, preseason and playoffs where applicable. NBA Digital, jointly managed by the NBA and [...]
América Móvil general director Daniel Hajj has announced that Carlos Slim’s Mexican conglomerate plans to invest $8.5 billion in Latin American in 2019, focusing primarily on fiber-optic infrastructure and updated mobile technologies such as 4.5G and 5gG. In a conference call with analysts, following the company’s recap of fourth quarter results, Hajj laid out the [...]
MADRID — Telefonica’s Movistar +, the biggest pay TV-SVOD service in Spain, is feeling the Netflix effect. And for the good. Following Netflix’s launch on Movistar + on Dec. 11, more than one third of new subscribers to Movistar, Telefonica’s telephony, internet and TV service, have taken the new Netflix option. 35% of established clients [...]
Netflix and Hasbro have partnered with Rooster Teeth to bring “Transformers: War for Cybertron” — telling the origin story of the Transformers universe — to the global streaming service in an original series set to launch in 2020. The producers promise that the series will feature a “new animation look and style” that shows the [...]
Streaming-audio giant Spotify shelled out around €300 million, or about $337 million, to buy podcasting companies — producer Gimlet Media and services provider Anchor FM Inc., the company said. The deals for Gimlet and Anchor, announced last week, were primarily in cash, with the total purchase prices subject to closing adjustments, Spotify disclosed the figure in [...]
