Digital Daily » Vivendi

Fresh Prince Gettin' Jiggy Wit HD Video

John Paczkowski — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:27:12 +0000

If YouTube aims to someday host every music video ever made, as co-founder Steve Chen once claimed, it better get crackin’. Because the market’s getting crowded.

This morning PluggedIn Media launched a new service for streaming HD-quality music videos. Backed by Overbrook Entertainment–Will “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” Smith’s production and management company–PluggedIn will offer some 10,000 videos from EMI (EMI.L), Vivendi (VIV.PA) and Sony BMG (SNE), along with the standard music-site fare–artist bios, users playlists and whatnot. That being the case, how does PluggedIn hope to differentiate itself from the competition? “We look at all the changes shaping online entertainment and see massive opportunity for lots of companies to appreciate and forge really viable consumer connections,” said CEO Jeff Somers. “We think what will separate us from what is out there today is an unbelievable high-quality viewing experience, matched with in-depth content and community tools.”

Perhaps. But it will also create dangerous rivalries with some powerful competitors. With its social-networking features, PluggedIn will soon find itself in direct competition with MySpace Music (NWS) as well as Hulu (GE).

Facebook Denies Responsibility for Morocco's Lousy Sense of Humor

John Paczkowski — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:11:16 +0000

If Fouad Mourtada spends the next three years in prison for creating a fake profile of a Moroccan prince on Facebook, it won’t have been the social-networking site that put him there. Facebook insists it didn’t help the Moroccan government identify the 26-year-old engineer as the author of crown prince Moulay Rachid’s fake Facebook page. Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said in a statement that the company shares information with law enforcement and other government agencies only “when it has a good-faith belief it is legally obligated to do so.” But with regard to the bogus profile that led to Mourtada’s arrest, “Facebook has shared no such information with the Moroccan authorities,” she said.

So if not Facebook, then who? Advocacy group Reporters Without Borders suspects Mourtada’s ISP, Maroc Telecom. “Did the police get his computer’s IP address? And if so, how? We have asked the ISP, Maroc Telecom, in which the French company Vivendi is a shareholder, to provide us with the relevant information.”

FCC Swamped With iTunes Indecency Complaints

John Paczkowski — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:17:09 +0000

NBC Universal’s sandwich-board iTunes protest may well turn into a full-blown proletariat uprising after all.

At a press conference this morning, Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy slagged Apple, bitching about the company’s retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service. “The split between Apple and [music] producers is indecent,” Levy said. “Our contracts give too good a share to Apple. … We should have a differentiated price system.”

Vivendi’s Universal Music Group decided against a long-term renewal of its iTunes contract this past summer and has been month-to-month ever since. So it could certainly withdraw its catalog from iTunes if it chose to. But since Apple controls 76% of digital music sales, and some 15% of Universal’s revenue comes from digital sales, it probably won’t. At least not until it finds a digital music-distribution channel as effective as Apple’s. “We are in a phase during which many different actors are talking to each other,” Levy said. “We are trying to put in place several projects to ensure that music is better remunerated. … We are not just talking to Apple.”