AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Variety

Ondrejka to drive digital strategy
EMI Music has appointed Cory Ondrejka, the co-creator of virtual world Second Life, to the position of senior VP, digital strategy.
As co-founder of Linden Lab, Ondrejka led the development of Second Life and his new employer is hoping he will draw from past experience to build the digital strategy for EMI [...]

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Red Herring
Online music service Napster on Tuesday launched its first MP3 music store, free of restrictive digital rights management protection and free to compete head-to-head with Apple’s iTunes.
Napster is only the second MP3 music store to offer storewide DRM-free tracks. Amazon was the first to talk the major labels out of their wildly unpopular insistence [...]

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First, I’m a huge Neil Young fan, so this is fascinating. But also the Java/Blu-ray connection and what can be done beyond offering next-gen movies and bonus materials.
Mashable
During the opening keynote at the JavaOne conference this morning, Neil Young made an appearance to demo his new project: an archive of the legendary rock star’s work [...]

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The Wall Street Journal
PluggedIn Media Bets Its Content Will Top User-Generated Fare
In a bet on the future of professionally produced online video content, technology start-up PluggedIn Media Inc. is set Wednesday to begin letting users view for free near-DVD-quality music videos licensed from three of the four biggest music companies, along with information about artists [...]

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Business Week
With CD sales plummeting and music fans swiping songs off the Internet, the major record labels can use all the friends they can get. So Michael Nash, incoming head of digital strategy at Warner Music Group (WMG), is trying to make a few new ones. On Apr. 3, Warner is expected to team up [...]

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Major label Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) this week hired Jim Griffin, former head of digital at Geffen and a vocal industry critic, to oversee a plan that would have consumers pay a monthly fee through their Internet service providers for unlimited access to music, Portfolio.com reported. “We’re still clinging to the vine of music [...]

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