Tag archive: Universal

Things are not looking good for music streaming service Grooveshark. After getting hit with lawsuits from Universal Music, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment, EMI — the only company with whom Grooveshark actually had a licensing deal — has now filed suit against Escape Media Group, Grooveshark's parent company, claiming that Escape has failed to make a single royalty payment. While the lawsuit, filed in the New York State… Read More

A start-up called Free All Media says its offering free music downloads through Facebook—no monetary cost, legal, iPod compatible, high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Artists get paid; you get their music free, and even the Free All Media company supposedly turns a profit. Free is a nice word but usually its a marketing trapcard, so its only natural for you to be a little skeptical. There is always a catch, and in this case users get their free music… Read More

The first UltraViolet-enabled devices and titles are cleared for release this fall. The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem alliance has begun the licensing process making UltraViolet available to the consumer as early as October. If a consumer purchases a new Blu-ray or DVD movie, UltraViolet allows the consumer to create an account to own the digital rights of the content. With a digital locker of content in the cloud, consumers can… Read More

It’s not a guarded secret that Google has been planning to turn YouTube into a viable online video streaming platform, evolving it past its original status as a digital haven for home movies. Today YouTube announced it is partnering with Sony, NBC Universal, and Warner Bros. to host “thousands of full-length feature films.” Users can now rent movies from the 3,000 available titles with nothing more than a YouTube account and $3 to $4. Customers… Read More

Ron Howard’s ambitious take on the Stephen King series, The Dark Tower, may turn out to be a little too ambitious for Universal Pictures. Howard's plan is to take the seven book series and adapt it into three feature length movies and two TV mini-series to air between the films. The cast would be under contract to star in the three films and the first TV mini-series, while the second TV outing would be a prequel and feature a younger… Read More

If you think paying $8-per-month for a streaming-only Netflix subscription isn't worth the money, then you're going to hate this new plan by some of Hollywood's largest studios. According to Variety, Warner Bros, Sony, Universal and 20th Century Fox have all signed on to to launch a “premium” video on-demand” service that would offer up movies just after their run in theaters, but before they've made it… Read More

Some consider him a hero, others a villain, but regardless of where you fall on your feelings for Assange, it is hard to deny that he has an interesting story to tell. HBO and Universal Studios are both banking on that, as both have projects in the pipeline about Assange. Deadline is reporting that an original movie is in the works at HBO. The film will draw from several sources, including an in-depth New Yorker article from June of 2010 by… Read More

The Dilemma is what happens when too many talented people are stuck writing a movie intended to be “mass market.” The characters and emotion are real, but Director Ron Howard and Writer Allan Loeb are trying to stick a dramatic film into the flimsy framework of a modern romantic/bromantic comedy. The result is a dilemma itself: do we forgive The Dilemma for being a comedy that's too serious or a drama that skimps on the details… Read More

News Corp's music-focused social networking service MySpace has inked a multi-year renewal of its search and advertising deal with Google that will see Google powering MySpace's on-site search as well as serving up display advertising to MySpace users and visitors. Financial terms of the new agreement were not disclosed—and is likely much smaller than the original agreement, which ran $900 million—but the deal opens up… Read More

Online music store eMusic has always struggled against the iTunes, Amazon MP3s, Napsters, and RealNetworks of the world by offering literally millions of tracks from independent musicians and music distributors at cut-rate prices via a monthly subscription service. And, while many commercial digital music stores have been swallowed by the sands of time (and misbegotten DRM technologies) eMusic successfully evaded the DRM nightmare and is still… Read More

Even though the summer movies of 2011 won’t come out until, well, summer of 2011 obviously, now is the time of year when films begin to slowly feed the hype machines in order to generate some early buzz by releasing trailers. Green Lantern just released the first official trailer, and not to be outdone, Jon Favreau (Iron Man 1&2, Zathura), Universal and Dreamworks have dropped the trailer for one of their summer 2011 blockbuster, Cowboys… Read More

It is one of the cruelest stories in video game lore.  Fans of the Halo series have again and again had the morsel of a potentially awesome Halo movie dangled in front of them, only to have it disappear time and time again. Each time it sounds more promising, with big names attached, which just makes the inevitable disappointment worse when things crumble apart. So while the news of Spielberg and Dreamworks pursuing the rights to the Halo… Read More

Video streaming and rental service Netflix has announced a new agreement with Universal Studios and with Twentieth Century Fox that will see the studios' films available via Netflix 28 days after their initial DVD release, instead of on the same day as retail DVD availability. Under the deals, Netflix will also have a greater selection of movies and television shows from both studios it can make available for instant streaming to… Read More

The EU's top antitrust official on Wednesday described a deal among Apple Inc.'s iTunes, music companies, distributors and online licensing groups as a “great breakthrough” that would roll out more Internet music sales across Europe. The companies and rights holders agreed at talks held Tuesday to work on EU-wide licenses that would allow online music tracks to be sold more widely in the region. Internet music downloads… Read More

Deviating from the new breed of high-end universal remotes that require PCs, Internet connections, and possibly Ph.D.s to set up, Universal Remote Control released a new model on Wednesday that returns to simplicity. The Digital R50 LCD remote can be programmed without any outside gear, and has its entire library of IR codes built right in. Instead of PC programming, the R50 uses a built-in wizard to walk users through setup right on its… Read More