Apple close to offering subscription music service? March 19, 2008

 Fresh off of a deal with the movie studios that effectively reversed the company’s position on rented content, it now appears Apple may also be about to embrace a subscription-like model for music.

According to a report in the Financial Times late Tuesday, the company is currently in discussions with the major labels over licensing their content on a subscription basis. So far, it appears the biggest roadblock is price.

Apple is said to be offering the record industry about $20 per device — iPod or iPhone — sold to give its customers unlimited music downloads from the iTunes store, which would be split among the labels according to market share. It currently appears as if the industry feels this is insufficient.

By comparison, Nokia is offering the labels about $80 per device, according to reports. The handset maker has struck a similar deal where its customers are granted unfettered access to partners’ music catalogs.

The sudden embrace of subscription content by Apple after years of pushback could be a case of simple market trends. Sources told FT that research has shown consumers would be willing to pay either $7-8 per month, or a one-time charge of $100 for unlimited music downloads.

Both options appear to be on the table in discussions. The report points to one option where up to 40 or 50 tracks could be downloaded per year, which would be transferrable to other devices, and would remain in the consumer’s possession even after the subscription lapses.

“I won’t speculate whether the rumor is correct or not but I can say that it does make sense,” remarked JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg. He pointed to Apple’s work in movie rentals as laying the groundwork, and noted the company would market it well as another option to enjoy music from iTunes.

“Add in the fact that any service would work in the whole ecosystem of iTunes supported devices and the proposition looks very good for something like this to succeed where others have struggled,” Gartenberg concluded.

Facebook Chat is Coming… in 2 Weeks!! March 19, 2008

Facebook is set to launch a highly anticipated chat feature in the next 2 weeks to allow for real time communication within the popular social network

The program will sit at the bottom of the page showing open chat windows and number of friends online. The user can pop out the entire chat interface into a separate window to show online friend lists and current conversations which is similar to Gchat’s Gtalk feature (see screen capture to the right). The users will be able to throw online/offline status easily which is a similar feature to Away Messages in AIM. Users will also be able to clear their chat history and they “online” status will appear throughout the site.

All-in-all it’s a major upgrade for Facebook but let the backlash begin from users who feel Facebook is pushing the instant communication envelope too far.

‘Girls Gone Wild’ filmmaker: Spitzer’s Kristen appeared in lesbian video March 19, 2008

Getty

The now infamous Kristen got an early start – a filmmaker says she starred in a raunchy ‘Girls  

“Kristen” went “wild” – with other women!

Five years ago, Eliot Spitzer’s infamous call girl celebrated her 18th birthday by starring in a racy lesbian spring break flick, the “Girls Gone Wild” filmmaker said Tuesday.

Ashley Alexandra Dupré, who turned a $4,000-plus trick for Spitzer under the name “Kristen,” is featured on seven reels of a sexually explicit video called “Spring Break 2003.”

“We have some really great footage of Ashley,” “Girls Gone Wild” CEO Joe Francis said. “There’s a very good shower scene that alone is worth the money.”  Francis told the Daily News that Ashley was “a total ‘GGW’ groupie. She was really into girl-on-girl action and she was all over the guys, too.”

The revelation came just hours after Francis unwittingly offered Dupré $1 million for a new video and promotional tour.

“Girls Gone Wild” discovered Dupré’s appearance in the archives after being asked about the video by a News reporter. Francis promptly pulled the lucrative offer to Dupré.

“A Daily News reporter saved me a million bucks,” said Francis. “Mark that down as the first time a reporter ever did anything good for me.”

Francis said the Dupré videos will be available on girlsgonewild.com at 6 a.m. Wednesday for $4.95 each.

Dupré, now 22, was vacationing in Miami in 2003 when she had a fight with a friend and walked to a local bar where ‘Girls Gone Wild’ was recruiting young women to star in its videos.  “She hopped on the bus and rolled with us for a week,” Francis said.

The New Jersey teen wound up touring Florida with the film crew, Francis said.

“There’s a lot of really raunchy stuff,” said Barry Roesler, a spokesman for “Girls Gone Wild,” known for its videos of breast-flashing young women.

Francis claimed the “Girls Gone Wild” team kicked Dupré out of the video shoot and bought her a bus ticket home after catching her drinking, which he said violated the group’s rules.

Dupré was working for the high-priced Emperors Club VIP prostitution ring when she had sex with Spitzer on Feb. 13 in a Washington hotel room. Spitzer resigned in disgrace last week after he was unmasked as “Client 9″ in a criminal indictment.

Meanwhile, in another case of girls gone wrong, Manhattan madam Andreia Schwartz remained in solitary confinement last night after refusing to offer more dirt on Spitzer or the prostitution ring, her lawyer said.

The Brazilian bombshell, convicted of running a midtown brothel, had expected to be deported to her homeland last Friday, said Brazilian Consul General José Alfredo Graça Lima.

The deportation was delayed so the Manhattan district attorney’s office could send three investigators to a New Jersey jail to question her about Spitzer, according to Schwartz’s lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman.

The International Cricket Council has confirmed that the 2011 World Cup will be shorter March 19, 2008

The International Cricket Council has confirmed that the 2011 World Cup will be shorter, with fewer teams.

Last year’s 47-day event in 2007 was criticised for being too drawn out.

The 2011 tournament – jointly staged by Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – will involve 14 rather 16 teams and will run over 38 days.

The ICC’s 10 full members automatically qualify for the 2011 event and they will be joined by the top four teams from 2009 qualifiers in Dubai.

Won by Australia, the 2007 final ended in farce and darkness after Sri Lanka were told the match would go to an extra day, only to be later asked to come back out.

iPod and iPhone with unlimited music March 19, 2008

Apple is in discussions with the big music companies about a radical new business model that would give customers free access to its entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices.

The “all you can eat” model, a replica of Nokia’s “comes with music” deal with Universal Music last December, could provide the struggling recorded music industry with a much-needed fillip, and drive demand for a new generation of Apple’s hardware.

Apple would not comment on the plan, but executives familiar with the negotiations said they hinged on a dispute over the price the computer maker would be willing to pay for access to the labels’ libraries.

Nokia is understood to be offering almost $80 per handset to music industry partners, to be divided according to their share of the market. However, Apple has so far offered only about $20 per device, two executives said. “It’s who blinks first, and whether or not anyone does blink,” one executive said.

Detailed market research has shown strong appetite among consumers for deals bundling music in with the cost of the device, or in exchange for a monthly subscription, executives said.

One executive said the research had shown that consumers would pay a premium of up to $100 for unlimited access to music for the lifetime of the device, or a monthly fee of $7-$8 for a subscription model.

Apple, which is thought to make relatively little money from the iTunes store compared with its hardware sales, is also understood to be examining a subscription model.

Subscriptions would work only for its iPhone devices, where it has a monthly billing relationship with customers through the mobile phone operators offering the device, while the “comes with music” model would work with iPhones and with iPods.

The subscription models under discussion in the music industry include the provision for customers to keep up to 40 or 50 tracks a year, which they would retain even if they changed their device or their subscription lapses.

Other music groups are understood to be in talks with Nokia, which is keen to sign up as many of the major labels as possible before launching its first “comes with music” devices in the second half of this year.

Additional reporting by Kevin Allison in San Francisco

Japan lawmakers leave central bank leaderless March 19, 2008

By Hideyuki Sano

TOKYO (Reuters) – The Japanese central bank will be run by a temporary leader in the midst of a credit crisis, after parliament rejected on Wednesday the government’s latest nominee to replace the current governor when he retires in a few hours.

Opposition parties in control of parliament’s upper house vetoed a second former top finance ministry bureaucrat put forward for the job, leaving Governor Toshihiko Fukui with a final task of appointing a temporary governor before he leaves the job at midnight (1500 GMT).

The vacancy — the first at the Bank of Japan since 1923 — leaves the world’s No.2 economy without a permanent central bank head amid global market turmoil and as major central banks take coordinated action to curb the credit crisis.

While politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democrats have repeatedly blamed each other for the stalemate, one analyst questioned the future of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

“Fukuda has now twice in a row put forth someone with experience at the Ministry of Finance, which the Democrats don’t like. This has raised questions about Fukuda’s sense,” said Takehiro Sato, an economist at Morgan Stanley, adding that Fukuda may not last until mid-year.

“The first time, the criticism focused on the Democrats, but this time the criticism toward Fukuda and the ruling party is growing. The collective power of the Fukuda administration within the LDP and the ruling party is weakening dramatically.”

RATE CUT IN APRIL?

Economists noted that the acting governor, most likely to be Deputy Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, would be in charge at the central bank for now and Goldman Sachs said it expected a rate cut next month even if a permanent leader was not put in place.

“The turbulence surrounding the new governor and deputy governors need not be a major impediment to an emergency rate cut or April easing,” the investment bank said in a research note.

Japanese interest rates, at 0.5 percent, are already near rock bottom, but Goldman said it looked as if the country had been in recession since the last quarter of 2007 with U.S. economic weakness and abrupt rises in the yen seen as adding impetus for a rate cut.

The political deadlock comes in the middle of coordinated central bank action, deep rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve and gyrating currency, bond and share markets, and has raised concerns that Japan might be unable to act swiftly on monetary policy if needed.

Both Tanami, the nominee rejected on Wednesday, and Toshiro Muto, the nominee who opposition parties rejected last week, were once vice ministers at the finance ministry.

“We said from the beginning that the BOJ personnel should not be an object of political feuding and that a vacuum should not be created. The government’s clumsy handling is to blame for the result today,” said Kenji Yamaoka, a senior Democratic Party lawmaker.

Political analysts said they were stunned that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, having seen one former top finance ministry official vetoed in parliament’s opposition-controlled upper house, then nominated someone with nearly the same credentials.

Japanese media were just as scathing about the political paralysis in a parliament split between an overwhelming majority for the ruling coalition in the lower house, with opposition parties in control of the upper house.

“The lack of policies of Prime Minister Fukuda and the irresponsibility of Democratic Party leader (Ichiro) Ozawa have given birth to an outrageous, directionless drama in which the people are ignored,” the Nikkei business daily said in an editorial.

“The loss of confidence in Japan among the international community will be immeasurable. And the Fukuda administration will suffer a big blow,” it said.

TWO DEPUTIES, NO SHERIFF

Parliament last week approved Shirakawa as deputy governor, and on Wednesday it approved a second deputy governor — current BOJ board member Kiyohiko Nishimura.

Underlying the succession crisis is a rapidly weakening U.S. economy, which prompted the Fed to slash interest rates by 0.75 percentage point on Tuesday, with Wall Street expecting more to come. ID:nN17621242

Conditions are also worsening in Japan, where the Reuters Tankan, a monthly survey of business sentiment, on Wednesday hit a four-year low among manufacturers. ID:nT289209

“As some in the market doubt if the BOJ could take such swift action if its top post is left vacant, a new governor must be decided as soon as possible in view of uncertainties over the economic outlook,” said Tatsushi Shikano, a senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.

The big Fed rate cut sent the dollar soaring to its biggest one-day rise against the yen in nine years, taking it back toward 100 yen from a 13-year low below 96 yen seen on Monday. FXNEWS

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Japanese stocks .N225 jumped 2.4 percent after the Fed cut

Protesters ’surrender in Tibet’ March 19, 2008

More than 100 people have turned themselves in to police following anti-China riots in Tibet’s main city, Lhasa, Chinese state media has said. People surrendered to secure leniency in response to a deadline set by the authorities, Xinhua news agency said.

China says it will harshly punish protesters who do not surrender. Police in Lhasa have been searching houses and making arrests, activists say.

China has blamed the Dalai Lama for the protests – a claim he roundly rejects.

The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader has called for an end to violence, saying Tibetans have to live with the Chinese whether they like it or not.

‘Life and death struggle’

Tibet’s Communist Party secretary Zhang Qingli has warned of a “long-term” struggle against the Tibetan exile movement.

“We are in the midst of a fierce struggle involving blood and fire, a life and death struggle with the Dalai Clique,” he told a teleconference of regional leaders on Wednesday.

We must not develop anti-Chinese feelings. Whether we like it or not we have to live side-by-side The Dalai Lama Crackdown on the news Lama’s birthplace blocked

“Leaders of the whole country must deeply understand the arduousness, complexity and long-term nature of the struggle,” he said in remarks carried online by the China Tibet News.

The protests began on 10 March, on the anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, and gradually escalated.

China says 13 people were killed by rioters in Lhasa. Tibetan exiles say at least 99 protesters have died in clashes – in Lhasa and beyond – with authorities.

‘Widespread arrests’

According to the Tibet regional government, 105 people involved in the protests had handed themselves over to police by 2300 (1500GMT) on Tuesday, Xinhua reported.

All had been involved in “beating, smashing, looting and arson”, the agency quoted Baema Chilain, vice-chairman of the regional government, as saying.

TIBET DIVIDE China says Tibet was always part of its territory Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before 20th century 1950: China launched a military assault Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959 Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India Accounts from Tibet Send us your comments Tibet adds to Olympic woes

Foreign media have not been allowed into Lhasa and the flow of information out is tightly controlled, but rights groups say they have heard reports of widespread arrests.

“In Lhasa we (have been told about) hundreds of arrests,” Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet told the French news agency AFP.

In a statement, US-based group Human Rights Watch urged China to allow independent monitors access to detainees.

Chinese authorities have insisted no lethal force was used to quell the protests, which have since spread to regions that border Tibet.

But rights groups have accused Chinese security forces of a violent crackdown.

Call for inquiry

On Tuesday Tibetan activists released images they say support their claim of heavy casualties and Chinese brutality.

They say the pictures depict protesters killed by Chinese security forces at Kirti Monastery in Sichuan province on Sunday – but the BBC is unable to verify these claims.

A representative of the Chinese embassy in London, Yu Jing, said it was “hard to judge from the pictures” but that if they were accurate, there would be an explanation.

She said some reports suggested the local police station and police officers had been attacked, and that Chinese officials were looking into the claims.

Tibetan activists say Chinese troops shot indiscriminately(Warning: Graphic content) In pictures: Shooting claims

The Tibetan exile government said it had also heard reports of 19 deaths in neighbouring Gansu province.

On Tuesday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the violence.

The Dalai Lama – who in 1989 won a Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to non-violent protest – has rejected Chinese claims of involvement and called for calm.

“Violence is against human nature,” the Dalai Lama said. “We must not develop anti-Chinese feelings. Whether we like it or not we have to live side-by-side.”

He has called for an international inquiry into why the riots took place.

China says Tibet has always been part of its territory but Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before the 20th Century and many Tibetans remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959.