Bi-Weekly wrap up, 1-15 August
* Veoh Seeks Court Protection From Universal Music Copyright Suits
San Diego - Video-sharing site Veoh Networks announced on Thursday that it has filed a pre-emptive legal action against Universal Music Group, asking a judge to declare that its service does not violate copyrights.
* NBCU/News Corp. Web Video Venture Gets $100 Million From Equity Firm
San Francisco - The online video distribution joint venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal ("New Site," for now) has received a $100 million investment from private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, in exchange for a 10% stake, The New York Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the deal.
* File-Sharing Firm Lime Wire Debuts Digital Music Store
New York - Lime Wire, the company that distributes the LimeWire peer-to-peer file-sharing application, has announced plans to open a digital music store.
* Video Transcoding Firm RipCode Raises $10.5 Million
Dallas - RipCode, a developer of video transcoding technology, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $10.5 million in its second round of financing, led by ATA Ventures.
* SpiralFrog Debuts Beta of Ad-Supported, Free Music Download Service
New York - SpiralFrog, an ad-supported free music download service, has quietly launched an invite-only beta test of its service, CNET News.com reported.
* German Prosecutors Stop Identifying File Sharers on Behalf of RIAA
Offenburg, Germany - The Local Court (AG) in Offenburg has prohibited a local public prosecutor's office from obtaining the personal data from an ISP that match the IP addresses of alleged P2P network users citing citing "obvious disproportionateness”.
* Japanese Firms Demand YouTube Remove Copyrighted Videos
Tokyo - After a second meeting with executives in Tokyo with YouTube and Google this week, a group of Japanese rights holders again demanded that their copyrighted material be removed from YouTube, the Associated Press reported.
* HandHeld Entertainment Acquires eBaum's World for $17.5 Million
San Francisco - HandHeld Entertainment, a maker of portable media players and operator of entertainment websites, announced on Thursday that it will acquire eBaum's World, an entertainment site that offers user-generated videos, games, jokes, photos and other content, for $17.5 million. The site generated $5.2 million in revenue and $1.6 in net income before taxes in 2006, and has an average of 10 million unique visitors per month. HandHeld had already bought another video site, Putfile.
* Video-Sharing Site GoFish Terminates Acquisition of Bolt Media (details in the previous post)
New York, N.Y. - GoFish, a San Francisco-based video sharing site, on Thursday called off its planned $30 million acquisition of New York-based Bolt Media, after Bolt was unable to finalize a settlement in a copyright infringement lawsuit.
* EMI Shareholders Accept $4.8 Billion Buyout Offer from Terra Firma
London - Major record label EMI Group announced that its shareholders have approved a $4.8 billion buyout offer from private equity group Terra Firma.
* Apple's Wozniak Among Backers of Internet Video Start-up Hotswap
New York - Hotswap.com, an Internet video start-up founded by three former University of California grad students, has raised an undisclosed sum of funding from backers including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Clear Channel co-founder Red McCombs, Reuters reported.
