Entertainment

America Online joined several other investors in pumping some US$16 million total into Internet television startup Brightcove, with AOL also securing the right to use the firm's technology to help content owners distribute video across its family of Web sites. AOL joined Interactive Corp./IAC, Hears...

In a move analysts say could boost the fortunes of three companies and accelerate the adoption of mobile video, digital video recorder company TiVo announced a new service that enables users to transfer shows they've recorded to their video-capable Apple iPods and Sony PlayStation Portables (PSP). T...

America Online today said it would become just the latest media company to embrace the Internet as an alternative outlet for television programming, striking a deal with Warner Bros. to offer free, ad-supported versions of classic TV shows online. AOL said it would use Warner content as the anchor f...

Two television networks have struck a deal with a cable provider to offer on-demand downloads of some of their most popular shows, providing perhaps the clearest glimpse yet of the choices consumers will soon have as cable and the Internet converge. In separate announcements, NBC and CBS each said t...

Further blurring the increasingly hard-to-find line between television and the Web, Yahoo and digital video recorder (DVR) maker TiVo said they would team up to offer TiVo's online scheduling features on Yahoo TV. The hookup will enable users of Yahoo TV to use TiVo's scheduling technology to set th...

Social networking Web site MySpace.com is doing what no other social networking Web site has ever done before -- launched its own record label. MySpace Records is a joint venture with Interscope Records, one of the many recording labels under the Universal Music Group umbrella. MySpace Records will ...

Signaling its intention to be a major player in the online music segment, America Online has purchased MusicNow, a digital music site that specializes in subscription packages. AOL said it reached the deal to buy the firm from electronics retailer Circuit City in late September and closed the purcha...

Lawmakers have revived legislation that could provide a huge boost to efforts by music and movie studios to curb online piracy by letting federal agencies write rules that outlaw tactics used to copy programs when they are broadcast. Two bills on Capitol Hill dealing with so-called broadcast flags a...

In what is widely expected to be the start of a trend, NBC said it will become the first national network to put the entire broadcast of its evening news onto the Web just hours after it originally airs. MSNBC.com will start hosting downloads of NBC Nightly News on Nov. 7. The downloads will be free...

Sprint Nextel today announced plans to launch a digital music download service as part of an effort to build its entertainment, information and communication services that will operate on its high-speed Vision Network. Sprint's timing is good, with research group Ovum predicting the U.S. wireless mu...

Federal authorities have broken up a massive piracy ring that they say was capable of producing millions of counterfeit music and software CDs. Three California men face a range of charges after being indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco on counterfeiting charges. The charges resulted f...

United Kingdom-based music act managers are seeking to pressure Apple on royalty payments, saying too little of the proceeds from each song download is actually reaching the artists that created the songs. Members of the UK chapter of the Music Managers Forum met today to launch a public awareness c...

Sales of digital music soared during the first half of 2005, nearly tripling over 2004 levels, but weren't quite robust enough to help the music industry see overall growth, according to sales figures from international music trade group IFPI. Worldwide, music sales for the first six months of this...

Looking to fend off competition from Internet-based entertainment providers and others, DirecTV and XM Satellite radio have signed a deal to offer subscribers of DirecTV access to streaming radio offerings of XM. The two satellite-based companies said starting in mid-November DirecTV subscribers wi...

Extending a long-running war from the desktop to the mobile handset, RealNetworks unveiled a streaming video offering for mobile operators and said that Cingular Wireless had stepped forward to be the first carrier to offer the service to customers. The service immediately creates a new competitive ...