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HITS Daily Double
According to Fahrenheit Entertainment, Charlie Pride's next album will be the first copy-protected CD.

TECHNOLOGY NEWS ROUNDUP FOR DIGITAL COWBOYS AND GIRLS

Where A Yee-Haw And A Business Plan Means VC Money
THREE IS A MAGIC NUMBER
Minneapolis-based Media Jukebox developer J. River has upped the ante in the peer-to-peer licensing sweepstakes, offering $3 billion to the majors. Media Jukebox offers swapping and streaming in its player, and the company claims that the software's backend Digital Rights Management and e-commerce system make it the perfect solution to industry fears. It also says that its own customer surveys show that just less than half of users would be willing to pay a $10 per month subscription for "access to the music they wanted." Media Jukebox plays MP3s, QuickTime, Audible, Windows Media, Liquid Audio, Real Audio, vinyl and 8-track. Plus, CEO Jim Hillegass reportedly reads user comments on a regular basis. He should get out more.

HARD TO SAY WHAT'S SEXIER, "CYBER" OR "LIBRARY"
Privately owned Internet radio company CyberRadio.com—the company's website says that they're currently in "stealth mode"—has also jumped on the Napster media frenzy today, announcing that it is accelerating the introduction of its subscription pay-to-play music division, Internet Music Library. The Library has "provisional patents" for subscription fee based digital downloading, but only charges a dime a day for keeping songs more than a week.

WITHDRAWALS AT MUSICBANK
Not-yet-launched streaming music locker service provider MusicBank has laid off 19 employees, 29% of its staff. Pink slips were handed out in engineering and operations departments, since the service is finished development and near launch. "This exciting development should result in the Internet's biggest post-occupational disgruntlement spree," noted one outsized employee. The company has backing from Universal Music Group, Bertlesmann Ventures, Atlas Ventures and Bonanventure Investments—which would be much cooler if it was called Bonaventures or Bonaventure Ventures—and licensing deals with the Big Five and the Harry Fox Agency. It also offers free checking with direct deposit.

YOUR POWERS ARE STRONG, OGG VORBIS
Hooray, Xiph.org has announced that Beta 4 of Ogg Vorbis is here! That means that, well, allow the press release speak for us: "…the Ogg Vorbis libraries have moved to the BSD license. The change from LGPL to BSD was made to enable the use of Ogg Vorbis in all forms of software and hardware." For those of you not in the know, Ogg Vorbis is a patent-clear, open-source audio codec, meant to rival MP3, AAC and the like. Xiph.org Foundation Executive Director Jack Moffitt also announced the formation of the Xiph.org Foundation, a non-profit group to promote the creation of free, unencumbered and interoperable multimedia standards and maybe meet some chicks.

MP3.COM THROWS AROUND MORE ACRONYMS
MP3.com, the company the RIAA used to hate, is way geeked about its new developers' tool, which allows software and device manufacturers to add music to portable handhelds, Internet appliances, software applications and websites. Dubbed the Music InterOperating System (IOS) Application Programming Interface (API), the free application allows developers access to customized music from MP3.com and selected features to the My.MP3.com service. Users will have the ability to play lo-fi or hi-fi versions of songs on MP3.com, get one-click streams of featured song lists, manage and store music through their My.MP3.com account and more. To gain access to the IOS API, developers must memorize and recite two of Chairman/CEO Michael Robertson's "Michael's Minute" columns.

YOUR INSECURITIES ARE SHOWING
"Blah blah blah Napster blah blah software blah blah solution blah unauthorized redistribution of copyrighted material blah blah blah P2P blah blah blah," is roughly what a press release from InfoSeer says. This exciting "total paper information system" comes complete with an endorsement from Artists Against Piracy President Noah Stone. Not to be outdone, Fahrenheit Entertainment, the company behind such hits as Cliff Richard's "Real As I Wanna Be," is pleased to inform you that Charlie Pride's next album will be the first copy-protected CD. This development will prevent the four members of the Pride family who buy the album from making illicit copies.

VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN
Austin, Texas music conference and drinking marathon South By Southwest has opened up the voting for its People's Choice Web Award on its own website. There are 80+ finalists in 23 categories to choose from, and--not surprisingly--the one you're on right now wasn't nominated. Web awards will be handed out on Saturday March 11.The SXSW awards honor new sites and young developers, some of whom are just happy to be nominated.

ROLLING WITH RIO
Rio, aka Sonicblue, the people who brought you MP3 players back in the day, have unveiled the cleverly named Rio Car. The in-dash player can store up to 1000 hours of music. "Until now, the car audio experience was cluttered by plastic jewel cases," said Rio president Jim Cady. "By storing all the music they own in one portable device, Rio Car frees music fans struggling to sift through their music, so they can simply enjoy it. Or get back to talking on the phone, eating and putting makeup on at the same time." The smaller 10GB Rio Car model will retail for $1,199; the larger 60GB model will cost $1,999—which is more than we paid for our car.