underpop

http://underpop.online.fr 2001-08-30  
Napster Bootleggers - In order to escape the tough competition that characterises the online music market, Hifind has decided to concentrate on a small but profitable niche, that of music for the world of cinema, radio and television production. In this way, while Napster continues to suffer amid general indifference, waiting for its new owner, Bertelsmann, to decide how to commercially exploit the company that cost more than a billion dollars, the Hamburg-based company (through its own subsidiary, Initaudio) has presented its new platform Audience, which should make its online debut in October, at the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA) in Berlin.



Safe from the danger of the competing technologies based on the Gnutella protocol, aimed at the general public orphaned by Shawn Fanning’s creation, Hifind set up this initiative last January in collaboration with the former monopolist Deutsche Telekom, already a partner on other occasions. Audience is a product devised for professional operators, such as radio and television broadcasters and production houses. Its main function consists of a search engine based on so-called intelligent agents that allow the user to carry out searches in the most varied directories, on the basis of 300 different criteria.



Thanks to the agreement with 16 producers specialising in the so-called Library music or Production Music, including Selected Sound Musikverlag (part of the EMI group), and the German company Sonoton, there are 140,000 music tracks in Audience’s databases, to be used for television programs, radio broadcasts, adverts, films and documentaries. The service is free, but in order to download files directly from the Internet, the user must have ISDN access provided by Deutsche Telekom.



Audience is one of two products developed by Hifind; the other can be accessed at Hifind.com and is aimed at all Internet users. Like many other sites, it offers the possibility of downloading MP3 files and purchasing CDs online. Transformed into a public company in 1999 in view of a possible listing on the Stock Exchange, Hifind, whose CEO is Manuel Tessloff, has abandoned this project for the moment. The liquidity necessary to continue operating is provided by the company’s majority shareholder, the Hamburg-based fund Pricap Venture Capital.

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postado por mikhail  # 8/30/2001 03:08:00 PM