Thursday, March 22, 2007

Suit against XM Expanded - New Labels Involved

March 22, 2007

According to Billboard.biz, new labels have decided to file suit against XM.

Publishers Sue XM Satellite Radio
March 22, 2007 - Legal and Management

By Susan Butler, N.Y.

A group of music publishers sued XM Satellite Radio over the XM + MP3 service late today (March 22). EMI Music Publishing, Warner/Chappell Music, Sony/ATV Music and Famous Music claim they want to "put an end to the pervasive and willful copyright infringement" of their compositions distributed over the service to "iPod-like devices controlled by XM."

"We've read that XM paid Oprah $55 million to develop content," says David Israelite, president/CEO of the National Music Publishers' Assn. "Yet they haven't paid one penny to creators of music for copies on these devices."

XM has argued in the past that it functions only as a radio broadcaster, licensing the compositions from performing rights organizations ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. "The lawsuit filed by the NMPA is a negotiating tactic to gain an advantage in our ongoing business discussions," says a spokesman for XM in a statement. "XM pays royalties to writers and composers who are also compensated by our device manufacturers. We are confident that the lawsuit is without merit and that we will prevail."

The publishers claim that the service does not merely broadcast recorded songs; it delivers perfect digital copies of songs for its customers to copy to the devices, create extensive libraries of the songs and replay them for as long as the listeners pay XM's monthly fee. Yet XM has not licensed the right to reproduce or distribute the recorded compositions, publishers claim.

The suit, filed in the federal District Court in New York, comes one month after a judge in the same court handed major labels a partial victory in their case against XM over the service. In January, federal District Court Judge Deborah Batts denied XM's attempt to dismiss the labels' lawsuit. The two suits could be consolidated so the same judge would preside over both claims.

Israelite says that negotiations began with president/CEO Hugh Panero over a year ago. "XM's final, best offer was far from adequate," says Israelite. He declined to provide specific details of the offer, citing a confidentiality agreement between the parties concerning details of the discussions.

Sirius Satellite Radio, part of the $13 billion proposed merger with XM, settled similar claims with labels over its Sirius S50 portable device last year. Israelite says that Sirius has not yet settled with publishers; he expects negotiations to start up again soon.

Named as plaintiffs in the suit are Famous, the Viacom-owned independent publisher, and 26 other publishers owned by EMI, Warner/Chappell or Sony/ TV. Although Universal Music Publishing Group and BMG Music Publishing are not named as plaintiffs, they are also part of the suit since it was filed by the NMPA on behalf of its members.

"In these types of cases, you find some representative plaintiffs," says Israelite. "This suit is really a fight for the entire publishing industry."

The publishers seek a maximum of $150,000 per infringement, listing in the complaint more than 200 songs as a "small fraction" of the compositions infringed. They include "Let It Be," "My Heart Will Go On," "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Like a Prayer."

"We don't want to hold back the technology, we don't want to prevent consumers' choice of how to acquire music," says Israelite. "But we must be sure that our creators are compensated properly when copies of their music are made."

Debra Wong Yang, former U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles and now a partner with
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, is lead attorney in the case for the publishers.

Labels: copyright, law suit, riaa, xm canada

3/22/2007 07:33:00 PM

SSG Has Merged. You Can Read All Of The Latest SSG Content By Clicking Here

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SSG is not a Financial Advisor. Read Disclosure: HERE

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Friday, March 09, 2007

XM Canada Announces 237,500 subscribers

March 9, 2007

XM Canada achieves 237,500 subscribers

TORONTO, Mar 9, 2007 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX News Network) --

Solid subscriber growth in auto and multi-platform partnerships

Subscriber definitions now more closely aligned with industry norms

TORONTO, March 9 /CNW/ - Canadian Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (TSX: XSR), through its XM Canada satellite radio service, announced today it has achieved 237,500 subscribers as of the end of its second quarter ended February 28, 2007. In an effort to align our definitions more closely with industry norms, our subscriber numbers now include vehicles factory-activated with the XM service whereby automakers have agreed to pay for a portion or all of the trial period service.

Labels: subscribers, xm canada

3/09/2007 09:01:00 AM

SSG Has Merged. You Can Read All Of The Latest SSG Content By Clicking Here

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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Cogeco, The Canadian Cable Co, Granted Right To Distribute Radio Service

Cogeco gets go-ahead to distribute Satellite Radio
via www.orbitcast.com

The CRTC has granted Canada's fourth largest cable company, Cogeco Cable, the right to distribute satellite radio services on digital cable.
Currently Cogeco distributes two pay audio services, Galaxie and Max Trax, but this decision means that Cogeco customers will be able to subscribe to Sirius Satellite Radio or XM Satellite Radio over their digital cable service...read more: here

Labels: cable tv, sirius canada, xm canada

2/17/2007 07:32:00 AM

SSG Has Merged. You Can Read All Of The Latest SSG Content By Clicking Here

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

THE Canadian Factor

February 14, 2007

With the news from Sirius Canada being announced today, investors in Sirius Satellite Radio should begin to look more closely at the business north of the border. The reason is simple. There will come a day when Sirius Canada contributes to the bottom line of Sirius Satellite Radio, and given the fast start up north, that day may come sooner than many people realize. It wont be this quarter, and maybe not next quarter, but the day is coming. If 300,000 subscribers have an ARPU of $10 each, then Sirius Canada is bringing in $3,000,000 per month. As the base grows, the revenue will as well.

Consider that Sirius Canada did not have about 1 billion dollars worth of satellites to launch. Consider that the repeater network in Canada is quite small. Consider that the bulk of content is already paid for. Consider that the marketing efforts up north benefit greatly from what happens here in the U.S.

Simply stated, the operations costs of Sirius Canada are a stark difference from Sirius Satellite Radio stateside. Now think about the fact that Sirius Satellite Radio gets about half of the Sirius Canada pie.

Many analyst models do not even consider Sirius Canada in their projections. The costs are not big, and at this point neither is the revenue, but people should begin to think a couple of years down the road, and what the business north of the border will be contributing to the bottom line of this equity. Perhaps some early projections are now warranted.

The same would seem to hold true for XM satellite Radio, but their road to riches seems to be a bit further off at this point, and XM's ownership in the Canadian counterpart is not as substantial as Sirius’.

Some pretty interesting data was announced today, and it is compelling enough that it ought not be ignored. Since January 2006 Sirius Canada has garnered a 75% retail share according to NPD, and more impressively, brought in almost 80% in December of 2006. These statistics are quite telling. There seems to be an obvious choice being made by Canadian consumers. Even more note worthy is the fact that Sirius Canada has been the more expensively priced service during this time period (the services now have identical pricing for the first subscription).

There are several reasons that investors stateside should begin to watch the Canadian counterparts closely:

The services launched at virtually the same time, thus the subscriber comparison metric is not skewed.

The retail channel, according to NPD, is seeming to show a clear preference. How will advertisers react to this news? OEM's? potential on air talent?

The Canadian companies will be contributing to the bottom line of Sirius as well as XM at some point. The faster that happens, the faster a surprise in the revenue line will hit these stocks. XM Canada is publicly traded, and various reporting is required. In the case of Sirius Canada, it is private. The financials are not disclosed. This means that the Canadian factor will come as more of a surprise to the street when it happens.

For their part, XM Canada has announced several OEM deals in Canada, and similar to stateside claims a big advantage in that area. However, we have covered the perception vs. reality of the OEM world in the past, and that channel boils down to the number of installs, the cost of those installs, the take rate, and what kind of revenue these companies get to keep (revenue share). It comes down to whether retail fuels OEM, or whether OEM will be the dominating force. The answer to this type of question may well be already available. How many "Factory Installed I-Pods" have you seen? how many I-Pods come from retail?