Digital Music Weekly

The sound of the future
4 May 2001
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Digital Music Weekly METRICS

	[DEALS] BMG and EMI Call Off Merger; Aimster Takes On the RIAA; New Exposure for Pick the Hits

	[GRAPH] Artists Flock To MP3.com

	[TRAFFIC] Napster Falls To Seventh Place In Our Rankings

	[STOCKS] Stocks Mixed, Group Off 1.5 Percent For Week

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Digital Music Weekly METRICS

	[DEALS] BMG and EMI Call Off Merger; Aimster Takes On the RIAA; New Exposure for Pick the Hits	next

*Ranking determined by Digital Music Weekly on a scale of 1 to 10, depending on a number of factors, including but not limited to: size of deal, exclusivity, and overall effect on the digital music space.

Importance*	Who	With	What	Bottom Line
7	Bertelsmann	EMI	BMG and EMI call off their merger plans after five months of discussions.	Another blow to EMI, after calling off last year's merger with Warner Music.
6	Liquid Audio	78 employees	Liquid Audio lays off 78 employees, or 40 percent of its staff.	Rumors have been swirling that ex-BMG head Strauss Zelnick might be looking to acquire Liquid Audio, so this could be a way to get lean before an acquisition.
5	Aimster	RIAA	Instead of waiting for the RIAA to sue them, Aimster filed suit against the recording industry in an attempt to get its file trading service ruled legal.	At least they are being proactive about this, but it could be a tough fight against the powerful labels. In an unrelated note, we just have to say how completely creepy it is that Aimster founder Johnny Deep is trying to push his site with photos of his 16-year-old jailbait daughter in a string bikini.
4	Loudeye	Sony Music	Loudeye lands a license that lets it offer streaming song samples from the Sony catalog.	A non-exclusive deal but still crucial for Loudeye to sign all of these. They now have four of the five majors.
3	Pick The Hits	SiteShell	Pick the Hits strikes a deal to be featured on SiteShell's network of radio station websites.	A big boost in exposure for song rating site Pick the Hits, which is featured on 134 SiteShell sites now with plans to expand to 270 sites.

Agree with our analysis? Think we're nuts? Let us know--send feedback.

Feedback: letters@digitalmusicweekly.com


	[GRAPH] Artists Flock To MP3.com	next

MP3.com's number of approved artists grew more than 141 percent from March 31, 2000 to March 31, 2001, according to new metrics released by the company. The number of artists also jumped 4.3 percent from February 2001 to March 2001, rising from 144,300 to 150,600. The company said that during the first quarter, an average of about 280 new artists posted their music to MP3.com every day. MP3.com also noted that the number of song/audio files offered at the site reached 967,000 at the end of March, an increase of more than 150 percent over last year.

Feedback: letters@digitalmusicweekly.com


	[TRAFFIC] Napster Falls To Seventh Place In Our Rankings	next

See below for a rundown on which music sites are winning the battle for eyeballs.

Rank	Site	Average Daily Unique Visitors*
1	Real.com	654,000
2	WindowsMedia.com	347,000
3	BMGMusicService.com	317,000
4	CDnow.com	247,000
5	MTV.com	182,000
6	MP3.com	143,000
7	Napster.com**	108,000
8	GetMusic.com	107,000
9	Launch.com	78,000
10	RollingStone.com	77,000
11	Sonicnet.com	74,000
12	ArtistDirect.com	66,000

*Determined by Media Metrix. Sites with less than 50,000 daily unique visitors do not register on their weekly flash.
**Traffic of the Napster.com website is not the measure of the number of active users of the Napster software.

Feedback: letters@digitalmusicweekly.com


	[STOCKS] Stocks Mixed, Group Off 1.5 Percent For Week

Company Name	Website	Ticker Symbol	Last Thursday close	In Today's trading	Percent Change	Market Capitalization
Artist Direct	www.artistdirect.com	ARTD	.49	.62	+26.5%	$19.7 million
EMusic	www.emusic.com	EMUS	.54	.55	+1.8%	$23.8 million
InterTrust	www.intertrust.com	ITRU	3.11	3.43	+10.2%	$321.2 million
Launch.com	www.launch.com	LAUN	.85	.60	-29.4%	$8.6 million
Loudeye Technologies	www.loudeye.com	LOUD	1.35	1.07	-20.7%	$41.9 million
Liquid Audio	www.liquidaudio.com	LQID	2.20	2.10	-4.5%	$47.4 million
MCY Music	www.mcy.com	MCYC.OB	.33	.30	-9.0%	$17.9 million
MP3.com	www.mp3.com	MPPP	2.95	3.03	+2.7%	$208.1 million
Real Networks	www.real.com	RNWK	9.18	9.99	+8.8%	$1.60 billion
				Group Average=	-1.5%

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