The acquisition makes Yahoo! instantly competitive in two key areas, an online music store and a sophisticated Windows-based jukebox. MusicMatch's online music store offers both a-la-carte downloads of individual songs and albums as well as a $7.99 dollar per month subscription service. According to reports, about 225,000 customers are currently enrolled in the unlimited access subscription service. MusicMatch's store contains over 700,000 individual songs for download. Futuremusic regards MusicMatch's jukebox as the leader in the field for Microsoft's Windows operating system. Easy to use, mature and comprehensive, MusicMatch's jukebox is the reason that many customers utilize their store and service.

Yahoo! expects its music audience to double to about 24 millions users once the deal is completed later this year. MusicMatch has 170 employees based out of San Diego, California and is said to gross about $50 million per year. Just as the digital music services heat up, Yahoo's purchase of MusicMatch is well timed, economical and makes it instantly competitive with adversaries such as Microsoft's MSN and AOL. However, much of MusicMatch's success has been from bundling it's software with other established internet properties, will these deals erode now that Yahoo! is the parent?

The Future: Under Yahoo's savvy branding, marketing and advertising eye, MusicMatch should blossom nicely. The deal is real bargain for Yahoo! and gives it a huge lead over Microsoft's and Sony's immature services. Is Roxio's Napster the next acquisition target for a major concern?

Close to 2000 contestants were vying to be THE NEXT BIG THING, sending in 60 minute DJ mixes from all across the United States. Futuremusic hosted the contest and screened the entries. "It was a tough decision," says Futuremusic President Dan Brotman, "we had dozens of our staff listening round the clock to all the CD's that came in. We narrowed it down to 5 semifinalists, and then John Digweed personally selected the winning mix."

"It was very exciting to take part in this special event. I was totally blown away by the amount of DJ's entering The Next Big Thing, and the standard of the mixes were very high. This just shows that DJ culture is still very much a career path that many young people want to follow," stated John Digweed.

In fact, Digweed was so enamored by Hac Le's winning entry, that he is going to feature the mix in its entirety on an upcoming episode of his internationally syndicated Kiss 100 radio show.

So what was it like for Le to be flown out to The Church, one of America's premier clubs? "DJing at the Church was incredible," Hac Le recounted. "You feel like you are transported into another world with the architecture, lights and dŽcor. The crowd, the vibe and the staff were amazing. Denver really has a hot scene!" However, the true highlight of the evening for Hac was meeting John Digweed. " John Digweed has been my favorite DJ for a very long time." Hac revealed. "His musical influence was pivotal in my development as a DJ. He is exactly the type of DJ I want to be. So to have the opportunity to meet the role model that I respect and admire the most in the industry, leaves me kind of speechless."

Hac continued, "Digweed was everything I was expecting. He was very nice, grounded, and seemed pretty humble. A class act. Qualities you don't often see from a superstar of his magnitude."

John Digweed and Hac Le, winner of The Next Big Thing 2004

The feeling was reciprocal, John Digweed was also quite impressed with Hac Le. "As well as a great DJ, Hac is really down to earth guy who loves his music I wish him all the best in the in the future and I hope that winning this contest gives him the break he deserves."

The contest winner not only got to be the opening DJ for John Digweed, one of the top 5 DJ's in the world, but was showered with enough DJ gear and music production technology to make any musician swoon. Contest sponsors included Alienware, BeatPort, Ableton, Peavey, Technics, M-Audio, Native Instruments, The Dubhouse, IK Multimedia, Propellerheads, and FreeFloat, making this is the largest collection of prizes ever assembled for a DJ mix competition. The prize package included 150 free tracks from dance music's best digital download site, Beatport.com, an Ozma Digital Audio Workstation from Alienware, the Komplete2 software suite from Native Instruments, DJ gear from Technics, Reason 2.5, Ableton's Live 4, a Radium 49-Key USB MIDI controller from M-Audio, a complete turntable suspension system from FreeFloat, The Grabber from Peavey, 100 promotional CD's of their mix from The DubHouse, and more. So what's Hac going to do with all this gear?

"I plan to dive in headfirst into the production side of things and bang out some tracks. Winter's coming up in Chicago so it will be perfect. I'll just hibernate in my apartment, learn the tools of the trade and hopefully have some decent tunes by spring. I've been talking about acquiring a proper studio to my friends since forever and now I finally have one. This is a Godsend! Thank you! Thank You! THANK YOU!"

To Hac Le, a first-generation American who's parents emmigrated from Vietnam, this opportunity has already spring boarded his DJ career. With the overwhelming positive response to his incredible DJ set, Hac was immediately invited to play at the after hours, and THE CHURCH has invited him back to play again this fall. Hac also received local media attention in his hometown of Chicago, and has been asked to open for James Zabiela and Lee Burridge in Milwaukee. In addition, Hac was also hired to play in Cancun, Mexico where he will be interviewed by DJ Concept magazine.

"I'm thrilled that Futuremusic was able to give Hac Le this opportunity of a lifetime. His graciousness, humility and great attitude has made all the hard work worth it!" Dan Brotman, President of Futuremusic commented. "As the premier DJ Mix Contest, The Next Big Thing allows Futuremusic to give an up and coming DJ's everything they've always wanted. What could be better than that??"

"I would like to thank Futuremusic and everyone involved with organizing this contest as it really helps motivate new talent to push themselves," Digweed added.

The Future: The Next Big Thing - Experiments In Sound...coming soon!

The cases' title, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster, didn't reveal the magnitude of the force behind the plaintiffs, "MGM" encompassed practically every major film studio, record label and publishing house and pitted them against the defendants. It's no wonder that Grokster, Streamcast and Sharman Networks labeled themselves "David" against the massive combined muscle of the film and music industries' "Goliath." Wayne Rosso, former president of Grokster, used that comparison as part of his public relations campaign to gain support and even stated, "David's won another round," when the decision was unveiled.

The three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals decided that "David" was indeed not liable for infringement with this statement: "This appeal presents the question of whether distributors of peer-to-peer file-sharing computer networking software may be held contributorily or vicariously liable for copyright infringements by users. Under the circumstances presented by this case, we conclude that the defendants are not liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement and affirm the district court's partial grant of summary judgment." You can read the full Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster decision here.

What this case hinged on was the fact that Grokster and Morpheus, the name of the file-sharing service from StreamCast, have decentralized servers. Unlike Napster, which had a centralized server that users utilized to connect to each other, Grokster and Morpheus users connect to each other directly. Because of the decentralized technology, Grokster and Morpheus claimed that they have no way to monitor or control the activities of their users and thus were not liable for their actions.

Although the music and film industry claimed that the services could still monitor their decentralized users, the court felt that they were not obligated to do so. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) responded by stating that the ruling, "does not absolve these businesses from their responsibility as corporate citizens to address the rampant illegal use of their networks."

The ruling provided this analysis of the copyright infringement on P2P networks. "The question of direct copyright infringement is not at issue in this case. Rather, the Copyright Owners contend that the Software Distributors are liable for the copyright infringement of the software users. The Copyright Owners rely on the two recognized theories of secondary copyright liability: contributory copyright infringement and vicarious copyright infringement. Ellison v. Robertson, 357 F.3d 1072, 1076 (9th Cir. 2004). We agree with the district court's well reasoned analysis that the Software Distributors' current activities do not give rise to liability under either theory."

The Future: Congress. Now that the appeals process is over, the RIAA will put serious heat on their allies in Congress to introduce legislation to combat illegal file exchange online. And don't thing that the RIAA's campaign of suing individuals will stop anytime soon. You have to understand that the suits actually make them feel like they're accomplishing something.