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  • CINEMANOW ADDS SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, EMI AND SANCTUARY VIDEO CONTENT TO WATCHMUSICHERE.COM
  • Jul 24, 2007

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. — July 25, 2007 — CinemaNow Inc., (www.cinemanow.com) the premier online destination for downloadable Hollywood movies, TV shows and music videos, today announced it has signed licensing agreements with SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, EMI, and The Sanctuary Group to offer music videos and concert performances via its Web site for music video content, WatchMusicHere.com (www.watchmusichere.com), as well as CinemaNow.com. Beginning in late August, music fans can purchase and download music videos from artists such as EMI Music’s Lily Allen, David Bowie, Coldplay, The Decemberists, Fat Boy Slim, Gorillaz and Norah Jones, Sanctuary Group’s Morrissey and Dolores O’Riordan, and Drive Thru’s Hellogoodbye.

 

With these agreements, CinemaNow and WatchMusicHere.com will offer more than 6,000 videos from SONY BMG, EMI Music, The Sanctuary Group and Warner Music Group, making the site one of the largest distributors of downloadable music videos from major recording labels. The selection will also include uncut European versions of select music videos as well as concert performances from around the world. Music videos will be available for purchase on a download-to-own basis for $1.99. Select live performances and long-form videos will be available for purchase on download-to-own basis from $9.95 – $14.95 and on rental basis from $2.99 – $3.99, all in the WMV format.

“Now, music videos and concert performances from artists responsible for the majority of worldwide music sales will be available on WatchMusicHere and CinemaNow,” said Curt Marvis, CEO of CinemaNow. “Our music video catalog is growing rapidly, as we strive to offer our customers the widest selection available in today’s marketplace.”

“We see CinemaNow as an important entertainment destination,” commented Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business & U.S. Sales, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. “As consumers increasingly rely on the Internet for easy access to high quality content, we think that the service will occupy an even more prominent place in the entertainment landscape. We are happy to be working with them to make our artists’ videos and concerts available alongside the movies, television programming and other types of entertainment content already on the site.”

WatchMusicHere.com is the first premium video download service to offer videos in a convenient 1500K single-file format. This eliminates the need to download two files – one for a PC and another for a portable media player (PMP).

CinemaNow is integrating its service capabilities with more devices than any other online video provider to ensure that videos can be easily accessed via PCs, set top boxes (STBs), game consoles, and portable media players (PMPs), all with the ability to connect to TVs. The site is compatible with the latest WiFi PMPs from ARCHOS, which enable users to wirelessly download CinemaNow videos directly to their PMPs and stream them to their TVs. CinemaNow is also seamlessly integrated with HP’s upcoming line of MediaSmart LCD TVs, which enable users to rent or purchase CinemaNow movies from their couch. The MediaSmart TV connects to a customer’s home network either wired or wirelessly, so that a user can use their remote to purchase or rent a movie from CinemaNow, download the file to a designated hard-drive within their home network, and watch the video directly on their MediaSmart TV.

“A key part of EMI’s strategy is to put our music where our fans are, and CinemaNow is a great partner and a terrific new platform that is helping us reach that goal,” said Lauren Berkowitz, Senior Vice President of Digital for EMI Music North America. “CinemaNow is an exciting new business model that we are embracing to help us give fans the easy ability to access and buy our artists’ content, and a new revenue stream for our artists.”

About CinemaNow

CinemaNow, Inc. (www.cinemanow.com) is the premier online destination for downloadable Hollywood movies and TV shows. CinemaNow legally offers downloads of more than 7,000 feature-length films, shorts, music concerts and television programs from more than 250 licensors including 20th Century Fox, ABC News, Disney, HDNet, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Sundance Channel and Warner Bros. Founded in 1999, CinemaNow counts EchoStar, Index Holdings, Menlo Ventures, Transcosmos, Microsoft, Lionsgate, Cisco Systems and Blockbuster as investors.

About SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT is a global recorded music joint venture with a roster of current artists that includes a broad array of both local artists and international superstars, as well as a vast catalog that comprises some of the most important recordings in history. SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT is 50% owned by Bertelsmann A.G. and 50% owned by Sony Corporation of America.

About EMI Music

EMI Music is the recorded music division of EMI Group, the world’s largest independent music company. Its EMI Music division represents artists spanning all musical tastes and genres. Its record labels include Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol, Capitol Nashville, EMI Classics, EMI CMG, EMI Records, EMI Televisa Music, Manhattan, Mute, Parlophone and Virgin. Artists on EMI labels include Lily Allen, The Beatles, Coldplay, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Good The Bad & The Queen, Gorillaz, Norah Jones, The Kooks, Korn, Kylie Minogue, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Joss Stone, 30 Seconds To Mars, KT Tunstall, Keith Urban and Robbie Williams, as well as international artists such as Amaral (Spain), Diam’s (France), Utada Hikaru (Japan), LaFee (Germany), Radja (Indonesia), RBD (Mexico) and Vasco Rossi (Italy).

EMI has been at the cutting edge of the rapidly growing digital music marketplace since it released David Bowie’s ‘Hours’ as the world’s first ever album to be offered as a digital download in 1999. EMI has signed agreements with hundreds of digital partners to distribute its music across the globe, including most recently its premium DRM-free, higher-quality offering sold through partners including Apple iTunes, Amazon.com, PassAlong Networks and more. It continues to facilitate the development of a growing range of new digital business models to enable fans to experience and purchase its artists’ output through a number of different platforms including making its videos available for access via CinemaNow and YouTube, advertising-supported online music streaming in China through Baidu, legal peer-to-peer agreements with QTrax, Mashboxx and GNAB, and a deal to offer advertising-supported videos on mobile phones in the US through Rhythm NewMedia.

About The Sanctuary Group

The Sanctuary Group is one of the world’s leading independent music companies and leading developer of music, audio-visual and entertainment intellectual property rights (”IPR”). The Group has offices in the USA and UK.

In Recorded Product, the company maximizes the value of the Sanctuary owned music and audio-visual catalogues on a worldwide basis, records established acts, and, on a low risk approach, new artists. It owns one of the world’s largest independent catalogues of music and has worldwide distribution for its recorded music and audio-visual output, in both physical and digital formats, as well as providing niche websites to help market music products.

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