Loudeye continued a rash of major changes in its strategic operating plan released Wed. The company said it’s largely leaving the U.S. music market and focusing on European operations. In Dec. the firm closed lagging antipiracy unit Overpeer, which seeded P2P networks with “spoof” files (WID Dec 20 p3). About 80% of 4th-quarter revenue was generated from digital media store services, and nearly all of that came from Europe. The firm is moving its base for those services from the U.S. hq in Seattle to the European hq in London. The Seattle office will continue operating its digital media content services like encoding and samples. Loudeye has also scrapped plans to create a “custom digital music service for an unnamed North American retailer,” a launch that was previously delayed. The changes are expected to reduce costs $2.5 million a quarter -- 30% of 3rd quarter 2005 levels. Cost savings, including job cuts and “possible funded development,” will be realized before 2nd quarter, Loudeye said. The firm also released preliminary 4th-quarter results: $8.8 million revenue, up from $5.5 million in 4th quarter 2004 -- although that excludes Overpeer’s revenue, which will be included in the loss from discontinued operations. Digital media store revenue was $7.1 million, up 92% year-over-year. “Substantially all” 4th quarter growth came from “promotional services revenue from an Internet service provider in Europe,” Loudeye said. Quarterly gross profit is expected to be $1 million, and excluding Overpeer and “potential charges related to goodwill and other long-lived assets,” the company expects a “narrow” GAAP net loss relative to 3rd quarter 2005. The company warned it’s regularly experiencing “significant losses” and has limited cash reserves -- $10.8 million at the end of 2005 compared with $16.6 million at the end of Sept. Full-quarter and 2005 results are scheduled for release Feb. 23.

In its 12th week, the PS2 version of EA’s Need for Speed Most Wanted was again the #1-rented videogame in the U.S., according to Rentrak’s preliminary Home Video Essentials data for the week ended Feb. 5. The Xbox version fell one to #5. EA had one other title in the top 10: Madden NFL 06 for PS2 at #10, down 7 in its 26th week. Eidos and LucasArts Entertainment each had 2 SKUs in the top 10. Eidos’s were the PS2 and Xbox versions of 25 To Life at #2 again and #4 (up one), respectively, in their 3rd week. LucasArts’s were the PS2 and Xbox versions of Star Wars Battlefront II at #3 and #7, respectively, each up 3 in their 14th week. Rounding out the top 10 were 3 PS2 titles: Activision’s Gun at #6 (up 2 in its 13th week), THQ’s WWE SmackDown! Vs. Raw at #8 (down one in its 12th week) and 50 Cent: Bulletproof at #9 again in its 11th week.

The San Mateo County (Cal.) Superior Court granted final approval late last month to a settlement in a class action employee suit against Electronic Arts (EA), the publisher said in a 10-Q SEC filing Wed. The suit, filed July 2004, claimed the publisher improperly classified “image production employees” in Cal. as “exempt.” The court granted preliminary approval in Oct. of a settlement in which EA agreed to pay a lump sum of $15.6 million. EA said it paid that to a 3rd-party administrator during 2005’s 4th quarter to cover all claims allegedly suffered by the class members, as well as plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees and other case costs. EA’s filing also said a consolidated class action securities lawsuit by investors against it and some officers and directors was dismissed with prejudice Jan. 26 by a U.S. Dist. Court in northern Cal. But EA said there were still a shareholder derivative action pending in the same court and 2 shareholder derivative actions pending in Superior Court, San Mateo, that made the same basic claims as the earlier suits. EA also revealed that it agreed Feb. 7 to lease 94,782 sq. ft. of facilities space in Guildford, U.K. It said the deal was subject to renovations by the Standard Life Assurance Co. that expects to be done about June 1. At that time, EA said, it will enter into a 10-year lease and take possession of the facilities. The company said it plans to use the facilities “primarily as studio space for the development of our games.” Separately, another law firm -- Federman & Sherwood in Oklahoma City -- filed a lawsuit seeking class action status in N.Y.C., claiming that EA rival Take-Two Interactive violated securities laws by making material misrepresentations of its performance that artificially inflated the market price of Take-Two stock.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued its preliminary results of this antidumping (AD) duty changed circumstances review of certain softwood lumber products from Canada.

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued its preliminary results of the following antidumping (AD) duty administrative reviews:

The International Trade Administration (ITA) has initiated a new shipper review for the antidumping (AD) duty order on hand trucks and certain parts thereof from China with respect to the following company, as both the exporter and producer, and review period:

Anonymous webmasters on the .us Top Level Domain (TLD) are safe from shutdown a few weeks. Attorneys for Robert Peterson, who runs Point-CounterPoint City (www.pcpcity.us), told us Thurs. a hearing on a preliminary injunction against NTIA, the Commerce Dept. and .us registry operator NeuStar (WID Feb 1 p1) has been pushed off from today (Fri.) to Feb. 17. The govt. has agreed not to act meantime against registrars who haven’t taken down proxy websites in the .us TLD, lawyer James Houpt said. The case challenges the constitutionality of the NTIA’s rule that all .us site owners and registrants publicly disclose their names, home addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Peterson, whose site posts opposing views on controversial social and political topics, filed the suit in U.S. Dist. Court, Alexandria, Va. He alleges NTIA didn’t allow the public to weigh in on the rule, and he fears harm if the public Whois directory reveals his identity in connection with the site. Thousands of .us users have registered their sites by proxy and face disclosure or seeing their sites taken offline.

The House passed late Wed. 216-214 a deficit reduction bill that includes DTV provisions setting Feb. 17, 2009, for the hard transition date. The vote caps a hard-fought political battle in which the conference report passed the Senate by a 51-50 margin (CD Dec 22 p1). Senate Democrats amended the report with technical provisions at the end of the session that required the House'’s vote, thus delaying action until yesterday (Wed.). Democrats all along have opposed the bill’s budget cuts, complaining that it didn’t reduce the deficit as proclaimed.

In its 11th week available, the PS2 version of Need for Speed Most Wanted from Electronic Arts (EA) was again the top-rented videogame in the U.S., according to Rentrak’s preliminary Home Video Essentials data for the week ended Jan. 29. The Xbox version of the game moved up 5 to #4. EA had another top 10 game: The PS2 version of Madden NFL 06 at #3, down one in its 25th week. Meanwhile, 25 to Life from Eidos saw an unusually large boost in interest during its 2nd week. Rentrak said the PS2 version jumped 99 notches to become the week’s #2-rented title while the Xbox version moved up 230 to #5. LucasArts Entertainment also had 2 SKUs in the top 10: The PS2 and Xbox versions of Star Wars Battlefront II, which respectively fell 3 to #6 and increased 6 to #10 in the 13th week available. Rounding out the top 10 were 3 PS2 games: THQ’s WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw at #7 (down 3, 11th week), Activision’s Gun at #8 (up 2, 12th week) and 50 Cent: Bulletproof at #9 (down 2, 10th week).

The House Wed. passed by a 216-214 vote a deficit reduction bill that includes DTV provisions setting Feb. 17, 2009, as the hard transition date. The vote caps a hard- fought political battle in which the conference report passed the Senate by a 51-50 margin (CED Dec 22 p1).