muvee Teams With Warner Music Group to Transform User-Generated Content
SINGAPORE, Oct 15, 2006 -- muvee, the pioneer and leader in Instant Personal Video, and global music content company, Warner Music Group Corp. (NYSE: WMG), today announced a strategic business agreement that gives users a quick, easy and legal way of weaving their personal video clips and photos into original artist music videos, tour footage and behind-the-scenes concert reels. In signing this deal, WMG becomes the first music company to use muvee's groundbreaking technology to enable fans to engage and interact with their favorite artists in a completely new way that will transform consumers' experience of user-generated video creation and sharing.
muvee will draw from WMG's extensive catalog of premium artist content to create a series of special artist styles that can be used to make music video remixes -- which are called muvees. To make a muvee, users simply upload video clips and pictures of their own and select an artist style. muvee's back-end Web service will then automatically synchronize and blend highlights of users' footage with scenes from the artist music video to create a unique finished production. WMG and muvee collaborated earlier this year to let Jason Mraz fans create their own video mash-ups using footage from the artist's original 'Geek In The Pink' music video. Both companies now are working together to roll the service out to artists across the breadth of WMG's roster. The service will be initially available at artist sites and will be advertiser-supported. The next artist site to feature muvee will be Tori Amos at www.everythingtori.com, with more artist projects to follow across a range of genres and territories. In addition, consumers will soon be able to access the muvee web-based service directly from their mobile devices.
Alex Zubillaga, Executive Vice President, Digital Strategy and Business Development, WMG, commented, "We're delighted to be teaming up with muvee to further enrich consumers' experience of our artists and their music. We embrace the technologies that are transforming entertainment and media and believe it is compelling new tools such as muvee's that allow us to creatively empower fans whilst respecting the rights of artists and copyright holders."
Pete Kellock, muvee's founder and CEO, said, "It makes perfect sense to bring together the strengths of muvee and WMG. Together we're introducing amazing and revolutionary new experiences, such as letting people 'dance with their favorite star' by seamlessly weaving their personal video and photos into music videos. Music videos are cool; now they're cool and personal. For six years muvee has been developing and perfecting unique technology for creating music-driven video productions using user-generated content, delivering professional results in a way that's incredibly easy for users. We're taking this to another level by combining our technology, products and services with WMG's great array of major artists. Every filmmaker knows how music brings images to life. We're bringing this power to internet users in a dramatic new way."
Just last month, muvee launched its own online video mixing site at www.muveemix.com. This free Web service lets users automatically create finished video mixes out of their uploaded videos, pictures and music, and extends muvee's capabilities to yet another popular platform where consumers share video. muvee's technology is already available around the world in consumer products by HP, Nokia, Sony, Nikon and LG and muvee expects to make artist styles available to its current list of global partners in the near future. muvee will be demonstrating its award-winning automatic video creation technology on various platforms at the 3GSM World Congress Asia, held in Singapore from October 16-20 (Level 6, Hall 602, stand #B01).
This is the latest announcement to highlight Warner Music's commitment to innovation in the digital space. In September, WMG entered into an agreement to distribute on YouTube the library of music videos from WMG's world-renowned roster of artists as well as behind-the-scenes footage, artist interviews, original programming and other special content. In a first-of-its-kind arrangement, YouTube users will be able to incorporate music from WMG's recorded music catalog into the videos they create and upload onto YouTube. Last week, WMG also announced a strategic business relationship that gives Google users the ability to stream on-demand WMG's extensive music video collection for free, through an ad-supported revenue sharing agreement, or to purchase videos online for download. Warner Music has also unveiled a series of strategic partnerships around the world, including agreements with Beeline, one of Russia's leading mobile networks, China Unicom, the world's third-largest mobile operator, and SK Telecom, Korea's foremost broadband and wireless provider.
Notes to Editors:
About Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group became the only stand-alone music company to be publicly traded in the United States in May 2005. With its broad roster of new stars and legendary artists, Warner Music Group is home to a collection of the best-known record labels in the music industry including Atlantic, Bad Boy, Elektra, Lava, Maverick, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Rykodisc, Sire, Warner Bros. and Word. Warner Music International, a leading company in national and international repertoire, operates through numerous international affiliates and licensees in more than 50 countries. Warner Music Group also includes Warner/Chappell Music, one of the world's leading music publishers.
About muvee
Founded in 2001, muvee is the pioneer and global leader in a dynamic new field: Instant Personal Video. muvee's patented technology revolutionizes home video production, enabling anyone to automatically transform video and pictures into professional-quality productions in hundreds of different styles. Users need no prior experience working with video and each production is created in a fraction of the time that it would normally take using conventional video editing tools. muvee's products are available for PCs, embedding in CE devices, photo kiosks, websites and other platforms. muvee's global partners include Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Sony, Nikon and ATI. For more information, please visit www.muvee.com
muvee, n. (pronounced 'mew-vee', always written entirely in lowercase)
1. A professional-quality, music-driven video production that is created in seconds using intelligent, automatic editing technology.
2. An abbreviation for muvee Technologies, the pioneer in Instant Personal Video and creator of muvee autoProducer software.