Joost is hiring talent scouts Creative Artists Agency to get Hollywood programming onto its service. Along with well known programming and a clutch of top advertisers Joost wants to offer shows from independent professional video makers rather than “wild” UGC/social media. Joost has $45 million from five backers and signed Viacom and sister company CBS for content recently.
Joost, the online television service from Skype and Kazaa founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, launches today. Current beta testers will now get an unlimited number of invites, after being limited to five till now. A number of leading advertisers including Coca-Cola, Nike, General Motors and Visa will start ad campaigns this month. The latest version is available for download from existing users and those invited to join. While most
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Over 250 copyrights are covered by the deal signed today by Universal Music Publishing Group for Elton John’s back catalogue. The worldwide agreements administer the post-1974 publishing interests of Elton John and his collaborator, Bernie Taupin. As UMPG already owns the copyrights of songs written up to 1974, these new agreements put the entire Elton John catalog under one roof.