Gracenote Extends Groundbreaking Lyrics Licensing Program to European Market



    Gracenote(R), a global leader in technology and services that are
    an integral part of the digital media economy, today announced it has
    expanded its Lyrics program to the European market by initiating
    licensing discussions with European music publishers and artists. More
    than 80 publishers have joined the Gracenote Lyrics program since its
    launch in July 2006, including all five major music publishers in the
    U.S., resulting in the world's broadest catalog of licensed song
    lyrics. With its pervasiveness in Europe and its understanding of the
    European market, Gracenote is uniquely positioned to be the first to
    bring the most extensive set of legal, accurate song lyrics to the
    region.

    Gracenote holds the rights to all available lyrics from the North
    American music catalogues of the five major music publishers: BMG
    Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing,
    Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music.
    Independent publishers in the program include Peermusic, Famous Music,
    ABKCO Music, Inc., The Bob Dylan Music Company, Disney Music
    Publishing, Ice Nine Publishing, and Windswept Holdings. These
    licenses pave the way for the first legal mass commercial use of
    lyrics, which is an important step in enhancing the consumer digital
    music experience while protecting the rights of songwriters and music
    publishers around the globe.

    Gracenote will launch a lyrics service next month in North
    America, enabling digital music retailers, mobile providers, search
    engines, music portals, and consumer electronics manufacturers to
    offer legal access to an accurate and comprehensive lyrics catalog.
    With this announcement Gracenote is beginning its licensing of
    European lyric rights and plans to launch a service in Europe in 2008.

    European Localization in Gracenote's Global Media Database

    Gracenote's Global Media Database is the world's largest database
    of music information, accessed by more than 200 million people
    annually and actively used within every European country. The reason
    for Gracenote's popularity in Europe stems in part from its focus on
    localizing the content for individual European countries, including
    music styles, genres, and support for local languages. More than
    600,000 uniquely European albums exist in the Gracenote database,
    which has been searched more than 100 million times by European
    consumers.

    An element of the Global Media Database, Gracenote's proprietary
    Global Genre System offers 1600 micro-genres mapped to culturally
    relevant genres, and contains more than 200 classifications unique to
    Europe, including local music styles such as Hamppa (Finland),
    Volkstumliche Musik (Germany), Levenslied (Dutch), Cantautori (Italy),
    Musica Popular Ligera (Portugal), Dhimotika (Greek), Chalga (Bulgaria)
    and Grime (U.K.). The combination of localized content and song lyrics
    will further enhance Gracenote's products and services for European
    consumers.

    "Gracenote has a deep understanding of the European market and is
    pervasive throughout the continent. For this reason we're uniquely
    positioned to be the first to bring a lyrics licensing program to the
    region," said Craig Palmer, CEO of Gracenote. "We look forward to
    forging relationships in the European market as we build compelling
    new products and services that will deliver lyrics to millions of
    consumers worldwide."

    "Licensing our catalog of lyrics through Gracenote gives consumers
    new access to accurate, legal and original content," said Nicholas
    Firth, chairman and CEO of BMG Music Publishing. "Our agreement with
    Gracenote ensures that music lovers will have the most compelling and
    complete music experience. This license creates a new revenue stream
    which will guarantee songwriters are paid for their work."

    As part of the lyrics licensing program, independent publishers
    and songwriters in Europe are able to "opt in" via a website and have
    their Lyrics made available through Gracenote's service. This is a
    breakthrough in enabling smaller organizations or even individual
    artists to have their important content made available to millions of
    fans and to be properly compensated for its use. Music Publishers can
    go to www.gracenote.com/lyrics for more information and enroll in the
    program.

    About Gracenote

    Gracenote is a global leader in embedded technology, enriched
    content, and data services for digital entertainment solutions within
    the Internet, consumer electronics, mobile, and automotive markets.
    Formerly known as CDDB(R)(TM), Gracenote delivers a substantially
    improved consumer experience in digital media devices and
    applications, plus media monitoring and other data services, making it
    an integral part of the digital media economy. Gracenote powers
    leading services including Apple iTunes, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, AOL
    Winamp; home and automotive products from Alpine, Panasonic, Philips
    and Sony; and mobile music applications from Samsung, Sony Ericsson,
    KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Europe), and others.
    Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Gracenote has offices in New
    York, Tokyo, Berlin and Seoul. For more information about Gracenote,
    please refer to www.gracenote.com/corporate/.

    Gracenote and CDDB and their logos are registered trademarks of
    Gracenote, Inc.