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Beyond Oblivion settles with majors
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 2 August 2012
Beyond Oblivion v2, the company that emerged out of the collapse of the ambitious digital non-start-up Beyond Oblivion earlier this year, and headed up by the original company’s founder Adam Kidron, has reached deals with Sony Music and Warner Music over the millions the labels said the digital firm owed them.
As previously reported, Beyond Oblivion planned to launch a subscription-based download and streaming service under the terrible name Boinc, where the subscriptions would be bundled into the cost of digital devices, masking the cost to the consumer. It was a similar model to Nokia’s ill fated Comes With Music service. And while Boinc insisted it had overcome all of the Nokia platform’s many problems, that didn’t stop the whole thing collapsing before it had even launched late last year.
The company then went into bankruptcy, but was bought back by a new entity led by Kidron, called Gee Beyond, which seems to want to have another go at getting the Boinc service live – certainly users are being invited to take part in a beta test via the firm’s website and a new iPhone app.
But there were some contractual issues hanging over from the old company. First, the maker of the digital rights management technology used by Boinc initially said that the contracts transferred over from the old to the new Beyond entity were no longer valid, though Kidron managed to negotiate new arrangements. Then Sony and Warner, who had both signed up to the original Beyond Oblivion venture, arrived saying that their contracts were very much still valid, and therefore they’d gladly take the circa $50 million advances they had both been promised.
The new Beyond company seemingly argued that the wording of the original Boinc contracts meant that label partners were only due their advances if and when a commercial launch took place. The labels, though, did not concur, and threatened to sue, a move that would have hindered greatly the new Boinc company’s bid to move beyond the bankruptcy of the old entity.
But then on Monday it was announced a deal had been reached, which should see each major get up to $2 million from the monies created by the sale of the old bankrupt firm to Kidron’s new entity.
A lot less than what they had been due under their original agreements with the old company though. So why settle? Possibly because the majors realise there simply isn’t any money available to pay that kind of advance (as it was the original Boinc was relying on its own advances from technology partners to meet those promises). Or possibly because Kidron has convinced then that the second generation Boinc is something worth being involved in.
Either way, a judge must now rule on the proposed agreement.
