Posted: Tue., Feb. 20, 2001

CenterSpan spawns new digital media unit

'Legal' version of site in beta testing

CenterSpan Communications, the company that purchased the assets of music and movie file-sharing site Scour.com in bankruptcy court last year, has formed a new digital media and entertainment group led by attorneys Howard Weitzman and Michael Kassan.

The business unit, located in Los Angeles, will develop content partnerships in the music and film biz for the relaunched "legal" version of the Scour Exchange, which the company is currently beta testing.

The duo comes from digital rights management company Massive Media Group, where Weitzman served as CEO and Kassan was media/e-commerce prexy.

CenterSpan, which acquired Scour in December for $9 million in cash and stock, plans to have the new peer-to-peer service running by March.

Scour, which was partly owned by Michael Ovitz, was facing a $250 billion suit filed by the Recording Industry Assn. of America and Motion Picture Assn. of America over its Scour Exchange -- a Napster-like service that freely enabled Netizens to download music and video files from members' hard drives. CenterSpan does not assume Scour's legal liabilities as part of the takeover.


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