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            B R E A K F A S T   W I T H   T H E   F O O L
                      Monday, November 27, 2000

benjamin.rogers@enron.com
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HEWLETT-PACKARD SETTLES GERMAN COPYRIGHT SUIT
The computer giant will pay for each past and future CD burner
sale.

By Tom Jacobs

Computer behemoth Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HWP) settled German
copyright test case litigation Thursday. The company agreed to
pay GEMA, Germany's top licensing entity, $1.54 for each compact
disc (CD) burner sold since February 1998 and $5.16 for each
future sale. A CD burner allows illegal copying of music off the
Web and onto a personal CD. Industry experts estimate that $500
million is lost annually to CD pirating, with a total of 25
million pirated music files available online. Hewlett-Packard
closed at $35.56 Friday, up 5.57% and 10% above its 52-week low
of $32.63.

GEMA sued Hewlett-Packard in May because it's the German market
leader in CD burners. GEMA initially sought up to $12.90 per CD
burner, now often available for under $200. Hewlett-Packard
spokesperson Jeannette Weisschuh wouldn't estimate the cost to
the company, but she noted that foreign online retailers would
gain an advantage by selling cheaper CD burners -- without
having to pay the fees. "This was a trial to send an example for
the whole market," she said. "It's unfair to the consumers who
have to pay more and unfair to the manufactures because it gives
us a competitive disadvantage."

Most countries have agencies similar to GEMA (the U.S. has ASCAP
and BMI, for example), which collect license fees and pay them
to copyright owners through recording houses and music
distributors. Pre-digital-age copyright laws zapped makers of
equipment such as tape recorders and video players that could be
used to violate copyright laws, but now those laws have been
expanded into a world of CD burners, computer printers, hard
drives, and high-speed modems.

With music industry estimates of $5 billion a year lost through
bootlegging, other countries' licensing bodies are likely
watching Germany and making their own plans. Last Friday, Rex
Moore (TMF Orangeblood) covered developments in the U.S. with
online music file-sharing company Napster, now in cahoots with
-- get this -- German's media giant Bertelsmann.
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NEWS TO GO

General Electric (NYSE: GE) ended speculation this morning by
naming Jeffrey R. Immelt, currently president and CEO of GE Medical
Systems, to succeed CEO Jack Welch when he retires at the end of 2001.
Effective immediately, Immelt is GE's president and chairman-elect,
and will serve on the GE board of directors and join Mr. Welch and
Vice Chairmen Dennis D. Dammerman and Robert C. Wright as a member
of the corporate executive office.

E-tailer Amazon.com's (Nasdaq: AMZN) website was down for 30
minutes the Friday after Thanksgiving, traditionally the busiest
shopping day of the year. Amazon spokesman Bill Curry said, "It
was totally internal, it was a bug in the system that is now
exterminated. It had nothing to do with holiday traffic." The
system was back up by 9:30 am.

After denying a possible merger with Gemstar-TV Guide (Nasdaq:
GMST) last Tuesday, bookseller Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS)
spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating on Friday would not rule it out,
saying that talks between the two companies spanned a wide range
of options.
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Troubled cable and telecom giant AT&T (NYSE: T) stated it will
purchase no more equipment for cable upgrades from Antec Corp.
(Nasdaq: ANTC) or CommScope Inc. (NYSE: CTV) before next year.
The two companies' shares plummeted more than 20 % Friday on the
news. Shares of Scientific-Atlanta Inc. (NYSE: SFA), C-Cor.net
Corp. (Nasdaq: CCBL), and Harmonic (Nasdaq: HLIT), which also
sell cable TV equipment to AT&T, dropped on news they stopped
shipments. AT&T is Harmonic's biggest customer, and its shares
trade near a 52-week low due to continued losses and investor
concerns over AT&T's health.

Bloomberg reports that Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (NYSE: MWD)
has abandoned plans to buy Japan's Nippon Global Securities, and
instead will pursue its own retail offices in Japan. Many
international banks and brokerage firms have targeted Japan,
where most married households -- traditionally through the wives
-- maintained their savings in low or negative interest Post
Office accounts. Financial market liberalization -- the
so-called Big Bang -- has allowed foreign companies recently to
attack the Japanese securities market, known for requiring years
of building personal relationships to achieve business success.
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