New York, NY - June 1, 2004 - The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA), the premier U.S. mechanical licensing organization, is pleased to announce today that it has entered into an agreement with AMI Entertainment, a subsidiary of Rowe International Corporation, the world's largest and oldest jukebox manufacturer. Under the agreement, HFA will provide licensing for songs from its affiliated music publishers for Rowe AMI's secure digital jukebox network (AMI Entertainment Inc.). HFA represents more than 27,000 music publisher principals. "We are pleased to be able to extend to our affiliated publishers this agreement with Rowe AMI," said Gary Churgin, President and CEO, The Harry Fox Agency. "Rowe, AMI and HFA go back to the days of the player piano, and this relationship is another example of how companies can transition their businesses to take advantage of the new opportunities that digital delivery brings." "This agreement between two historical music companies marks another important step in the evolution of the music delivery system," said Doug Johnson, President and CEO of Rowe. "We are very excited to be working with HFA to enable a secure digital jukebox network which will be able to host a vast selection of genres, from country to hip-hop, with the support of HFA's electronic licensing capabilities." The Rowe AMI network will be launched with an all digital jukebox, which is essentially a special-purpose PC with a touch-screen color LCD or CRT monitor and a moderately sized 40, 80 GB hard drive. The all-digital model allows patrons to search for songs by title, artist, album or genre using graphical search and navigation tools. It will use a broadband connection for both Music on Demand requests as well as for remote Internet-based management of its resident inventory of encrypted MP3 song files stored on the jukebox's internal hard drive. All song play events are tracked by the central music servers. About The Harry Fox Agency
Established in 1927 by the National Music Publishers' Association, HFA represents over 27,000 U.S. music publishers for their mechanical licensing needs, issuing licenses and collecting and distributing royalties. HFA also provides collection and monitoring services to its U.S. publisher clients for music distributed and sold in over 75 territories around the world. For more information about HFA, or to become an affiliate publisher or a licensee, see www.harryfox.com. About Rowe AMI
Rowe International (Rowe), founded in 1909 as Automatic Musical Instruments, Inc. (AMI) making player pianos, is the oldest and largest manufacturer of CD & Internet-connected digital jukeboxes with an estimated 65-70% domestic market share and 55-60% worldwide market share. Of the approximately 350,000 jukeboxes on location and operating throughout the U.S., 230,000 were manufactured under the Rowe AMI brand. Rowe's products are distributed by the number one U.S. network of distributors for coin-operated amusement equipment from 35 full service locations in the U.S. to over 4,000 operators. AMI Entertainment, Inc is a subsidiary of Rowe, and is the company seeking to acquire the musical publishing licenses. Rowe and AMI are based in Grand Rapids, Michigan Media Contacts:
HFA:
Laurie Jakobsen
Harry Fox Agency
212-834-0133
ljakobsen@harryfox.com
Rowe AMI:
Elizabeth Freund, EF/PR
tel 718-858-3550
fax 718-858-3694
zeliz@aol.com
website: www.efpr.net
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