TOKYO(September 18, 2002)--EBISTRADE, INC. (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Ryoji Terai;www.ebistrade.com), a new business incubator, will form an alliance with imaging technique developing venture company, Visionare Inc. (Head office: Meguro-ku, Tokyo; President: Hiroshi Uchikoga), and jointly develop a field of multi-purpose recording media DVD-based promotion.

In an environment where personal computers with DVD-ROM drives (approx. 12 million units), DVD players (approx. 4 million units) and PlayStation2 game machines (approx. 10 million units) are rapidly becoming widespread, and demand is shifting significantly from CD-ROM and VHS to DVD, promotion utilizing DVD media, which enables the distribution of high-quality image contents regardless of the Internet environment, are coming under the spotlight.

Visionare's "DVD MAGICTM " is a system for controlling the playback of DVD content, through a unique internet-based authentication system. This system allows one to interactively utilize recorded media, which was traditionally neglected after distribution. Since the system also realizes strict copyright management, this technology simultaneously meets the needs of both "owners of copyright who wish to conduct image promotion while protecting copyright" and "business entities which wish to distribute image content to users at low cost".

Owing to the price reductions resulting from the mass production (pressing) of DVDs, attention is being drawn to methods for utilizing DVDs as a way of conducting image promotion for general consumers. The use of "DVD MAGICTM " enables a new development, in which both media - images and the Internet are operated in unison.

"DVD MAGICTM " has been adopted by SOFTBANK Publishing Inc., as an image system including movie trailers, and every month since May it has been included with its publication "PC-Life + DVD", the first PC magazine to attach a DVD-ROM to a periodical. In addition, "DVD MAGICTM " has been also adopted by "Yahoo! BB Magazine", a broadband magazine, for including broadband introduction images on a CD-ROM.

EBISTRADE will treat DVD-based promotion as a package; from DVD media planning, image gathering, image creation and various designs to contracted DVD press, and will propose the system widely as a new promotion media, with the use of image media, to advertisers, publishers, advertising agencies and Internet-related businesses. The standard price of "DVD MAGICTM ", including all packaging expenses, is approx. 2 million yen for 10,000 DVDs. EBISTRADE aims to achieve sales of approx. 200 million yen from 4 to 5 business accounts during the first fiscal year, and approx. 2 billion yen in fiscal 2005. It is also planned to develop the service in the US, China and Korea through alliances with local partner companies.