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LIONS GATE TO BUY ARTISAN FOR $160 MILLION

SANTA MONICA - Lion's Gate Entertainment Corp. has agreed to acquire Artisan Entertainment Inc., a private independent film producer and distributor, for $160 million cash, plus the assumption of debt.

The proposed acquisition will create a company with more than 8,000 entertainment titles, the companies said.

A spokesman for Vancouver, British Columbia-based Lions Gate said the acquisition includes the assumption of about $ 40 million in debt, putting the total value of the deal at slightly above $200 million, plus performance-based compensation.

The deal for Artisan Entertainment of Santa Monica comes after an extensive five- month auction, which attracted interest along the way from suitors including comic-book publisher Marvel Enterprises Inc., Harvey Weinstein's Miramax Films and a team led by ex-USA Films Chairman Scott Greenstein and buyout firm Thomas H. Lee Co., the New York Post reported Monday.

The proposed acquisition of Artisan is expected to close by the end of the year. It is subject to customary closing conditions, including antitrust regulatory approvals.

GERMAN SUPPLIER BOWS TO LEGAL ACTION

LONDON - Santa Clara-based Macrovision Corporation, a provider of digital rights management and copy protection technologies, has announced that Media Markt TV-Hifi-Elektro GmbH Frankfurt will not appeal against the interim injunction obtained by Macrovision last week under the newly-enacted German Copyright Act.

The holding company - Media Saturn Systemzentrale GmbH - also said that "Media Markt has adjusted itself to the new copyright law situation and will in future comply with the law."

As a consequence, Media Markt has removed all units of the Macro 2000 copy protection circumvention device from its outlets in Germany.

The new Copyright Act prohibits the sale of copy protection circumvention devices in Germany. The injunction is one of the first legal actions enforced following the Copyright Act's enactment one month ago.
 
Macrovision Corporation holds a total of 148 issued or pending US patents and 1,036 issued or pending international patents and has international offices in London, Frankfurt, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong and Seoul.

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