N2K Accused of Breaching Ticketmaster Pact

Ticketmaster Corp. filed a
lawsuit against music retailer N2K Inc., alleging breach of contract and
claiming N2K violated the terms of a marketing agreement between the two
companies by repudiating the contract and defaulting on a payment.

N2K, which operates the MusicBoulevard site on the Web and is
merging with CDNow, signed a contract last spring to become Ticketmaster’s
exclusive online music retailer. Under the terms of the deal, N2K was to pay
Ticketmaster $12 million over two years in return for sales, marketing and
advertising services on the Ticketmaster Web site.

On Monday, New York City-based N2K formally notified Ticketmaster that it did
not intend to honor the agreement, according to the suit filed in Los
Angeles Superior Court. N2K allegedly defaulted on a $3 million payment owed
to Ticketmaster on Nov 1.

In the court action, Ticketmaster states that it fully performed all of its
obligations under the contract by providing both online and offline services
to N2K.

There was no immediate comment from N2K.