OR-Live.com Joins the It's Our Net Coalition

Market Wire, June, 2006

OR-Live, the home of live surgical video on the Internet, today announced its support for the It's Our Net Coalition, a broad alliance of consumers, grassroots groups and businesses working together to protect Internet freedom for all Americans. The Coalition was formed in response to efforts by the telephone and cable industries to convince Congress to allow them to charge higher fees for "premium" Internet service, which would enable these companies to grant preferential access to their own services while blocking or degrading any competing services.

By joining the It's Our Net Coalition, which was founded by Amazon.com, eBay, Google, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Microsoft and Yahoo!, OR-Live unites with a growing legion of individuals and organizations that are fighting to preserve Net Neutrality -- the freedom for users to go wherever they want on the Internet. It is this concept that has enabled millions of prospective patients, healthcare professionals and hospital administrators to view live surgical webcasts from leading hospitals and academic institutions on www.OR-Live.com .

"Our support of the It's Our Net Coalition signals our strong support of Internet users' rights," commented Ross Joel, Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing, slp3D, Inc/OR-Live.com. "Without the safeguards of Net Neutrality, users may have to pay a premium price for access to the medical educational content offered by OR-Live, or may encounter significant barriers to such access. We believe that life-saving information should remain available to everybody, not just to a privileged few."

This Thursday, June 8, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006, which, in its current version, would permit telephone and cable companies to operate Internet and other digital communications services as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight -- thus effectively abolishing Net Neutrality.

In response, the It's Our Net Coalition has endorsed two Net Neutrality bills recently introduced in Congress. The House version, H.R. 5417, sponsored by Reps. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) and John Conyers (D-MI), recently passed the House Judiciary Committee with a 20-13 bipartisan majority. The Senate bill, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, was introduced by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and is expected to be voted on later this month.

"Whether you are a surgeon, an allied health professional, a hospital administrator, a medical student or a surgical patient candidate, if you value your freedom to access important medical information on the Internet, we urge you to contact your Congressional representatives today, and tell them to support Net Neutrality," Joel stated. "Please tell your elected officials to vote against the COPE Act unless it preserves free, universal and non-discriminatory Internet access, and encourage them to support H.R. 5417 and its counterpart Net Neutrality bill in the Senate. The very future of the Internet is at stake."

About OR-Live Surgical Video On Demand (VOD)

OR-Live.com features over 275 live and on-demand surgical events -- with another 150 events expected to be added in 2006 -- providing more than 500 hours of programming. The site makes use of streaming video technology to bring the operating room to the computer screens of viewers worldwide. OR-Live webcasts encompass a wide range of surgical procedures, from heart valve replacements to organ transplants to orthopedic procedures such as knee and hip replacements and shoulder surgeries. The webcasts typically feature innovative new procedures, many of which are minimally invasive, providing patients with the advantages of faster recovery, less pain and an enhanced quality of life.

In addition to the live webcasts, www.OR-Live.com offers video from archives that can be viewed on-demand at any time. OR-Live.com also features the OR-Library, a content area designed to provide healthcare professionals with credible news and information from the medical literature, as well as links to the National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus search engine -- the premier medical search engine, with more than 24 million visitors per month. MedlinePlus.gov features selected surgical videos from OR-Live's collection.

OR-Live has also established video broadcasting partnerships with Apple's iTunes and Google video to expand audience reach and increase consumer/physician engagement. Viewers can locate their video podcasting channel on Apple's iTunes portal, located under the Health/Fitness category, where prospective patients and referring physicians have subscribed to selected health content within iTune's podcast directory. Webcasts can also be viewed on Google Video; this open, online video portal is an adjunct to the world's most popular search engine. OR-Live now provides Google Video with access to full-length webcast programs from previous broadcasts dating back to the last quarter of 2005.