| CMU Daily - on the inside 27 Sep 2002 |
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What was George Harrison’s excuse when he was found in possession of 120 marijuana joints in 1969?
Answer on Monday
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LEGAL WRANGLINGS PART ONE: ONO VERSUS SEAMAN
A US judge has ruled that Frederic Seaman, the former personal assistant of the Lennon family, did break a confidentiality agreement when he wrote a tell-all book after John Lennon’s death. The ruling follows a long running feud between Seaman and Ono, the latter claiming the former profited from selling a whole load of Lennon’s belongings which he stole, and in writing the book despite having agreed to keep his time with the Lennon family confidential. Ono began court action against Seaman in 1998. On hearing the ruling her lawyer told reporters that the ruling “will prevent Seaman from future exploitation of the Lennon family”. Seaman’s attorney, Glenn Wolther said: “We respectfully disagree with the judge’s decision. We believe it violates Mr Seaman’s right to free speech.”
Meanwhile it has been confirmed Lennon’s classic album ‘Mind Games’ will be re-released next month including three previously unreleased tracks - demo versions of 'Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)', 'Bring On The Lucie (Freda Peeple)' and 'Meat City'. The release of the album, remastered by Yoko at the Abbey Road Studios in London, will coincide with what would have been Lennon's 62nd birthday on 9 Oct.
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MORRISON FACES NEW ALLEGATIONS
Rapper Mark Morrison has been arrested in West London in connection with rape allegations. He was arrested in the early hours of yesterday morning after a woman phoned police alleging an attack. Morrison was taken to a Kensington police station and later bailed to return next month. A Scotland Yard spokesman told the BBC: "A 30-year-old man was arrested in Kensington in connection with an allegation of rape.”
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LEGAL WRANGLINGS PART TWO: LABELS VERSUS EASYJET
The BPI is launching court action against Easyjet’s internet café division just to shut them up! They’re upset that the company has been talking publicly about their negotiations with the record labels regarding a £1million claim over music downloads. The record labels claim the internet café chain owes them the money because until a year ago they allowed copyrighted music to be downloaded and burned onto CD in their internet cafes. The Easy group reckon the labels are being a bit greedy in their claim and have been saying so publicly.
The BPI and Sony have said they want to reach an out-of-court settlement on their claim, but that that is only possible if both sides keep ongoing conversations confidential. At the High Court in London Mr Justice Collins said the label’s application for a "gagging" order would get a full hearing next week.
Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou told reporters he was offering £30,000 for a UK settlement, and £50,000 for a global case – but couldn’t agree to the record label’s claims of £100,000 and £380,000 respectively. He went onto say the labels should legalise downloading, and that he’d be willing to buy licences to let music fans download tracks in his cafes. "I think that music downloading should be legalised. It's a far cheaper way than putting CDs into little boxes. You can't stop the consumers doing it [the chain put up signs saying music downloading is not allowed, but admit many will ignore then] so you might as well legalise it. They should take it away from bootleggers and turn it into a legitimate business." He added that the "gagging" order came about because the music industry was embarrassed by its £1m demand becoming public knowledge.
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ALIEN ANT FARM WILL RETURN
Alien Ant Farm frontman Dryden Mitchell has been talking to Rolling Stone about the future of the band after being involved in a bus crash last May. One of a number of band bus incidents this summer – the Ant Farm’s was probably the most serious – the driver was killed, Mitchell broke his neck, and all of the band and six crew members were injured.
"I'm getting better each week. People kept telling me everything was going to be OK, but I could feel it in the doctors' voices that it wasn't for sure. I broke my C-2 - Christopher Reeve broke the same one. And my bone flicked into my spinal cord. That's not good. I have a lot of nerve damage. Dead fingertips, so its hard to play the guitar, and if I move my head down, my arms fall asleep. Weird sensations."
He confirmed it will be a couple of months before the band returns to the studio. "No rush," he said. "I devote all my time to therapy. I've been riding a bike, which does me good, especially considering that the bike could have been a wheelchair."
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LEGAL WRANGLINGS PART THREE: COURTNEY VERSUS UNIVERSAL, UNIVERSAL VERSUS EVERYONE
It looks likely Courtney Love will reach a settlement with Universal’s Geffen label after a longtime legal dispute over her recording contract. In an interview earlier this week Love, who confirmed her disputes with other ex-Nirvana members had been resolved, also hinted her legal wranglings with Geffen were ending. Although her lawyers wouldn’t comment Billboard reckon an agreement could be made next week – Love is likely to win win, getting a release from her contract and a multimillion-dollar advance on the projected earnings of forthcoming Nirvana archival releases.
Meanwhile Geffen have been firing out legal threats to radio stations around the world who have been playing the previously unreleased Nirvana track ‘You Know You're Right’, which was recorded just months before Cobain’s suicide. The track, expected to appear on a planned Greatest Hits album, surfaced on the internet and a number of radio stations around the world have been playing it – in the UK Zoë Ball on Xfm and Jo Wiley on Radio 1 both played the track. But stations in the UK and US have received warnings from the record label that they must not play it again until promos for the greatest hits album are made available
Andy Ashton, Head Of Music at Xfm, told NME: "We played 'You Know You're Right' because we felt our audience deserved to hear it - for their love of the band. It's unfortunate, that, as a result we have upset their record label. We will however, adhere to the record company's ruling and not play the track again until it is officially cleared."
Other stations are likely to adhere to the record label’s wishes too, so if you missed it you’ll have to wait (or you could just type 'You Know You're Right' into Google of course - we found four sites offering the track for download).
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US ACTS JOIN ANTI-PIRACY CAMPAIGN
Elsewhere in the world of evil downloads, the US music industry has launched an advertising campaign designed to teach young music fans that downloading is like drugs – just say "no" kids. Britney Spears, Nelly, Missy Elliott, Eminem, Madonna, Missy Elliott, Elton John and Luciano Pavarotti are among the acts to appear in a series of TV and print ads.
"Too many people don't realise that when you download a song you like from a peer-to-peer network or some other unauthorised internet service, you're stealing music,” Hilary Rosen of the Recording Industry Association Of America told reporters. “We want to hit fans with the message that downloading music illegally is, as Britney Spears explains, the same as going into a CD store and stealing the CD.”
Meanwhile the anti-piracy brigade has found a new enemy in the form of European net service provider Tiscali. They has signed a deal with Kazzaa, one of the most popular Napster clones. The Kazaa software which, despite its legal uses, can be used in the same way as Napster to swap music, has been reportedly downloaded 120 million times. A new version of the software allows users to share entire playlists of music and download all tracks in a list as a collection, It also adds 'reliability information' about bogus files used by some labels to counter piracy and includes an anti-virus system.
Under the partnership deal Tiscali will be promoted to Kazaa users - the file share company will get a fee for every user that signs up to Tiscali as a result of the advertising. Tiscali sees file sharing services like Kazaa as motivation for web users to upgrade to its broadband services. Needless to say Kazaa is on the record label’s list for future legal action – it remains to be seen what they make of the company’s tie up with an ISP giant.
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HIP HOP WARS ON LONDON RADIO
London mainstream dance station Kiss has signed up DJ Adam F (the son of Alvin Stardust!) to front a weekend hip hop show. The show will go head to head with hip hop shows on Radio 1 and London alternative station Xfm.
Radio 1’s long running Tim Westwood show currently airs from 9pm-midnight on Saturdays. Xfm conveniently schedule their excellent hip hop show fronted by Zane Lowe to run from midnight to 2am. But the new Kiss show, running from 11pm to 1am, will cut into both.
Kiss is convinced the prolific DJ and producer - who has worked with everyone from Goldie to Everything But The Girl to De La Soul - will attract a large following. "Adam F is an important signing for Kiss 100 as he represents the new face of hiphop and drum 'n' bass on radio," Kiss programme director Simon Long told the Media guardian.
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MORE POP IDOL RECORDS
American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson has already broken a world record – her debut double a-side is the fastest moving single on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart ever. "This is the first single to sell more than 200,000 copies since 1999," Billboard's Director of Charts, Geoff Mayfield added.
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MADONNA NUMBER ONE
The results of VH1’s Top 100 women in music is in, and Madonna is, perhaps unsurprisingly, at number one - getting 17% of the 750,000 votes cast by VH1 viewers. Also in the top five are Kylie Minogue, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin. The highest rated British star was Kate Bush at 10 - with Annie Lennox at 14, Dido at 21, Gabrielle at 41, Texas’ Sharleen Spiteri at 49 and Sophie Ellis Bextor at 69. Kim Wilde comes in at 70, the late Kirsty MacColl at 74, Lulu at 93, and Bananarama at 95. The Spice Girls as a group are at 44, but only Geri Halliwell (at 44) and Mel C (at 58) got solo listings.
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Answer to Thursday’s pop quiz:
When Paul McCartney was find £100 in 1973 for growing cannabis on his farm in Scotland – what was his excuse (and how many other times has McCartney had a brush with the law over the drug)?
He claimed he’d been given seeds by a fan and, as a keen gardener, had grown them to find out what they were! We’re aware of two other cannabis incidents – he was arrested in Sweden in 1972 and in Japan in 1980 for possession. Linda McCartney was also charged in 1975 for possessing the drug.