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![]() PIRATE BAY LAWYER DISCUSSES APPEAL As previously reported, it was revealed last month, just a few days after The Pirate Bay Four were given a year in jail and slapped with a £2.4m fine for their role in enabling mass copyright infringement via their BitTorrent-focused search engine service, that the judge who ruled on the case, Tomas Norstrom was a member of The Swedish Association For Copyright and the Swedish Association For The Protection Of Industrial Property. Some argue his membership of those groups means he would be biased towards the copyright owners in the case - ie the music companies and film studios - plus one of the bodies also counts various lawyers associated with the prosecution as members. Talking about the allegations of bias on Norstrom's part, Samuelsson told Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra: "The younger generation's confidence in the justice system is at stake. I would not say that the process of choosing the judge was rigged - the case was assigned to Norström mainly because he is perceived as an expert in copyright. But it raises questions, especially as this was basically a criminal case. I am in no doubt when I say that he was biased". He continued: "As I understand it, a very large majority of the younger generation think what is taking place here is an utter farce. It's inconceivable that the Court Of Appeal can accept [Norstrom's] ruling". One of the prosecution's lawyers, Henrik Ponten, was also asked for comment, but would only say: "This will now be examined in the Court Of Appeal and we await the trial". -------------------------------------------------- NUDE PAINTING OF MADONNA AND GUY RITCHIE UP FOR AUCTION Brian Clements from McTear's auction house told The Telegraph: "There is no doubt that the recent split of Madonna and Guy has generated increased interest in the painting. [It] created a huge amount of controversy when it was unveiled a few years ago and I think it's safe to say it is one of a kind". COURTNEY LOVE SUED BY AMERICAN EXPRESS The company claim that the star has refused to pay them, presumably because she doesn't believe it was her who spent it. Love has variously accused people of stealing from her in recent years, and last year claimed that singer-songwriter Ryan Adams ran up a huge bill on one of her credit cards in order to pay for the recording of one of his albums. That may indeed be this bill. American Express is seeking the unpaid amount of $352,059.67, plus damages, lawyers fees and late payment charges. -------------------------------------------------- RIHANNA DUE IN COURT OVER BROWN BEATING NEXT MONTH In related news, two bits of bad news relating to photographs for Brown yesterday. First, his lawyer's attempt to find out who leaked photos of a bruised Rihanna to the press shortly after the aforementioned altercation has been blocked by an LA Superior Court judge. Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, is trying to use criticism of the behaviour of the LAPD in their handling of the Rihanna assault allegations as one way of fighting the charges against his client. The leaking of the photos was one of the key criticisms Geragos referenced, but his attempts to force the police to reveal who and how the photos reached the media have failed - presumably because the judge believes the photo issue to be a distraction and, after all, it was Rihanna and not Brown's privacy that was invaded by the publication of the police photos. Elsewhere, an LA photographer is suing Brown over allegations he was beaten by the R&B star's bodyguards after attempting to take pictures of him at a gym. Robert Rosen is seeking unspecified damages for multiple claims, including assault, battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The aforementioned Geragos has dismissed the lawsuit, pointing out that the same photographer unsuccessfully sued actor Pierce Brosnan over similar claims back in 2007. The legal man told reporters: "This is a specious and frivolous lawsuit by one of the paparazzi seeking publicity and a payday. He's done this before and lost. We will vigorously defend against this". -------------------------------------------------- SPECTOR TO BE SENTENCED TODAY As previously reported, the prosecution are pushing for at least nineteen years, I think because they reckon he should also get four years for a related gun crime, in addition to the fifteen years for causing Clarkson's death. However, Spector's lawyer Doron Weinberg has requested the sentence be reduced to just three years. The legal man also again argued Spector's conviction had been based on "conjecture, not facts" and confirmed his client's intention to appeal the ruling. DAVE GAHAN HAS TUMOUR REMOVED, GETS BACK TO TOURING After a quick recovery, the band will resume the tour in Leipzig in Germany on 8 Jun. However, this does mean that the band's planned date at the O2 Dome tomorrow night has been postponed. A new date will be announced shortly and all tickets will remain valid to the rescheduled show. ARTIST BODIES INVESTIGATE WHETHER THEY CAN STOP BNP SELLING MUSIC CDS The BNP store sells a range of compilations, most filled with the sorts of patriotic songs that might be sung at the Last Night Of The Proms, or some kind of nostalgic World War Two evening, but some feature newer songs, like the 'Best Of British Folk'. They're the sort of compilations you'd normally find in service stations or pound shops, it's just here they are being sold by, and in aid of, the BNP. Bragg et al object to music being used to help support the BNP without the people behind the music's permission. The problem is, of course, once an album exists, artists and songwriters have no control over who sells them, and most wholesalers will provide anyone who writes a cheque with stock, especially if they're sitting on a warehouse full of CDs as shit as most of the ones the BNP are selling. However, the MU and FAC are investigating whether the so called 'moral rights' of a songwriter could be said to be infringed when their songs are sold by a political party, especially one as controversial as the BNP. It's the 'right of integrity' that the trade bodies' lawyers would be trying to assert, which only exists in the songs themselves if I remember rightly (ie not the recording). It's an interesting approach to the problem, though 'moral rights' are a bit of a vague concept. Plus the BNP aren't altering the songs they sell, nor stating, or even implying really, that the writers of any of the songs featured on the records they sell would in anyway sympathise with their political views, so I'm not sure how strong a moral rights case the musicians have. But it will be interesting to see if they decide there is a case worth pursuing and, if so, whether they have any success. The BNP, however, say they have no intention of taking the CDs off their online store. A spokesman said: "They [the artists] have already made their money, haven't they? Once that music's gone through a distributor. They're politicising themselves to a high degree by doing this and we wouldn't really be concerned by that. It's up to us what we sell - we're not changing. There's no suggestion through this that artists support the BNP or otherwise. They're barking up the wrong tree, to be honest". Even if the MU and FAC were successful, Excalibur would still presumably be allowed to sell what is surely the most sought after CD in their collection - 'West Wind', "a collection of nationalist songs penned by Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party". I never knew Griffin was so talented - surely we should get him to pen next year's Eurovision entry? NEW SIGUR RÓS ALBUM NEW COMPLETION A capital letter free posting on the band's website reads thus: "sigur rós have been at work in their sundlaugin studio in álafoss the past few weeks recording a full length album, which is now nearing completion. orri told morgunbladid newspaper today that the recordings have been going very well and that the album is taking form as a slower and more ambient record than 'med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust' and 'takk'.... he also describes the music as melodic but much less noisy and more 'out there' than previous albums. the album does not have a release date set but is expected to be released sometime next year". EELS STREAM NEW ALBUM The album is set for release on Monday, but you can hear it right now at www.myspace.com/eels We've already heard it. Duncan wrote a review. Find out what he thought in this week's CMU Weekly, out this afternoon - www.cmuweekly.co.uk TODD RUNDGREN TO PERFORM A WIZARD, A TRUE STAR I'm mentioning this now because Rundgren will play the album live in its entirety for the first time in the UK on 6 Feb 2010 in a one-off performance at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. Tickets went on sale this week. -------------------------------------------------- INVISIBLE PLAYERS RETURN TONIGHT -------------------------------------------------- LIBELLUS LAUNCH -------------------------------------------------- STUDENT OFFER FOR INSOMNIACS BALL - GET IN FOR EIGHT QUID ALBUM REVIEW: Malcolm Middleton - Waxing Gibbous (Full Time Hobby) Buy from iTunes DRE TRACK PREVIEWED ON PEPPER AD You can see the Dre ad here. TERRA FIRMA HAVE TO HELP EMI MEET BANK PAYMENT Well, more specifically to cover interest payments due to Citigroup, the bank who helped finance Terra Firma's acquisition of the London-based major music firm. Given EMI's debts to Citibank were created by Terra Firma bosses it seems only fair they should foot the bill for interest payments, but analysts say that the company's chief Guy Hands and his top team at the equity outfit would have hoped for EMI to be paying its own bank bills by now. As previously reported, the EMI purchase has put quite a strain on Terra Firma, because the board there, insiders say, expected to turn round the flagging major's fortunes pretty quickly once in charge. Although the subsequent credit crunch hasn't helped, some say their failure to do so was mainly caused by some quite substantial misunderstandings of how record companies operate. Officially Terra Firma remain committed to their EMI ownership for the foreseeable future, but with long time EMI suitors Warner Music getting a better rating in the US investment community of late, some wonder whether the boss there, Edgar Bronfman Jr, hasn't got "buy EMI" back on his agenda. If he did make any moves in that direction, and if Terra Firma were open to the suggestion they offload their big music asset, it would be interesting to see if Bronfman's controversial deal with the European indie label community, which was designed to help him get European Commission approval for a combined EMI Warner, still stands. WILL PRS RATES CUT ALLOW PANDORA UK? As previously reported, Pandora bosses shelved plans to launch a UK version of their service because of PRS's rates, and subsequently had to block access to their American website to UK IP addresses in order to comply with licensing rules. Following the news on-demand streaming royalties were being cut from 0.22p per stream to 0.085p, some speculated this might enable Pandora to reconsider its UK ambitions. However, that is looking unlikely. Mainly because Pandora wouldn't operate under the on-demand stream licence, because it is, of course, one of those services that sits between traditional online radio stations and Spotify-style on-demand jukeboxes - its has elements of personalisation and recommendation, but is not truly on-demand, you can't just show up and ask to listen to the new Green Day single, or Eminem album, or BNP leader Nick Griffin's 'West Wind' collection of nationalist songs. You set the player in motion by naming your favourite artist, and then it plays you a stream of music. There's the facility to skip tracks, but not full on-demand functionality. That kind of service sits under PRS's cheaper 'interactive webcaster' licence, which, while also cut as part of the collecting society's online licensing revamp, is only reduced by 23.5%, not the dramatic 61.4% cut that we saw in the on-demand streaming rate. Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy doesn't sound too optimistic about the new webcasting rates and the chances of them enabling Pandora to launch in the UK. He told Digital Music News: "PRS is apparently attempting to characterise the changes made to webcasting rates as similar to those made for on-demand, which I don't believe is an accurate characterization". You might wonder why Pandora doesn't just develop a Spotify type offer, which would presumably be more popular with users and advertisers that its current model, though, of course, while the difference between interactive webcasting and on-demand stream PRS royalty rates is now less, the latter is still more expensive. Plus that's before you consider what the record companies would want to licence their music for a truly on-demand service. The labels have always been more sensitive about the impact of truly on-demand streaming music services on a la carte download sales, and many rumours abound about the premium rates Spotify have agreed to pay the majors in order to get their buy in for their especially user-friendly very on-demand streaming music service. -------------------------------------------------- SPOTIFY NEWS First, Spotify execs this week demoed a mobile version of their service, designed to work on the Google Android mobile phone platform, at the Google IO conference in San Francisco. They then posted a video of the demo on YouTube. It is very much a work in progress, but seemed to get the geeks excited for half an hour yesterday. You can go geek yourself at the URL below. It is one of three mobile versions of Spotify in development, one for the iPhone has been previously previewed, while a version for the Symbian OS is also reportedly being planned. Spotify Android preview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ALGPknOsiU Elsewhere in Spotify news, the company has announced it has a licensing deal in place with Hollywood-based indie label Epitaph, who bring a considerable catalogue to the table, including recordings from The Offspring, Rancid, Pennywise and NOFX. -------------------------------------------------- WARNER AND UNIVERSAL HELP IMEEM BY AGREEING TO LOWER ROYALTIES Warner have a vested interest, of course, given they are shareholders in the digital music firm, but if Universal have actually also dropped their royalty rates, then that's interesting, because it's a sign that the biggest major record company has actually recognised they have a vested interest in at least some of the many digital music services that have launched in recent years from actually becoming profitable going concerns, rather than all digital royalty income being funded by venture capital invested in start ups. Digital Music News report that Napster may also have got more favourable licensing rates from the two majors, helping them launch a more competitive five dollar a month subscription offer in the US. TIME WARNER TO SPIN OFF AOL -------------------------------------------------- UKRD MAKES LOAN TO TLRC UKRD has let it be known it still aspires to buy out TLRC completely, something which would allow a full merger of the two radio groups, and as such its share offer remains. The company's other major shareholder, though, Hallwood, who previously tried to block UKRD from getting control of the TLRC, remain unwilling to sell. Between them, UKRD and TLRC own 26 local radio stations, though TLRC owns the majority. GERI HALLIWELL: "CHERYL COLE IS MY FAULT" The former Spice Girl told the Daily Mail: "I'm so proud of Cheryl Cole. I really fought hard to put her through. I love that I opened that little window of opportunity for her and now she's run with it". Cole has previously complained about her group being dubbed the "new Spice Girls", observing: "We've been around for six years - they were around for 18 months. We recognise what the Spice Girls did, but it really annoys me when you meet girls who go, 'We wannabe the next Spice Girls'". -------------------------------------------------- MY CHEMICAL BABY -------------------------------------------------- PERRY WON'T SELL OUT She told The Daily Star: "I work every day and nothing is for free. I'm not some fucking idiot wasted pop starlet lost on an island somewhere. I have a job, I know my responsibility and I'm always trying to take it to the next level. People had a bet on my head that I'd have to dip out because I wouldn't be able to handle all of it. I went and played every show, then I sold out a 50-city, around-the-world tour, which is awesome - and most of these bitches just hawk breath mints or shoes. No offence to them, but maybe I'll hawk shoes later in life". |
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