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Hollywood and Silicon Valley carried their battle over Internet piracy to Capitol Hill on Thursday, debating the need for technology to prevent the illegal trading of movies and television shows online. The entertainment industry told lawmakers that without copy protection the threat of extensive piracy will force the industry to move its best programming to pay services such as cable and satellite TV. “Over-the-air television as we know it today will be a thing of the past,” said Fritz Attaway, an executive vice president with the Motion Picture Association of America. He testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on… Read more »

Relatives of two victims of the deadly Rhode Island nightclub fire sued the club owners and the rock band Great White among others on Tuesday in likely the first wrongful death suit related to the blaze, the plaintiffs’ lawyer said. The lawsuit was filed in Providence Superior Court in Rhode Island on behalf of the families of Donald Roderiques and Tina Ayer. Their lawyer, Brian Cunha, said he expected to file more suits on behalf of four other families later this week. He said he would ask the jury for at least $1 million per victim. The Feb. 20 fire… Read more »

British pop singer George Michael, who has spoken out against a possible war on Iraq, has criticized plans by Lee Ryan of British boy band Blue to gather pop stars to record a protest song. Ryan said last week he hoped to approach stars such as Justin Timberlake, Pink and Kylie Minogue for a song in the spirit of Band Aid, the 1984 record to aid Ethiopian famine relief. But Michael, 39, said the prospective participants were too young and politically naive to carry it off. “I’m begging, I’m hoping that there will not be a Band Aid 2 because… Read more »

Hip-hop impresario Sean “P.Diddy” Combs is within a hair’s breadth of inking a worldwide distribution deal for his Bad Boy Entertainment imprint with Universal Motown Records Group. The partners haven’t put pen to paper yet, but the pact is 80% to completion, said a source close to the situation. The deal, which carries a fairly short term of between two and three years, is said to be worth roughly $10 million – a fraction of the $100 million Combs was seeking when he first cut Bad Boy loose from BMG last year. However, it does allow Combs to retain 100%… Read more »

Singer-actress Courtney Love was detained Tuesday at Heathrow airport after an airline claimed she verbally abused the crew of a trans-Atlantic flight. Love was “verbally abusive toward our cabin crew and disruptive” on a Virgin Atlantic flight from Los Angeles to London, airline spokesman Paul Moore said. No one was injured on the Boeing 747, which carried 201 passengers and 20 crew. TV channel Sky News aired pictures of Love, 38, being escorted by two officers from the plane to a police van on the runway after the flight landed about 11 a.m. She smiled at the camera and covered… Read more »

The biggest winners turned out to be MIAs at the 30th annual AMAs, including Eminem, winner of a leading four American Music Awards. Others absent when their names were called at Monday night’s American Music Awards were the bands Creed and the Dixie Chicks, who won two awards apiece. Tim McGraw, who sang a “Tiny Dancer” duet with Elton John at the start of the nationally televised show, left for Nashville before winning favorite male country artist, and Mary J. Blige – another absentee – was named favorite female hip-hop artist. Eminem won in every category in which he was… Read more »

Blamed by shareholders for AOL Time Warner’s sharp fall in fortunes, Steve Case said he will step down as chairman of the conglomerate he helped create – a marriage of old and new media first hailed as revolutionary but now struggling for a future. Case’s departure means the company’s leadership will be without any of the key architects of the blockbuster merger of America Online and Time Warner in 2001. The company said Sunday he would step down in May. In a brief statement, Case said he had concluded AOL Time Warner was better off without him as chairman. “Some… Read more »

Call them the new poster boys of pop punk. Dub them bearers of a torch once carried by Green Day and Rancid. Pronounce them the best thing to happen to the genre since the invention of the pogo. Just don’t call New Found Glory the next big thing. “I’d hate to be the next big thing,” singer Jordan Pundik said. Rather than ride a rocket to the top, Pundik and bandmates Cyrus Bolooki (drums), Chad Gilbert (guitar), Ian Grushka (bass) and Steve Klein (guitar) adopt a policy of slow and steady, careful not to suffer from overexposure. “Our videos aren’t… Read more »

Sprint Corp. on Wednesday said it would offer Listen.com’s Rhapsody music subscription services to its broadband customers, joining a growing list of such providers to provide music services. Sprint also said it would offer its PCS wireless customers Rhapsody 411, a music information service, including album reviews, artist recommendations, album art and full-color artist photos directly from their phones. Sprint is the second wireless company to offer Rhapsody 411 after AT&T Wireless Services Inc, underscoring the trend that wireless carriers are increasingly looking to offer music features. Sony Corp., for instance, recently bought a provider of cellphone ring-tones while two… Read more »

Paul McCartney defended his decision to reverse the order of the famous Lennon-McCartney songwriting credit and on Wednesday urged Yoko Ono not to overreact. After 40 years of second billing to John Lennon, McCartney has turned the tables on his late Beatles collaborator in his new project. “Back in the U.S. Live 2002,” a two-CD live album, includes 19 classic Beatles songs billed as written by “Paul McCartney and John Lennon.” “There’s no question this is an attempted act of Beatle revisionism,” said Elliot Mintz, spokesman for Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono. “And it does appear to be an attempt to… Read more »