Search Results for: The Warning

The race for governor in California is beginning to look like an episode of “Hollywood Squares.” After weeks of “will he or won’t he?” speculation, “Terminator” star Arnold Schwarzenegger announced on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” on Wednesday that he is running for the state’s top office. The 56-year-old former bodybuilder and action movie star said he made his decision because politicians in his home state are “fiddling, fumbling and failing.” The burly pop icon said he aims to bring “California back to what it once was” following what he said was the failure of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis’… Read more »

Parents, roommates – even grandparents – are being targeted in the music industry’s new campaign to track computer users who share songs over the Internet, bringing the threat of expensive lawsuits to more than college kids. “Within five minutes, if I can get hold of her, this will come to an end,” said Gordon Pate of Dana Point, California, when told by The Associated Press that a federal subpeona had been issued over his daughter’s music downloads. The subpoena required the family’s Internet provider to hand over Pate’s name and address to lawyers for the recording industry. Pate, 67, confirmed… Read more »

Their profanity-laced rock shows in the 1970s and ’80s drew the ire of the U.S. Senate, where Al and Tipper Gore accused them of endangering the morals of America’s youth and undermining parental authority. Two decades later, Twisted Sister is playing New Jersey’s two most family friendly venues – the Meadowlands State Fair, and Six Flags Great Adventure – and the “F” word is strictly off limits, by mutual agreement. Lead singer Dee Snider, who uses it dozens of times in a 90-minute concert, said the costumed, mascara-wearing band best known for hits like “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and… Read more »

Nearly two years after it sued Napster into submission, the recording industry has discovered it’s not enough to try to beat Internet music purveyors whose digital distribution techniques allow copyright violations. It also has to join them. To discourage piracy, the multibillion-dollar industry has in recent months moved beyond lawsuits against file-swapping services. It has employed hacker tactics to flood such sites with bogus files and even taken to suing students who created mini-Napsters on college networks. At the same time, however, the music labels have finally embraced the very online distribution model many had long resisted, one that analysts… Read more »

While the World Health Organization said that it believes the worst of severe acute respiratory syndrome is over in Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam – which got a clean bill of health on Monday for being the first nation to contain the virus – SARS is still affecting tour and promotional plans for many artists who were set to visit those regions. The Rolling Stones were the first to pull out of Asian concerts – their first-ever concerts in China – when news of the disease broke in March, though they did play two shows in Singapore. They also… Read more »

A federal judge rejected a constitutional challenge Thursday by Verizon Communications Inc., which is trying to avoid turning over the names of two of its Internet subscribers suspected of illegally offering free music for downloading. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who ruled against Verizon in January in the same case, determined that First Amendment protections concerning anonymous expression do not conflict with the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law permits music companies to force Internet providers to turn over the names of suspected music pirates upon subpoena from any U.S. District Court clerk’s office, without a judge’s signature… Read more »

The recording industry directed its anti-piracy campaign at large companies in the United States, Europe and Asia on Thursday, warning them that employees are illegally downloading music on company time. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a global trade group representing the major music labels, said it had begun issuing brochures to thousands of companies spelling out the legal and technological dangers of giving employees access to online file-sharing networks. “We were surprised to see that peer-to-peer services are being accessed by a lot of companies’ computer networks,” Allen Dixon, general counsel at IFPI in London told Reuters.… Read more »

Internet providers must abide by music industry requests to track down computer users who illegally download music, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a case that could dramatically increase online pirates’ risk of being caught. The decision by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates upheld the recording industry’s powers under a 1998 law to compel Verizon Communications Inc. to identify one of its Internet subscribers who was suspected of illegally trading music or movies online. The music industry knew only a numerical Internet address this person was using. The ruling means that consumers using dozens of popular Internet file-sharing programs… Read more »

Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong has honored late-Clash frontman Joe Strummer by including a recording of a Strummer song during his latest audio message to fans on Green Day’s official website (greenday.com.) “This is for Joe,” Armstrong said before letting spin the original version of the Clash’s “Bankrobber.” The reggae/dub song first appeared in the United States on the Clash’s 1980 EP compilation, Black Market Clash. The 50-year-old Strummer succumbed to a heart attack in his U.K. home on December 22. Armstrong also thanked Green Day fans for signing an Iraq anti-war online petition that he promoted in recent weeks.… Read more »

Green Day calls the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area home, but singer-songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong is going to head north for the holidays. “I think I’m going to go to Minnesota and experience some cold weather and hang out with my in-laws.” Armstrong shared some Christmas memories. His favorite, he said, was “probably when I got a guitar for Christmas, [that] was the most memorable one.” Asked if he knew he’d find the instrument under the tree. “No, I didn’t really know. I got this guitar when I was 8 years old. It’s an old blue Fernandez Stratocaster, and I’ve had… Read more »