Search Results for: The Warning

The rock band System Of A Down, which draws inspiration from diverse influences such as heavy metal and Armenian folk music, released “Steal This Album” on Tuesday in response to Internet users downloading the band’s songs before they’re ready. But how do they protect their music in the future? Singer Serj Tankian said it’s a difficult task. “We are just a little more critical as to who we get involved with,” Tankian told the Associated Press. “There’s so many ways of taking music. I heard certain sessions of another band were downloaded while it was being transferred on ISDN lines.… Read more »

Count Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong among those not supporting President Bush’s moves toward potential war with Iraq. The singer-guitarist is hoping to parlay his band’s popularity into a petition expressing his opinion and the opinion of others like him. Speaking on his band’s official website (greenday.com), Armstrong says: “For those of you who are opposed to the war in Iraq, I want to set up a petition on greenday.net to send to George W. Bush strongly urging him to rethink his plans for a military invasion. This petition isn’t only for people who live in America but people… Read more »

Faced with adverse publicity to copy protection on CDs, a year ago Bertelsmann Music Group bravely gave in and promised to replace a clutch of Natalie Imbruglia CDs which were protected by Midbar’s Cactus Data Shield. But a year is a long time, BMG is at it again, this time apparently set on applying copy protection to all its music products. Not, of course, that this should be surprising. The music companies are absolutely intent on copy-proofing their products, and although they’ll maybe retreat a little when irate consumers pelt them with ordure, they’ll be right back just as soon… Read more »

Concert tours to Southeast Asia have become the latest casualty of recent bomb blasts in Bali and the Philippines with veteran jazz guitarist George Benson and rock groups Red Hot Chili Peppers and Oasis canceling shows. “George Benson did cancel some dates that he had lined up for Indonesia,” promoter Nigel Peters said on Tuesday. “It’s obviously a direct relation to the Bali bombing. That’s the only reason this decision was taken.” A bomb attack at a nightclub on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali on October 12 killed more than 180 people, most of them Australian. Ten people were… Read more »

Verizon Communications faced tough questions from a federal judge on Friday as the telecommunications giant sought to resist being drafted as the recording industry’s copyright policeman. Claiming that the privacy of its users and the viability of the Internet itself were at stake, Verizon argued that it should not have to kick off customers who use “peer to peer” services like Kazaa and Morpheus to download songs for free, and should not be required to monitor its users’ activities. “We don’t want to be the policeman in this process,” Verizon attorney Eric Holder said. Holder faced a skeptical reception from… Read more »

Former allies in the fight against music piracy, Internet access providers and the recording industry, are now headed to court in a dispute over how to target individuals who swap copyrighted material online. The recording industry wants telecommunications giant Verizon Communications to reveal the name of a customer it believes is “a hub for significant music piracy” as it pursues the Internet song-swappers it blames for declining CD sales. Verizon has refused, saying that such a move would violate customer privacy and force Internet providers to serve as the music industry’s online policeman. At issue is a 1998 digital-copyright law… Read more »

In what the recording industry called the largest judgement ever in a U.S. copyright case, a federal jury in Los Angeles has fined a California CD maker more than $136 million for music piracy, officials said Friday. The jury handed down its multi-million dollar verdict against Media Group, a Fremont, California-based CD manufacturer, Wednesday, requiring it to pay $90,000 for each of more than 1,500 songs it copied illegally since 1995. Media Group declared bankruptcy last year after the judge in the case found the company and its then-chief executive, Jimmy Chan, guilty of “willful” violation of copyright laws. While… Read more »

Could George Michael’s latest single and video, “Shoot the Dog,” actually be a shot in the foot? Never one to shy away from controversy, Michael has outdone himself with the animated clip, his first foray into the world of political satire, in which he takes on President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Queen Mum. In the song, Michael criticizes British foreign policy – at least when it comes to dealings with the Middle East – as being too closely aligned with that of the U.S. The video depicts Bush as an idiot and Blair as… Read more »

Ever since “explicit lyrics” warning stickers were introduced in 1985, artists have been only too happy to have their albums labeled, figuring kids who want graphic material will see the sticker as incentive to buy the disc. Following that reasoning, surely they’ll welcome the latest move from the BMG Music Group, which is getting explicit with the explicit lyrics stickers. Starting July 31, discs on the group’s BMG, RCA, J and Arista imprints will, when necessary, include “parental advisory” stickers updated with additional warnings about strong language, violent content or sexual content. The first disc to contain the new labels… Read more »

EMI Group emerged on Tuesday from a dismal year of slumping profits confident that things could only get better, but the music giant’s shares spun lower as a glum industry outlook rattled already jangled nerves. EMI, home to artists such as Radiohead and Kylie Minogue, posted a sharp but expected 40 percent fall in adjusted pre-tax profit and said its radical overhaul was going to plan despite an industry ravaged by an economic slowdown and piracy. The world’s third biggest music company saw its battered stock slide almost seven percent as analysts took fright after a post-results meeting, shrugging off… Read more »