Search Results for: plan b entertainment

Popular music has been upended by every technological advance from electricity and the phonograph to cassette tapes and recordable CDs. The switch from analog to digital accelerated the pace of illicit duplication and distribution, sounding the loudest alarm yet. As Napster struggles to survive, other sites from Gnutella to KaZaa are filling the void. Last week, labels and music publishers sued Audiogalaxy, a booming file-swapping network that lured 3.5 million users in March. The complaint: The Recording Industry Association of America, on behalf of labels, is vigorously seeking to stamp out proliferating Web sites that permit free downloads of music.… Read more »

When Courtney Love has her day in court to argue her case against Geffen Records, Inc., she and her attorney won’t be able to use a pivotal claim Love has touted since the dispute started over a year ago. One of Love’s key arguments has been that recording artists are unfairly excluded from a labor law provision that allows other entertainment workers, such as actors, to be freed from their contracts after seven years. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Fumiko Wasserman dismissed that argument from the suit on Wednesday, according to a court spokesperson. Wasserman green-lighted Love’s other claims… Read more »

The people who tried to take away your VCR are at it again. Hollywood has always dreamed of a “well-mannered marketplace” where the only technologies that you can buy are those that do not disrupt its business. Acting through legislators who dance to Hollywood’s tune, the movie studios are racing to lock away the flexible, general-purpose technology that has given us a century of unparalelled prosperity and innovation. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed the “Content Protection Status Report” with the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, laying out its plan to remake the technology world to suit its… Read more »

A legal fight that has pitted file-swapping software companies Kazaa BV and StreamCast Networks against big record labels and movie studios is collapsing as the small companies run out of funds. Netherlands-based Kazaa BV, which created the file-swapping technology underlying Kazaa, Grokster and earlier versions of Morpheus, is conceding defeat-although its founders already appear to have started another near-identical company. Meanwhile, StreamCast is losing a high-powered attorney with a winning track record against the music companies in court. The disintegration of the companies’ legal case will have little immediate affect on the popular Kazaa and Morpheus file-trading networks themselves. But… Read more »

Bad-boy rapper Eminem’s eagerly awaited album, “The Eminem Show,” is to be released a week earlier than planned, on May 27, because pirate copies are already in circulation, his record label said on Monday. Interscope Records, a unit of France’s Vivendi Universal, said the early worldwide release of the album, which had been due on June 4, should minimize the impact of the illegally manufactured copies. “We’re disappointed that inferior pirated copies of “The Eminem Show” are in circulation, which is why we’ve decided to make the legitimate version available sooner than originally planned,” said Max Hole, Universal’s head of… Read more »

Infinity Resources, Inc. announces the launch of its newest e-commerce web site, DeepDiscountCD.com. DeepDiscountCD.com is the latest addition to IRI’s network of entertainment sites selling VHS videos, DVDs and Compact Discs. With a lowest total price guarantee and free shipping, IRI hopes to duplicate the success that it had with DeepDiscountDVD.com launched in early 2001. DeepDiscountDVD.com rapidly gained popularity among the online community with its low price and free shipping guarantees and its reputation has since spread offline helping to make it one of the largest stand alone DVD stores online. “DeepDiscountDVD.com is a success because customers understand the value… Read more »

German media conglomerate Bertelsmann has agreed to acquire Napster in a deal that will keep the controversial file-sharing service alive for the near future. Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers and Shawn Fanning, Napster’s creator, will remain with the company. On Tuesday Hilbers announced his resignation after Napster’s board of directors rejected a deal for the company to be acquired by the German company. Fanning at that time also decided to leave the company, sources said. Under Friday’s deal, Bertelsmann will pay $8 million to Napster’s creditors to acquire the company’s assets. The transaction opens the door for Napster to file for… Read more »

Nearly 40 years into their never-ending career, the Rolling Stones still know how to stage a gangbusters press conference. On Tuesday (May 7), the band announced its upcoming tour by descending into Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, New York, on a blimp adorned with their infamous lips logo. In 1997, the Stones plugged their tour for Bridges to Babylon by driving a red Cadillac convertible across the Brooklyn Bridge, for the Voodoo Lounge tour in 1994 they sailed into a New York pier on John F. Kennedy’s presidential yacht the Honeyfitz and in 1989 they boarded a train to… Read more »

Her collarbone may be broken, but her spirit seems barely bruised, given Jewel’s plans to resume touring earlier than expected. She’ll return to the stage Monday for shows that looked as though they wouldn’t happen after she fell from a horse on April 24, according to an Atlantic Records spokesperson. Doctors had suggested she not perform for at least a month. The singer’s first day back in the saddle, so to speak, will be May 13 in Stuttgart, Germany. Although she’s capable of singing, she won’t be able to play guitar. Only two dates of her European tour – May… Read more »

Four years ago the record industry and some technology companies banded together to match wits in a combined effort to stamp out Internet music piracy. Their goal: to usher in an age of secure digital songs wrapped in unbreakable code. The Secure Digital Music Initiative was supposed to be just the medicine to marginalize the Napster phenomenon. Soon, there would be SDMI protected CDs and SDMI digital music downloads playing only on SDMI-compliant devices. Failure would mean “the Internet will simply become a world where nothing happens – where nothing has value,” SDMI’s director, Leonardo Chiariglione, said at the time.… Read more »