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The recording industry's off-key strategy


Ten years ago, as the Internet began to mushroom in popularity and emerging technologies enabled consumers to make nearly perfect copies of digital content, the recording industry embarked on a two-pronged strategy in response to the changing business environment. First, it emphasized copy-control technologies, often referred to as digital rights management (DRM), that many in the industry believed would allow it re-assert control over music copying. Second, it lobbied the Canadian government for a private copying levy to compensate for the music copying that it could not control. While the industry’s approach proved successful on the legal front — the… Read more »

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Rubin Turns To Linkin Park, Weezer After Grammys


Rick Rubin never having won the Producer of the Year Grammy was the musical equivalent of Martin Scorsese never having won the best-director Oscar. And on Sunday, two weeks before Scorsese is expected to finally get his prize, Rubin was at last honored – and then honored again and again and again. In the end, Rubin walked away (not literally – he did not attend) with five Grammys: for Producer of the Year; Album of the Year and Country Album of the Year for the Dixie Chicks’ Taking the Long Way; Record of the Year for the Chicks’ “Not Ready… Read more »

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Dead Or Alive singer sues plastic surgeon


Pete Burns, the flamboyant lead singer ’80s band Dead Or Alive, has filed a lawsuit against a London plastic surgeon for allegedly making him look “physically repulsive.” The androgynous frontman, most famous for the hit “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record),” claims Dr. Maurizio Viel performed a terrible job on his lip augmentation procedure at the London Center For Aesthetic Surgery. Burns’s suit complains of swelling, blistering, discharge, and impaired ability to eat, drink, or talk. He claims the damage was so extreme that at one point it looked like his lips would actually need to be surgically removed.… Read more »

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Rookie Music Acts to Watch in 2007


Following are previews of albums due out within the next few months from debut acts or under-the-radar artists due for a breakthrough. PAOLO NUTINI Scottish singer/songwriter Paolo Nutini, who turns 20 January 9, was one of the most noteworthy breakout artists of 2006 for Atlantic Records in the United Kingdom. After an appearance at South by Southwest in Austin last March, his debut single, “Last Request,” reached No. 5 in July on the British charts and also became a substantial airplay hit. His debut album, “These Streets,” subsequently opened at No. 3 with out-of-the-box sales of 35,000, according to his… Read more »

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What if you built a machine to predict hit movies?


One sunny afternoon not long ago, Dick Copaken sat in a booth at Daniel, one of those hushed, exclusive restaurants on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where the waiters glide spectrally fro table to table. He was wearing a starched button-down shirt and a blue blazer. Every strand of his thinning hair was in place, and he spoke calmly and slowly, his large pink Charlie Brow head bobbing along evenly as he did. Copaken spent many years as a partner at the white-shoe Washington, D.C., firm Covington & Burling, and he has a lawyer’s gravitas. One of his bes friends calls… Read more »

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Kelly Osbourne Back in Rehab


Kelly Osbourne is in trouble deep and back in rehab. The 20-year-old spawn of Ozzy has checked into a drug-treatment center in Pasadena, California, according to Us Weekly. Calls to an Osbourne publicist were not immediately returned late Friday night, but a family rep is quoted in the magazine saying, “Kelly is in a facility dealing with some personal issues. She’ll be back in a few weeks.” An unnamed source close to Osbourne tells Us Weekly, “She’s slipped into some of her old problems and is not doing so well. Everyone is supporting her.” This is the youngest Osbourne’s second… Read more »

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O Tackles Folk Music, Porn


Forget “Kumbaya” and “Home on the Range.” Next year the lyrics of punky-spunky Karen O may be heard around the campfire. While her band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are in the very early stages of a new album, Karen says they’ve been toying with some folky sounds for their follow-up to Fever to Tell. “There is some acoustic guitar – a first – and Brian [Chase] has been studying tabla, so we may throw some of that in there, too,” she said in an e-mail. “YYY campfire sing-alongs, YYYs go rustic.” While her tongue may be planted firmly in her… Read more »

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Seether Frontman Shaun Morgan Is Very Angry


“Remedy,” the new single by South African neo-grunge band Seether, continues to climb the chart, which is a real thrill for a group that hasn’t released a new album in three years. Yet frontman Shaun Morgan has some issues on his mind that are making him kinda cranky. And even though he knows that whining when you’re shining can be a bad career move, he just can’t hold his tongue. “Our new album is the culmination of a lot of anger and fear of the music industry and the people that happen to have power over our careers,” Morgan said.… Read more »

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Finch Reawaken To Extra-Heavy


Temecula, California, emo quintet Finch have been plenty busy since exchanging fisticuffs with bro-rockers Disturbed at last summer’s Rolling Rock Town Fair. The group has finished a new album, Say Hello to Sunshine, and is scheduled to kick off a tour this week. Guitarist Alex Linares said Say Hello to Sunshine – Finch’s first full-length for Geffen and the successor to their 2002 debut, What It Is to Burn – will signal a change in direction for the band. Those expecting What It Is to Burn, Vol. 2 might be in for a bit of a shock on the June… Read more »

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Man Who Crashed at Prince Show Sentenced


PORTLAND, Ore. – A man who plowed his Lincoln Navigator into four security guards at a Prince concert last year was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison. Omar Rodriguez, 23, of Oregon City, was sentenced Tuesday after a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury convicted him of assault, hit-and-run and reckless endangerment. He was acquitted of attempted murder in the Sept. 1, 2004 incident. During his trial, Rodriguez acknowledged he had been drunk on Remy Martin cognac the day of the accident. On Sept. 1, Rodriguez and his fiancee had attended the Prince concert at the Rose Garden. As they… Read more »

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