Nominees announced Wednesday in top categories for the 51st Annual Grammy Awards
It’s a good day for pop-punk as Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan and Billy Talent are all up for a handful of Juno awards. This year’s Juno nominees were just announced and leading the charge is Lavigne, one of Canada’s biggest international exports. She’s up for five awards including Artist Of The Year. Toronto rapper K-OS, West Coast jazz star Diana Krall and 2003’s Juno host, Shania Twain, join Simple Plan and Billy Talent with three noms each. Single Of The Year: River Below, Billy Talent; One Thing, Finger Eleven; Crabbuckit, k-os; Not Ready To Go, The Trews; Party For Two,… Read more »
What everyone always wants to know is: who’s the worst? Meaning: which really famous person out there is a berk whose lack of personality is in inverse proportion to their abundance of fame? And the answer is, of course, all of them. No, it’s not. It’s Jon Bon Jovi. The next question – who’s the best, of course – is more difficult. The interviewees I like are the ones that turn out to be more than you expected, whether that’s more intelligent, or honest, or bonkers, or fun, whatever. And there are plenty of those. Madonna (sharper), Björk (wilder), James… Read more »
The week the music industry brought suit against 261 users of Internet file-sharing services, Donald L. McCabe was in St. Louis to talk about a different form of digital copying. Mr. McCabe, a Rutgers University professor, has made a career of studying the cheating of American high school and college students. His most recent study found that cheating was spreading almost like file-sharing. Of more than 18,000 students surveyed, 38 percent said they had lifted material from the Internet for use in papers in the last year. More striking to Mr. McCabe, 44 percent said they considered this sampling no… Read more »
Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, citing concerns about student privacy, moved yesterday to quash subpoenas issued by the recording industry to discover the identities of students the industry says are illegally distributing copyrighted music. The moves represent one of the first major obstacles for the recording industry in its campaign against ordinary computer users who share copyrighted music. Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said he was disappointed and vowed legal action to obtain the information. “These universities have chosen to litigate this in an attempt to deny copyright holders the right… Read more »
Avril Lavigne probably never went to band camp, but that didn’t disqualify her from the soundtrack for “American Wedding,” the third slice of celluloid from the “American Pie” series. The previously unreleased Avril song “I Don’t Give” will be featured on the disc, which comes out July 22. The track was recorded during the session for Let Go, and is about an independent girl who refuses to be played. “You know I’m not gonna cry/ About some stupid guy/ A guy who thinks he’s all that,” she sings in the chorus. The 17-song “American Wedding” soundtrack also features an unreleased… Read more »
Mickey Mouse’s days at Disney could be numbered and paying royalties for warbling George Gershwin tunes could become a thing of the past if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with an Internet publisher in a landmark copyright case this week. The high court will hear the case Wednesday that could plunge the earliest images of Disney’s mascot and other closely held creative property into the public domain as early as next year. If upheld, the precedent-setting challenge could cost movie studios and heirs of authors and composers millions of dollars in revenue as previously protected material becomes available free of… Read more »
The Librarian of Congress has rejected proposed royalty rates that would have charged Internet broadcasters based on each Web user that listens in. Librarian James H. Billington will issue a final decision setting the new rates by June 20, the U.S. Copyright Office said Tuesday. The Copyright Office ruled in December 2000 that organizations distributing music and other radio content over the Internet must pay additional fees to record companies that hold song copyrights. In February, an arbitration panel proposed rates based on each person who is receiving a broadcast sent online. The rates ranged from.07 of a penny per… Read more »
Indie labels and artists’ reps hit Capitol Hill Tuesday in an 11th-hour bid to push through a new royalty rate that Webcasters will have to pay for music streamed on the Internet. Webcasters say the rate set by a special arbitration panel will put them out of business, and Wednesday morning will ask the Senate Judiciary Committee to intervene. The congressional hearing comes less than a week before Librarian of Congress James Billington is due to announce the official rate. The label executives mounting Tuesday’s counteroffensive on Capitol Hill said the record biz is willing to live with the proposed… Read more »
The following is a complete list of winners at the 44th annual Grammy Awards, which took place at the Staples Center on Wednesday. Categories marked with an asterisk were handed out during the main, televised ceremony. * RECORD OF THE YEAR “Walk On” – U2 * ALBUM OF THE YEAR “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” – various artists * SONG OF THE YEAR “Fallin”‘ – Alicia Keys, songwriter (Alicia Keys) * NEW ARTIST Alicia Keys * FEMALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE “I’m Like a Bird” – Nelly Furtado MALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight” – James Taylor… Read more »
