Search Results for: Disney

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 »

Chicago rockers Disturbed have upset the Dixie Chicks’ three-week run as chart champs, selling more than 283,000 copies of their second album to debut atop the Billboard 200 albums chart, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday. The riff-wielding quartet has come a long way in its short career. Disturbed’s 2000 debut, The Sickness, while eventually selling more than 2.6 million copies, took nearly two months to crack the chart after its release. What’s even more impressive is that Disturbed’s first-place showing came without an unavoidable, playlist-friendly video. The clip for the LP’s first single, “Prayer,” encountered restrictions because it was… Read more »

Kelly Osbourne is still dropping an album, but her Hollywood acting debut will have to wait. Ozzy’s youngest daughter has dropped out of a remake of the 1977 Disney teen classic “Freaky Friday,” currently in production. Starring a young Jodie Foster, the original movie was based on Mary Rodgers’ novel about a tomboy and her combative mother who magically switch bodies after wishing they could be someone else. Osbourne, who was set to play the young girl’s best friend, pulled out of the picture due to scheduling conflicts surrounding the promotion cycle of her debut album, her publicist said. The… Read more »

“Elvis is in your jeans.” “He’s in your cheeseburgers.” “Elvis is in Nutty Buddies!” “Elvis is in your mom!” Never has punk novelty act Mojo Nixon’s 1987 song “Elvis is Everywhere”* been more accurate than now. In the year of the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, the King of rock ‘n’ roll topped the British charts. His songs grace Walt Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” movie soundtrack. Hundreds of thousands of fans each year converge at Graceland, his home in Memphis, to pay homage to “The King.” Now, taking a page from the handbook of his most loyal subjects, The… Read more »

The king of rock ‘n’ roll was no businessman. When Elvis Presley died, his finances were in such sad shape that the managers of his estate considered selling Graceland. His white-columned, Georgian-style home was just too expensive to maintain. But instead the house was opened to tourists, and 25 years after his death on Aug. 16, 1977, Graceland attracts 600,000 visitors a year and has made his sole heir, daughter Lisa Marie, a very wealthy woman. Sell Graceland? Don’t be silly. “Every few months, a tabloid somewhere in the world will come out with a screaming headline that Lisa Marie… 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 »

Veteran rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers has parted ways with its bass player of 20 years, citing his “ongoing personal problems.” Howie Epstein, who got into trouble with the law last year, will be replaced on tour by Ron Blair, the original member he subbed for in 1982, the band said in a statement on Thursday. The group’s management firm declined to comment any further on the personnel shift, the first since drummer Stan Lynch left in 1994 after a blowout with bandleader Petty. The band, which formed in 1975, is best known for such hits as “American… Read more »

Matt Sharp, founding bassist for Weezer, has filed a lawsuit against his former bandmates, their ex-manager and a slew of band accountants seeking compensation and credit for songs on Weezer’s first two albums. At the heart of the lawsuit lies a catalog of some of Weezer’s most beloved songs, including their first single, “Undone (The Sweater Song),” as well as most of their album Pinkerton (“Tired of Sex,” “Getchoo,” “No Other One,” “Why Bother?,” “Across the Sea,” “The Good Life,” “El Scorcho,” “Pink Triangle,” “Falling for You”) and a handful of B-sides (“You Gave Your Love to Me Softly,” “I… Read more »

R.E.M.’s Peter Buck says he has no recollection of behavior on a Seattle-to-London flight that now finds him facing charges, including assault, in a London court, the BBC reports. Testifying on Wednesday (March 20), Buck claimed that after taking a sleeping pill on the April, 2001 flight, he felt “woozy” and “fear[ed] I had had a heart attack and was in a weird hospital in Disneyland.” When asked if he remembered details for which he is charged, the guitarist told the jury: “None whatsoever.” What Buck does remember is being in a police cell at London’s Heathrow Airport, saying he… Read more »

Singer Celine Dion says she’s not afraid of moving to Las Vegas, where she will begin a three-year, 600-show engagement at Caesars Palace hotel next year. Dion told a news conference Wednesday that her 1-year-old son, Rene-Charles, “is not going to be raised between a craps table and a slot machine. He will not even be in school by the time we leave Las Vegas.” The 33-year-old Canadian singer, who is from Quebec, said Las Vegas has become “more family-oriented – like Disney World, it has everything, water, mountains and golf.” Her husband-manager, Rene Angelil, said the Las Vegas show,… Read more »