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Heath Ledger, the Australian-born actor whose breakthrough role as a gay cowboy in the 2005 movie “Brokeback Mountain” earned him a nomination for an Academy Award and comparisons to the likes of Marlon Brando, was found dead Tuesday in an apartment in Manhattan with sleeping pills near his body, the police said. The police said Mr. Ledger, 28, was found naked on the floor near the bed in an apartment in SoHo that he had been renting. The chief police spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police did not suspect foul play. “There was no indication of a disturbance,” he… Read more »

The daughter of an acclaimed electronic music producer is safe, and her mother remains jailed after authorities in California arrested the woman earlier this week on a child abduction warrant obtained in Maryland, even though the charges have been dismissed.Ashley Duffy is no longer wanted by police, but her arrest Tuesday and subsequent jailing, police and prosecutors in Montgomery County, Md., confirmed to ABC News, was made based on a felony warrant that officials now say should never have been issued. The 3-year-old girl, Kaia, may be safe, but a California court will have to resolve the ongoing custody dispute… Read more »

British rock band Radiohead scored its second No. 1 album on the U.S. pop charts on Wednesday with a release that was initially sold on the Internet under a revolutionary “name-your-own-price” system. “In Rainbows” also topped the charts in Britain, Canada, France, Japan and Ireland, a representative for the group said. The critically acclaimed album sold a relatively modest 122,000 copies during its first official week in U.S. stores, according to Nielsen SoundScan data for the week ended January 6. It sold an additional 10,000 copies the week before, when some retailers put it on shelves ahead of its January… Read more »

Like it or not, major record companies are expected to continue drafting their artist contracts so that labels share a piece of most — if not all — of the artists’ rights in all types of revenue streams, not just record sales, but also concert tickets and t-shirts. Artist lawyers say that their responses are as varied as the rights and terms in each label’s “360-degree” deal. Some labels want to be the merchandiser, while others want rights only in certain types of merchandise connected to album cover artwork. And when it comes to artist royalties, some labels pay a… Read more »

Taking Back Sunday drummer Mark O’Connell still isn’t exactly sure what went wrong. After a show in Phoenix in August, he simply stopped being able to walk.“I got off the bus and it just hit me and I fell to the ground,” O’Connell said. “The guys were like, ‘What are you doing? That’s not funny.’ And I was like, ‘I can’t move.’ They kept saying, ‘Get up, you’re fine’ and they got me into the hotel lobby and I sat on the couch. … I crawled on the floor through the lobby and onto the elevator to my room. I… Read more »

The Eagles have turned down an offer to perform at next year’s Super Bowl, saying they’d rather perform at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. Frontman Don Henley told the Associated Press that playing at the legendary country music venue “would be an honor,” but did not elaborate on his band’s decision to turn down the slot at the Super Bowl–the most-watched television event in the U.S. The Eagles seem to be drifting from classic rockers to country crooners. Their recent album Long Road Out Of Eden topped Billboard’s country music chart for four weeks in 2007. Henley said he was glad… Read more »

Las Vegas lore is littered with many end-of-an-era instances. The dissolution of the Rat Pack. The razing of the Sands Hotel. The annulment of Britney Spears and Jason Alexander’s 57-hour quickie marriage. And on December 15, 2007, Sin City bid yet another bittersweet goodbye: to Celine Dion, who ended her historic five-year, 717-show, $400 million-grossing run at Caesar’s Palace. Yes, apparently not everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, as Celine has finally decided to move on after five years. (After all, she does have a new pop album, Taking Chances, to promote.) But it seems like only yesterday… Read more »

Iranian authorities have approved a plan for concerts by an Iranian pop group and singer Chris de Burgh in Tehran, the group’s manager said on Saturday. The concerts, set for the middle of next year, would be the first time since the 1979 revolution that an Iranian pop band had played alongside a Western singer inside the Islamic Republic, Arian’s manager Mohsen Rajabpour said. Rajabpour, director of Taraneh Sharghi music company, said Arian and de Burgh had recorded a song called “A Melody for Peace” which he said was intended “to reflect the peace-seeking spirit of the Iranian people to… Read more »

Dance musician Moby has launched a Web site that gives his music away — to the right people, of course. He is licensing his music for free via mobygratis.com to help out indie and student filmmakers. “I was a philosophy major and I had a minor in film,” he says. “Ever since then, I’ve had a lot of friends in the world of independent and nonprofit film production. Their recurring complaint is that it’s really difficult to license music for movies that have no budgets, so I thought I would start this Web site which very simply provides free music… Read more »

Panic! At The Disco have unveiled more details about their second album – which is due out next March. Guitarist Ryan Ross said that the follow-up to their 2005 debut, ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out,’ will draw more from the band’s live sound than their previous album. “We just wanted the record to sound like four people playing a song,” Ross told Billboard. “A lot of the songs are definitely more geared toward playing live; we didn’t think about that on the last record.” Ross, who also writes the band’s lyrics, said that the band have been “working backwards”… Read more »