Search Results for: Set It off

Sprint Corp. on Wednesday said it would offer Listen.com’s Rhapsody music subscription services to its broadband customers, joining a growing list of such providers to provide music services. Sprint also said it would offer its PCS wireless customers Rhapsody 411, a music information service, including album reviews, artist recommendations, album art and full-color artist photos directly from their phones. Sprint is the second wireless company to offer Rhapsody 411 after AT&T Wireless Services Inc, underscoring the trend that wireless carriers are increasingly looking to offer music features. Sony Corp., for instance, recently bought a provider of cellphone ring-tones while two… Read more »

Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough’s third annual Lupus Cruise to benefit his Dorough Lupus Foundation sets sail from Miami on Sunday (December 15) for a seven-day adventure aboard the Carnival Victory. Dorough, his sister Pollyanna, and the rest of his family will be on board as the Victory visits ports in the Eastern Caribbean, including San Juan, St. Maarten, and St. Thomas. The Dorough Lupus Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization founded by Dorough and his family shortly after his sister Caroline Cochran died from the disease in 1998. Dorough explained to LAUNCH, “I unfortunately lost one of my sisters, Caroline… Read more »

Warner Music Group’s WEA distribution arm is migrating from its longtime home in Burbank to New York as part of a major restructuring that will consolidate many regional offices and result in an unspecified number of staff cutbacks. As part of the retooling – one of the most significant in WEA’s 30-year history – the distributor will reduce the number of regional offices from 10 to four, in New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Atlanta. WMG said it will relocate about 50 positions from the Burbank office to Gotham; only some of the current California staff will be invited to… Read more »

Limp Bizkit front man Fred Durst settled a $5 million battery lawsuit filed by a former lighting technician who claimed he hit her and broke her nose during the “Anger Management” tour, their lawyers confirmed Tuesday. Terms of the settlement, reach last month, were not released. “It’s a confidential settlement, and they’re going on with their lives,” said Connie Paulson’s attorney, Lawrence Ecoff. Paulson sued Durst in November 2001 in Los Angeles Superior Court. She alleged the singer had a “fit of rage” and threw a microphone that hit her in the face as she was dismantling lights after a… Read more »

Digital media company Roxio has agreed to acquire the most substantial remaining assets of embattled Internet music provider Napster Inc. Roxio will acquire Napster’s technology patents but is not assuming any of the company’s outstanding financial liabilities. The deal is subject to a Nov. 26 Delaware bankruptcy court approval. Napster, based in Redwood City, California., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 3. It listed assets of $7.9 million and liabilities of $101 million, as of April 30. The terms of the deal include a purchase offer of $5 million in cash and 100,000 warrants to purchase Roxio common… Read more »

One of pop singer Christina Aguilera (news)’s latest music videos has Thais decrying not its explicit dancing and revealing costumes, but a Thai-language billboard in the backdrop that alludes to the country’s sex industry. Saharat Wannachomphu, marketing director for BMG Thailand Co., the local distributors of Aguilera’s new album, said the company had decided not to air the video for the song “Dirrty” on local television, the Nation newspaper reported this week. In the video, the scantily clad 21-year-old dances in a boxing ring next to a wall with posters in Thai that read “Thailand’s sex tourism” and “Young underage… Read more »

Universal Music, the music arm of Vivendi Universal and the world’s largest record company, will decide in coming weeks which of its Web music properties are worth keeping as the French media giant seeks to downsize, sources close to the company said on Thursday. Company representatives declined comment, but people familiar with the company said such a move was in line with Vivendi chairman and chief executive officer Jean-Rene Fourtou’s overall mandate to sell about $12 billion in company assets to reduce debt. “One of the things that will be happening in the next few weeks is that Universal Music… Read more »

Twenty-five years after his death, Elvis Presley, the King of Rock ‘n Roll, is about to do something he never managed in life – debut an album at No. 1 on record charts around the world. According to industry watchers, Presley’s “Elvis 30 Number One Hits” compilation, which was released by Bertelsmann AG’s RCA Records on Sept. 24, is poised to top the charts in at least 12 countries around the world. Sales in the United States alone are expected to hit almost 500,000 units in the last week, said a spokesman for RCA, noting it would be the first… Read more »

Yoko Ono and Frederic Seaman, a former personal assistant to John Lennon, privately reached agreement early today in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan, foregoing closing arguments and jury deliberation after four days at trial. The lawsuit, filed by Ono over three years ago, charged Seaman – who worked with the Lennon family between 1979 and 1982 – with failing to return several documents and hundreds of photos after he was found guilty of grand larceny in 1982. Seaman had stolen and subsequently returned Lennon’s personal diaries as well as letters, drawings, contracts, demo tapes, and stereo equipment. However, Ono’s… Read more »

While many consider the Hives to be the answer to their rock and roll prayers, a single question remains at the fore: when can fans expect a new album? Their current LP, Veni Vidi Vicious, is two years old – although a major-label reissue in June fostered much wider exposure – and longtime Hives fans are jonesing for some new material. Despite feeling their fans’ pain, the Hives will serve no album before its time. “We hope to finish it when we’re done with it,” was guitarist Nicholaus Arson’s closeted response to the well-worn query. He’s reluctant to cite a… Read more »