Search Results for: The Maine

The embattled record industry got more bad news on Sunday as a study showed online sales of music dropped 25 percent in the first nine months of 2002. The survey by research firm ComScore Networks Inc, which monitored more than 1.5 million Web users, showed online sales of music – in the form of physical singles, albums, CDs and tapes – fell to $545 million from $730 million in the same period a year earlier. Sales of digital downloads were also included in the survey but accounted for a tiny portion of the total, ComScore said. As the music industry… Read more »

As one of the forefathers of rap, with a history of social activism, Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay was an unlikely target for the kind of violence that killed rappers Tupac Shakur or the Notorious B.I.G. He was married with three kids, and a fixture in the Queens neighborhood where he grew up. Yet authorities were searching Thursday for the gunman who killed the 37-year-old disc jockey with a gunshot to the head inside his recording studio. “Jam Master Jay was a longtime family man and one of the founders of the group that knocked down all the doors for hip-hop,… Read more »

Jam Master Jay, a founding member of the pioneering rap trio Run DMC, was shot and killed at his recording studio near the New York neighborhood where he grew up, police said. Two men were buzzed into the second-floor studio shortly before shots were fired inside its lounge at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, police said. As of early Thursday, police had made no arrests. The 37-year-old disc jockey, whose real name was Jason Mizell, was shot once in the head in the studio’s lounge and died at the scene, said Detective Robert Price, a police spokesman. Urieco Rincon, 25, who… Read more »

Small Internet broadcasters and the music industry have agreed on a last-minute royalty-payment plan but a dispute between musicians and record labels threatens to scuttle the deal, sources said Sunday. Two weeks before “Webcasters” are due to begin royalty payments to the musicians and record labels whose songs they use, the online broadcasters have agreed to pay a rate of between 8 percent and 12 percent of revenues rather than a previously set per-song rate that many fear could drive them out of business, sources said. Larger Webcasters, such as America Online and Clear Channel Communications were not included in… Read more »

Widely respected entertainment attorney Joel Katz has been appointed General Counsel to the Recording Academy(R), it was announced today by Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Garth Fundis. Katz – a member of the Georgia, Tennessee, American, and Atlanta Bar Associations – will serve the Academy in a volunteer capacity, overseeing its legal matters and coordinating the work of various outside counsel. “It is a great pleasure to appoint Joel Katz as General Counsel to the Recording Academy,” said Fundis. “He is a longtime member of the Academy’s volunteer leadership, former Chairman, and one of the founders of the Academy’s… Read more »

Some popular online services are using a new kind of software to divert sales commissions that would otherwise be paid to small online merchants by big sites like Amazon and eToys. Critics call the software parasite-ware and stealware. But the sites that use the software, which is made by nearly 20 companies and used by dozens, say that it is perfectly legal, because their users agree to the diversion. The amounts involved are estimated by those in the industry to have mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and are likely to continue to grow – in part because… Read more »

Kurt Cobain fans are closer to Nirvana than they have been in years. A studio version of the unreleased Nirvana track “You Know You’re Right” has surfaced online in its entirety. The song, which was reportedly recorded in January 1994, less than three months before frontman Cobain took his own life with a shotgun in his Seattle home, is expected to a appear on the long-awaited Nirvana greatest-hits album, which, according to Courtney Love, is due by Christmas. A Universal Music Group spokesperson, however, said that while the LP would come out, there was no specific release date. By Monday… Read more »

Friction from a flat tire caused a bus with the Eminem-headlined Anger Management Tour to catch fire on a highway Sunday, fire officials said. Pittsfield Township Fire Sgt. John Maguire said the bus was fully engulfed in flames by the time his department got to the scene on Interstate 94 in Washtenaw County at about 1:30 p.m. Maguire said the bus driver, who was not injured, was alone on the bus when the fire started. The bus – apparently reserved for Eminem’s managers – was on its way to meet the tour at a scheduled performance, he said. The Anger… Read more »

Axl Rose brought Guns N’ Roses back to the MTV Video Music Awards Thursday night for the first time in 10 years, but the frontman indicated that the wait for a new album from the band will continue. Click here for the complete 2002 MTV VMA Winners List. “You’ll see [the album], but I don’t know if ‘soon’ is the word,” Rose explained to MTV News immediately after unveiling the current GN’R lineup to an American television audience for the first time. “It will come out, and we’ll do some more recording and start the American leg of the tour,”… Read more »

A day after the body of Drowning Pool frontman Dave Williams was discovered on the band’s tour bus, details remained scarce but memories of Williams as a fun-loving, kind-hearted character abounded. The 30-year-old singer was found in his bunk by members of Drowning Pool’s touring crew Wednesday afternoon, their publicist said. The band was in Manassas, Virginia, on its way to Thursday’s Ozzfest show in Bristow. An autopsy conducted Thursday morning proved inconclusive, according to a Prince William County police spokesperson. A cause of death is expected to be determined from toxicology tests, which generally take four to six weeks.… Read more »