Search Results for: against me

Looking to take advantage of what they say is a large and lucrative niche audience untapped by television programmers, two cable divisions of Viacom (news/quote), MTV Networks and Showtime, are developing a plan to create the first cable channel aimed directly at gay viewers. The still unnamed channel would be offered to cable system operators as a pay channel like HBO or Showtime – only much less costly at $5 or $6 a month – but it would also include advertising. MTV Networks and Showtime have conducted extensive audience testing and concluded that there is, as one Showtime executive put… Read more »

Though Michael Jackson won’t perform at the American Music Awards in early January after all, he’ll still be performing on television that same night – on another network. CBS plans to re-broadcast the singer’s concert special, “Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration,” with previously unseen footage of Britney Spears and Lil’ Romeo, to air against the AMAs on ABC January 9th. Jackson’s two-hour concert special, which originally aired November 13th, gave CBS some of its highest ratings this year – it was the network’s biggest Tuesday night, excluding sports programming, since 1994. According to Nielsen Media Research estimates, an estimated 45… Read more »

Sam Phillips demurs when it’s suggested that rock ‘n’ roll was invented at his Sun Records label during the 1950s. But he does acknowledge there was a whole lotta shakin’ going on in Memphis thanks to the music he created there with the likes of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and others. “I do know this – it changed the world and it opened up a lot of doors,” Phillips said in a recent interview. “I’m happy we were able to contribute, at least in my opinion, to what music has done and is… Read more »

Online file-sharing service Napster and the record industry squared off again in federal appeals court on Monday over the fine points of enforcing the court-ordered restrictions on Napster’s now-idled service. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Pasadena, California, heard about an hour of arguments from the two sides on how to share the burden between them in policing Napster to prevent copyrighted material from being illegally exchanged. A spokesman for Napster, which has been out of operation since July, said the service argued for three main points: that the RIAA should be required to… Read more »

A former school classmate of Eminem has filed a $1 million lawsuit in Macomb County, Mich., Circuit Court against the rapper, alleging his reputation has been damaged by lyrics from Eminem’s song “Brain Damage,” according to the Detroit Free Press. DeAngelo Bailey of Roseville, Mich., is called out in the song “Brain Damage” from The Slim Shady LP, in which Eminem portrays his former classmate as a relentless bully who constantly battered the rapper. “I was harassed daily by this fat kid named DeAngelo Bailey,” raps Eminem in the song. “An eighth-grader who acted obnoxious, cause his father boxes/ So… Read more »

Liquid Audio confirmed yesterday that after reviewing the claims made against the company in a lawsuit recently filed by Network Commerce it believes the complaint has no merit and has accordingly filed a motion to dismiss the case. Liquid Audio filed the motion to dismiss on Nov. 27, 2001 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. “Liquid Audio has always respected valid intellectual property rights and is a key innovator in the digital distribution space, creating and licensing new technology to address market needs,” said Leon Rishniw, vice president of Engineering at Liquid Audio, Inc. “We… Read more »

Rock legend Neil Young has written and recorded a song about the passengers who fought back against their Sept. 11 hijackers – a song described by one record company executive “as so chilling you feel like you are on that plane.” The song, a salute to heroism called “Let’s Roll,” was shipped to radio stations this week but will not be sold in stores, Young’s recording company Reprise Records said Wednesday. It was inspired by the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11 who apparently decided to fight back against their hijackers after hearing by telephone of the… Read more »

Free speech advocated are concerned that a pair of court decisions in New York and New Jersey could lay groundwork to deny U.S. citizens the same free speech rights on the Internet that they enjoy in the physical world. Both cases involve issues stemming from the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law designed to protect copyright holders by prohibiting the creation of technology that can be used to circumvent copyright protections. In one ruling, a New Jersey federal court dismissed a lawsuit brought on behalf of Princeton University researcher Edward Felten, who said they were pressured by the… Read more »

Halftime at this season’s Super Bowl will find one group of players 30 football minutes closer to becoming NFL champions and another on display before more eyes than ever before. Ireland’s favorite sons, U2, will perform at Super Bowl XXXVI in front of an estimated 130 million U.S. viewers and 800 million more around the world, according to an NFL spokesperson. The big game takes place February 3 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans and will be televised on Fox. U2 completed their eight-month-long Elevation Tour in support of their latest album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Sunday… Read more »

He has a new record, Tarantula, in stores on December 18, but Mystikal seems to still be living by the title of one of his old songs, “Ready to Rumble.” On the LP’s first single, “Bouncin’ Back (Bumpin’ Me Against the Wall),” the New Orleans MC, who served in the Army during Operation Desert Storm, expresses his patriotism and his outrage against terrorism. “The hook is like, ‘You keep bumping me against a wall,’ ” said the Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams, who co-produced and sings on the track. ” ‘Yeah, I know I let you slide before/ But until you seen… Read more »