Search Results for: against the current

Christina Aguilera filed a lawsuit on May 18th in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the singer’s one-time producers and New York City-based Warlock Records, among other defendants. The suit seeks cost of suit damages and an injunction to stop the release of Just Be Free, a compilation of demos Aguilera recorded when she was fourteen. The album features twelve tracks, including the title track, which Aguilera worked on with defendants, producers Michael Brown and Robert Allecca at BAM Records, Inc. Included in the charges are breach of contract and appropriation of name, voice and likeness for commercial use.… Read more »

Columbia Records’ Crazy Town, Portrait/Columbia Records’ The Union Underground and American Recordings/Columbia Records’ American Head Charge have all signed on-board on what just might be the heaviest Ozzfest ever. Following a big British blow-out at the Milton Keynes Bowl in England on May 26, Ozzfest 2001 opens full-force stateside at the World Amphitheater in Chicago, Illinois. Launched by the heavy metal pioneer and visionary Ozzy Osbourne, the first Ozzfest, a multi-band festival held in 1996, hit only two markets-Los Angeles and Phoenix-but paved the way for a full-on touring extravaganza the next year. Since then, the Ozzfest has become a… Read more »

Maybe the Recording Industry Association of America had better watch its back. The Recording Artists Coalition – which counts founder Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, and Alanis Morissette among its members – is making strides toward becoming a formidable opponent. The RAC, which claims that the RIAA doesn’t always operate in the best interests of artists, has recently hired an executive director, laid out plans for offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and folded another high-profile artists’ rights group under its wing. In March, Henley said the RAC boasted 57 high-profile members, including Billy Joel, Eric Clapton, and Bruce Springsteen.… Read more »

A group of researchers who foiled four different copyright protection technologies in a contest launched last year by the music industry is now being asked by the record companies to suppress its findings, one of the researchers said Tuesday. The research group – composed of students and professors from Princeton and Rice Universities and an employee of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center – had initially planned to present its findings Thursday at a Pittsburgh conference on information security but was then threatened with legal action by the forum, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), a forum representing music and technology… Read more »

Following much hemming and boatload of hawing, all is set in stone for Weezer’s many-moons-in-the-making third album. Produced by Ric Ocasek, The Green Album will drop as planned on May 15th, it’s cover art closely resembling that of the band’s eponymous debut (lovingly called “The Blue Album”) – a picture of the foursome against a solid backdrop. The nod to their 1994 nerd-core breakthrough is no doubt intentional, a clear signal that Rivers Cuomo and Co. have returned, at least in part, to the signature neo-New Wave sound somewhat absent from 1996’s poorer-selling second album, Pinkerton. According to a posting… Read more »

The American Federation Of Radio and Television Artists have forced most Los Angeles radio stations to discontinue streaming due to a little known provision of the Recorded Commercials Contract put in place in October 2000. The stipulation requires advertisers to pay union talent 300 percent of the normal session fee if a spot originally recorded for radio is used on the Internet. Stations in other markets have not yet begun to be affected, but the possibility exists that stations across the country will soon pull the plug on their streams. Similar to the recent RIAA fees being instituted for streaming,… Read more »

Don’t focus only on major labels’ interests when considering legislation, they say. Alanis Morissette and Don Henley urged the U.S. Senate to heed the voices of artists – and not just their record labels – during a hearing Tuesday morning on the future of online entertainment. Senators should take artists’ concerns into account if they decide to write any legislation related to the online future of the recording industry, Morissette and Henley said in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The reason that I am here is that although these intermediaries claim to represent the creators, and while there certainly… Read more »

Most major rock bands are good for one or two live albums during their careers. As of this week, Pearl Jam have 73 live albums to their credit. The Seattle rockers, now in their 11th year together, took the unprecedented step of releasing a budget-priced “official bootleg” CD from almost every show on their 2000 tour in order to combat pirates and to give fans a good deal. The roll-out occurred in three stages, ending Tuesday with the retail release of 24 CDs from the second half of the U.S. tour. Already in stores were 25 CDs from Europe and… Read more »

RIAA lawyers say service should switch to a method in which permission would be sought in advance for every file. Napster has “flagrantly and intentionally” failed to filter out copyrighted songs, music industry lawyers said Tuesday (March 27), asking a judge to force the file-sharing service to switch to a “filter-in” method in which only specifically authorized songs would be available. In a “filter-in” system, Napster would have to start by banning everything, and then allow in songs that labels and artists tell them are approved for sharing – the opposite of the method Napster currently uses, where songs are… Read more »

The U.S. recording industry accused Napster of willfully ignoring a federal judge’s order to block copyrighted material, saying the Internet song-swap service was still facilitating the trade of millions of illegal music files. In papers filed at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, which this month instructed Napster to stop trading copyrighted material, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said it saw no evidence of compliance. “There is no effective filtering out of copyrighted works operating now within Napster. We believe it is willful,” RIAA President Hilary Rosen told a telephone news conference. Napster President and CEO Hank… Read more »