Search Results for: century media

As I write this, iTunes ranks as the 2nd largest seller of music in the U.S. — only Wal-Mart’s physical stores sell more. Digital revenue is real, and there is a lot of it being earned. Sales from iTunes alone can provide a band enough revenue to achieve true financial success. Don’t take my word for it, just look at some of the sales by the following unsigned artists utilizing the Net for both digital distribution and marketing: Kelly sold over 500,000 songs in five months, Eric Hutchinson sold 120,000 songs in three weeks, The Medic Droid sold over 25,000… Read more »

Sumner Redstone, the billionaire businessman who grew up in Boston’s former West End and went on to build a career at the forefront of the entertainment industry, delivered a message to a standing-room-only crowd at Boston University yesterday: content is still king, but in the digital age, copyright is what matters. Redstone, 84, the majority owner of National Amusements and the chairman of the boards of Viacom, the CBS Corporation, and the MTVi Group, spoke at the School of Law Auditorium about the challenges of keeping a media company profitable in the digital age and answered questions from Bill Schwartz,… Read more »

LYNWOOD, California – Paris Hilton was released from jail at around 12:15 a.m. on Tuesday, exiting the Century Regional Detention Facility through a mob of photographers, press and onlookers.Hilton – wearing a tight pair of dark jeans, high-heeled shoes, a cropped grey jacket, a white short-sleeved shirt, a braided pony tail and a slight smile – was escorted by a cluster of sheriffs to her parents’ waiting SUV, which had arrived just before midnight. A handful of bystanders cheered as cameras flashed and helicopters buzzed overhead. Hilton walked calmly through the crowd, and then jogged the last few steps as… Read more »

For a few hours on Friday (June 8), it looked like Paris Hilton wasn’t even going to show up for a hearing to determine whether she would be sent back to jail. And then, when she finally did make it to the courthouse, she probably wished she hadn’t. Judge Michael Sauer ordered Hilton back to jail, to serve out “the remainder of her sentence,” after a brief hearing, despite her lawyer’s pleas that a return would be “dangerous” to the heiress. The exact length of her stay was unclear at press time, though Sheriff Lee Baca, who released Hilton from… Read more »

Paris Hilton’s “simple life” has just gotten a lot more complicated. On Friday (May 4), a judge sentenced the hotel heiress to 45 days in Los Angeles County jail for violating the terms of her probation, Los Angeles Superior Court confirmed to MTV News. Hilton must report to the Century Regional Detention Facility in suburban Lynwood on June 5 or face a 90-day sentence. She will not be allowed work release, leaves of absence or an electronic-monitoring device instead of jail, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled after a hearing, according to The 36-month probation stint stems from Hilton’s… Read more »

Apple Inc. added Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer Inc. movies for sale on the iTunes Web site, offering customers such classic titles as “The Great Train Robbery” and modern hits like “Rocky.” MGM, owner of the world’s largest film library, will sell about 100 of its movies on iTunes, Derick Mains, a spokesman for Cupertino, California-based Apple said today in an interview. Films from MGM, the fourth studio to sign on since Apple started the movie-download service eight months ago, boost the iTunes catalog to more than 500 films, Apple said in a statement. Except for Walt Disney Co., where Apple Chief Executive… Read more »

If 2006 was the year of user-generated content, 2007 will be the year the music industry learns to generate new revenue from the hugely popular trend. Labels are striking licensing deals with sites like YouTube so that fans can post copyrighted content or include it in videos they make themselves. Additionally, labels are expected to start releasing new types of content — such as unused clips or video montages — specifically created for fans to manipulate in new ways. By doing so, record labels can then share in the advertising revenue these sites collect. Rather than just suing YouTube and… Read more »

One sunny afternoon not long ago, Dick Copaken sat in a booth at Daniel, one of those hushed, exclusive restaurants on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where the waiters glide spectrally fro table to table. He was wearing a starched button-down shirt and a blue blazer. Every strand of his thinning hair was in place, and he spoke calmly and slowly, his large pink Charlie Brow head bobbing along evenly as he did. Copaken spent many years as a partner at the white-shoe Washington, D.C., firm Covington & Burling, and he has a lawyer’s gravitas. One of his bes friends calls… Read more »

Used record bins are flooded with albums from swaggering British lads whose bands have conquered England and have their eyes set on cracking the States. Not too many of them can claim to have their music used in two of the most popular TV shows in the country before most Americans have ever heard of them, though. The vaguely scary, beat-crazy sound you might have heard on recent episodes of “Desperate Housewives” and “CSI: Miami” comes courtesy of Kasabian, currently infecting American ears with the intense marriage of druggy beats and massive guitar riffs from their self-titled debut. “We’re going… Read more »

Washington – Congress is toying with the idea of mandating one standard for all online music platforms. Thanks but no thanks – the industry can figure it out, said music industry and consumer groups at a congressional hearing about the plan Wednesday. During a hearing to discuss mandating interoperability standards between competing music platforms such as Apple’s iTunes and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, lawmakers sounded off on the lament of some hipsters frustrated by playback snafus when they try to transfer music files from other platforms to their iPods. Although Real and Apple support Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), a compression format defined… Read more »