Search Results for: dr dre

Mickey Mouse’s days at Disney could be numbered and paying royalties for warbling George Gershwin tunes could become a thing of the past if the U.S. Supreme Court sides with an Internet publisher in a landmark copyright case this week. The high court will hear the case Wednesday that could plunge the earliest images of Disney’s mascot and other closely held creative property into the public domain as early as next year. If upheld, the precedent-setting challenge could cost movie studios and heirs of authors and composers millions of dollars in revenue as previously protected material becomes available free of… Read more »

The members of pop-rock group Jimmy Eat World are coming back to their hometown Friday to play a benefit concert for victims of the Rodeo-Chediski wildfire. “It’s for the underinsured or the non-insured residents of the Heber-Overgaard area of Arizona which was pretty toasted by fires,” said singer-guitarist Jim Adkins. “Our drummer, his grandparents had a home over there that was destroyed.” The concert will be held at the Mesa Amphitheatre. The wildfire scorched about 469,000 acres and destroyed hundreds of homes in Heber-Overgaard and Linden this summer. The Arizona natives, whose single “The Middle” catapulted them to pop fame… Read more »

A year after Michael Jackson gathered Britney Spears, ‘NSYNC, Destiny’s Child and dozens of other superstars to record “What More Can I Give,” the September 11 benefit single is finally being heard. New York radio station WKTU-FM debuted the song on Friday at 6 p.m. and has been playing it about six times a day since, albeit without permission. Program Director Frankie Blue, a longtime friend of Jackson’s, won’t say how he got the song, but he insists the King of Pop had nothing to do with it. Marc Schaffel, the executive producer of the single, said at least 200… Read more »

Coldplay is working on a live DVD of backstage, onstage and “stupid stuff,” according to the band’s bassist and de facto cameraman, Guy Berryman. “We want to make it good, not do it for the sake of doing it,” Berryman says. “I know a lot of bands go, ‘Oh, let’s just do a DVD,’ and get a film crew and they film it and record music and stick it out. I’d like to do something a bit more interesting than that.” Berryman, the man behind the camcorder, has been gathering footage as the U.K. band tours behind its latest album,… Read more »

The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences has tapped veteran label executive Neil Portnow as president – a post that had been vacant since the former chief, Michael Greene, left amid a swirl of controversy last spring. Reporting to Recording Academy chairman Garth Fundis, Portnow will guide the music organization’s biggest public event – the Grammy Awards – as well as other awards shows and charity efforts, including the Latin Grammys, MusiCares and the Grammy Foundation. The NARAS board settled on Portnow after a four-month search inside and outside the organization; Portnow himself has extensive background on both sides.… Read more »

The five major record label groups and the three largest music retailers have agreed to pay $143 million in cash and CDs to resolve a long-standing class action price-fixing case. The settlement, announced Monday, brings to a close allegations that the major labels and retailers had violated antitrust laws and illegally inflated the cost of CDs. At issue was a policy called “minimum advertised pricing,” or MAP, under which the major labels would jointly pay for advertising if a retailer agreed to sell CDs above a certain price. This pricing practice began nearly a decade ago as a way for… Read more »

A fan of the rock band Creed was in jail Tuesday, accused of violating a restraining order filed by the group’s lead singer. Tamera Jeanine Andrade, 35, was arrested Saturday night before Creed’s concert at the Ford Center. Lead singer Scott Stapp filed the restraining order in Florida, police said. Andrade had a ticket to the show, a copy of the restraining order and a page from an address book with Stapp’s home address when she was arrested outside the arena, police said. The restraining order says Andrade must stay at least 500 feet from any building where Stapp is,… Read more »

“Surreal” is about the only word to describe it when that kid you remember from “Gremlins” and “Goonies,” all grown up now, is rocking out in the middle of a record store. And surreal it was when Corey Feldman and his band played for a bewildered crowd numbering less than a hundred recently at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard. As fans and curious shoppers waited (and waited), a drummer, a guitarist, a bassist named Pharaoh and a keyboard player (none of whom would look lost at a construction site) along with two backup singers crowded onto a makeshift stage, where… Read more »

Britney Spears, the U.S. pop idol who is taking a six-month sabbatical at the tender age of 20, said on Tuesday she planned to return to the recording studio after a break hosted by Italian designer Donatella Versace. “I think I may just go to Los Angeles and record a little bit. But other than that I just plan to hang out,” Spears told Reuters before taking her seat in the front row of Versace’s spring/summer 2003 fashion show. “It’s like a dream come true being here right now,” said Spears, who in August decided to take six months off… Read more »

In a fight to win back fans from the “gray zone” of online song-swapping services, the music industry is borrowing a trick from its nemeses: free music downloads. For one week beginning Thursday, music fans in Europe will be able to download, stream or burn onto their hard drives a selection of tracks from 6,000 artists including ColdPlay, Dido and Elvis Presley. It is part of a marketing ploy called “Digital Download Day” devised by British firm OD2, a technology company specializing in digital music distribution and co-founded by recording artist Peter Gabriel. Backed by record labels and music retailers,… Read more »