Search Results for: no cure

Listen.com has secured a major distribution channel for its music-subscription service Rhapsody, cutting a deal with high-speed Internet provider Verizon Online DSL. The pact, to be announced Wednesday, makes Rhapsody’s on-demand streams available to Verizon’s 1.5 million DSL customers in the U.S. Service offers music from all five major record labels for a flat fee of $9.95 a month. Verizon is the fourth Internet access provider to sign on with Listen. The netco already has distribution pacts with cable Internet providers Charter Communications and AOL Time Warner’s Road Runner, as well as satellite broadcaster DirecTV. Listen is competing for a… Read more »

Whitney Houston is being sued for $100 million by her father’s company, and it’s not clear whose side the elder Houston is taking. John Houston Entertainment, which filed the breach of contract lawsuit August 30 in New Jersey Superior Court, accuses the singer of never paying up for services rendered when the company acted on her behalf in a managerial capacity. But the question remains – which side is Whitney’s father on? Both say theirs. Though John Houston himself isn’t named in the suit, John Houston Entertainment President Kevin Skinner says the two of them are the plaintiffs. According to… 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 »

Britney Spears and Los Angeles’s Universal Amphitheatre will be honored with the prestigious Children’s Choice Award at the Neil Bogart Memorial Fund’s (NBMF) annual Bogart Tour For A Cure on November 4 in L.A. Spears will receive the award for her strong commitment to children’s issues and charitable giving. Spears’s contributions to kids include her Britney Spears Foundation, which creates playrooms for sick children on extended hospital stays, and the Britney Spears Camp For The Performing Arts, which offers disadvantaged children the opportunity to learn from top acting, singing, and dancing professionals during a 10-day camp stay in Cape Cod,… Read more »

Now that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s run-in with Eminem at the VMAs has blown over, the puppet pooch is about to start static with another pack of rappers. And like them, he’s cooking up his beef on wax. Triumph, who became Eminem’s unwitting sparring partner at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, said he expects to drop Songs in the Key of Poop this winter on Warner Bros. Records, although finishing touches are still being applied and a spokesperson for Warner couldn’t confirm the title at press time. The “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” correspondent has already secured a… Read more »

Yahoo and Internet service providers have sided with Verizon Communications in its legal spat with the recording industry over revealing the identity of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate. In court papers filed late Monday, the groups said that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has not followed the law in its efforts to learn more about a Kazaa user accused of illicitly trading music files. Monday’s move highlights the latest battle lines that have been struck in the legal war over peer-to-peer networks. On one side are Internet companies, civil liberties groups and telecommunications providers, an alliance that is opposed… Read more »

“American Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson may have the magic to put RCA Records back on top. All the major record labels are pulling out their big-gun releases for the fourth quarter in hopes of hitting some high numbers to make up for the year’s extreme sales dip. RCA has been struggling overall because of a weak release schedule. The label has thus far scored hits only with Dave Matthews Band’s “Busted Stuff,” which has sold more than 1.2 million units, and critically acclaimed postpunk band the Strokes, whose “Is This It” has passed the half-million mark. Clarkson’s two-sided single release,… Read more »

Like the greatest-hits package that preceded it, the upcoming U2: The Best of 1990-2000 will include a limited edition B-sides album. When it hits stores on November 5, the follow-up to U2: The Best of 1980-1990 will be accompanied by The Best of the B-Sides, a collection of 14 non-album favorites including “Summer Rain” and “Your Blue Room.” Ten of the tracks on the B-sides album are remixes, including Paul Oakenfold’s popular take on “Even Better Than the Real Thing.” William Orbit’s remix of the new single “Electrical Storm” is featured on U2: The Best of 1990-2000, while the original… Read more »

A U.S. court hammered the final nail in the coffin of maverick music service Napster on Tuesday when it blocked a bid by German media group Bertelsmann AG to buy the one-time cult and now defunct Web site. Killing off a deal to revive the bankrupt service that millions of fans used to swap music over the Internet, a U.S. bankruptcy court rejected Napster’s sale to Bertelsmann after record labels and songwriters opposed the deal, saying the offer price was not fair. Faced with no financing, no revenues and no other buyers, Napster said it would most likely be forced… Read more »

‘N Sync singer Lance Bass was asked to leave Russia’s cosmonaut training program because his sponsors didn’t come up with the $20 million for a trip to the International Space Station, a Russian space official said Tuesday. Sergei Gorbunov, spokesman for the Russian Space Agency, said the Russians negotiated with Bass “in good faith,” but “his sponsors didn’t fulfill the conditions of the contract and we never received the money.” The U.S. pop star had been granted several deadline extensions after failing to get the money needed to secure his seat, Gorbunov said. He said the decision to end negotiations… Read more »