Search Results for: sting

Fourth-quarter losses skyrocketed at AOL Time Warner Inc. after a staggering $45.5 billion charge to account for the struggling media conglomerate’s plunging value. The company also announced Wednesday that former cable TV mogul Ted Turner is stepping down as vice chairman. In the three months ending Dec. 31, AOL lost $44.9 billion, or $10.04 per share, compared with a loss of $1.8 billion, or 41 cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2001. Revenue rose 8 percent to $11.4 billion, and AOL said its results without the one-time accounting markdown would actually have beaten Wall Street estimates – at… Read more »

The owners of the KaZaA file-sharing network are suing the movie and recording industries, claiming that they don’t understand the digital age and are monopolizing entertainment. Sharman Networks Ltd. filed its counterclaim Monday in response to a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought by several recording labels and movie studios. That lawsuit accuses Sharman of providing free access to copyright music and films to millions of Internet users in the United States. The latest filing came two weeks after U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson dismissed Sharman’s claim that it could not be sued in the United States because it is based in… Read more »

Six retail record store chains ? hurting from competition from CD burning, online music and large discount stores ? are teaming to offer consumers digital music downloads in their stores and over the Internet. The stores have formed a joint venture called Echo that will provide technology and allow them to offer individual tracks for downloading to portable devices and computers. The stores are Best Buy, Tower Records, Virgin Entertainment Group, Wherehouse Music, Hastings Entertainment Inc. and Trans World Entertainment Corp., operator of FYE, Strawberries and Coconuts stores. “We’re trying to make digital music work in a mass market way,… Read more »

Could 2003 be the year that EMI finally finds a mate? Frenzied gossip among executives at this year’s Midem music industry conference on the French Riviera would suggest so. As a new group of suitors eyes the EMI dowry, which includes the Beatles back catalog, bets among the glitterati at Cannes are that the world’s third biggest music company will pair up with one of its old flames: BMG or Warner Music. Yet some still hold out hope for a more dramatic swoop by private equity houses led by an industry guru – cash-rich Clive Calder being one contender after… Read more »

The biggest winners turned out to be MIAs at the 30th annual AMAs, including Eminem, winner of a leading four American Music Awards. Others absent when their names were called at Monday night’s American Music Awards were the bands Creed and the Dixie Chicks, who won two awards apiece. Tim McGraw, who sang a “Tiny Dancer” duet with Elton John at the start of the nationally televised show, left for Nashville before winning favorite male country artist, and Mary J. Blige – another absentee – was named favorite female hip-hop artist. Eminem won in every category in which he was… Read more »

A Florida man has been arrested and charged with murder after DNA linked him to the death of rising punk-rock star Mia Zapata in 1993, police said Saturday. Seattle police said Jesus C. Mezquia, 48, was arrested late Friday in the Miami area. His DNA profile matched a sample taken from the crime scene more than nine years ago, police said. Zapata, the 27-year-old lead singer of The Gits, was last seen alive July 7, 1993, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Her beaten body was left on a street curb more than a mile away. She had been strangled with… Read more »

After nearly 40 years of playing “Satisfaction,” aren’t the Rolling Stones a bit sick of it? Really, they aren’t. Keith Richards and Ron Wood say it’s a great song and it takes on a different meaning every time they play it. “Of course, there are nights where you want to throw the set list out the window,” Mick Jagger said. “But up to a point, people want to hear certain things. But you don’t want to just play those, you want to play other things. Richards and Jagger said they don’t think young people are giving up on rock. “No,… Read more »

Clear Channel Worldwide has begun turning off Internet streams of some of its music stations. The company has offered simulcasts of several hundred broadcasting properties. For example, the company’s Houston-based KTBZ dropped its stream, blaming “costly fees now required from online broadcasters by the music licensing organizations BMI and ASCAP.” Other Clear Channel stations in Los Angeles, Miami and Dallas also halted their Net casts, according to Radio and Records, a trade publication. The latest weekly Arbitron MeasureCast rankings of Internet listening show Clear Channel the most popular radio network on the Web, reaching 321,330 people during the week ending… Read more »

The Recording Industry Association of America may not want people to share digital files, but the organization certainly seems to be in favor of open access to its website. On Monday, the RIAA site was hacked for the sixth time in six months. This time, the defacement resulted in bogus press releases on the front door, touting the joys of cheese and interspecies romantic relationships. The RIAA’s role as the music industry’s voice against digital piracy makes it an obvious target for those who are angered by what they see as the organization’s overly vehement crusade for copyright owners’ rights.… Read more »

Despite the arrest of her drummer over the weekend, pop singer Pink will still get the party started here Wednesday on the last stop of her six-month world tour. Drummer William Johnson was arrested Sunday when a routine passport check revealed a warrant for his arrest for grand larceny in New York, said Deputy Attorney General Neil Murakami. Johnson was released after posting $50,000 cash bail, officials said. Johnson was in court for an extradition hearing on Tuesday and is scheduled to appear at another hearing on Thursday before heading back to New York. Lawyers for Johnson told local television… Read more »