Artemis Records is waving webcasting royalties for a year…

This time around, George Michael is making a statement about hypocrisy in government instead of corruption in the music industry. (You know, that stuff everyone laughed at him for whining about years ago that every artist-type person in the industry now finds themselves currently obsessed with…)

See the Times of India story by Rashmee Z. Ahmed: George Michael song satirizes Bush, Blair.

The funniest thing about this Billboard article is that the team accusing her of stealing a single song is claiming she created two different songs from it (on the same album even!)

Two musicians have filed a lawsuit against Britney Spears, claiming that a couple of songs on her multiplatinum second Jive album, “Oops! … I Did It Again,” were based on a tune they wrote. Philadelphia songwriters Michael Cottrill and Lawrence Wnukowski claim in the lawsuit that they authored, recorded, and copyrighted a song called “What You See Is What You Get” in late 1999 and submitted it to one of Spears’ representatives for consideration on a future album.

This saddens me greatly.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dee Dee Ramone
dead at 50

LOS ANGELES, June 6

Hey kids! Now you’ll be able to recognize which CDs are the hottest (you know the ones — the ones your parents wouldn’t want you to have) because they will be clearly labeled!

Cool parents will be able to demonstrate their flexibility by purchasing such discs, in large numbers, for their insecure teenagers, while big businesses can rest assured that they will be better insulated from (those nasty) occasional suicides.

See the Wall St. Journal piece by Yochi J. Dreazen:

BMG Records goes out on a limb with detailed parental warnings —
Explicit content to be noted on albums, advertising.

Acting
voluntarily, BMG plans to place new advisory stickers on certain albums,
specifying whether they have violent content, sexual content, strong language
or some combination of the three, officials say. BMG plans to include the
more-detailed warnings in advertising, including television, radio, print and
online ads for the albums concerned…

…BMG officials say they are sensitive to concerns that warning stickers, or
ratings, could crimp artistic expression by making it easy for retailers and
consumers to shun music they deem offensive. “There is definitely a need to
balance the preservation of free artistic expression with the need and desire
to address consumers’ concerns that the labels didn’t tell them enough
information,” says LaVerne Evans, BMG’s senior vice president and general
counsel. “We feel that these new labels do that.”

Of course, parental warnings often have a way of helping sales, by turning an
album into forbidden fruit and making teens want to hear it. And many albums
and CDs that have been edited to remove explicit content, and are labeled
accordingly, haven’t sold well.

I suppose we all knew it would happen eventually.

See the Wired News article by Brad King:
Last Rites For Napster.