McTeague: the sword of copyright protection is great for cut-and-pasting

Dan Teague, Canadian MP, is a desperate believer that more needs to be done to protect Canadian copyright holders. He says so in Parliament; he says so online:

I make no apologies for standing with Canada’s creators and creative industries when it comes to websites whose business model is built on “massive” infringement of the works that form their livelihood. And contrary to Mr. Geist’s derogatory characterization – that’s pro-consumer too!.

Only by building a legitimate digital marketplace with clear and balanced rules can Canadians have the sorts of consumer choices that have long been available to residents of countries that have modernized their copyright laws and clearly declared the pirate services illegal.

Brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?

Perhaps McTeague might like to bring the man caught by Michael Geist lifting entire articles from newspaper websites:

Since the introduction of Bill C-32, [he] has posted dozens of full-text articles from mainstream media organizations on his website, at times without attribution. In addition to the articles, [he] has also reposted many photographs associated with the articles. While it is possible that [he] has fully licensed the reproduction and posting of each article and photograph, this seems unlikely since the licences offered by many organizations do not even permit this form of reproduction.

The man who is building his website on infringement of journalists and media organisations' intellectual property?

Of course: Dan McTeague.

[via @doctorow]

Qtrax: It's arrived! It's really arrived!

The New Statesman once ran a Weekend Competition for "final lines that ruin a play", with the winner being "enter Godot".

I think I know how that feels, as perpetual punchline QTrax has finally launched, and only four years behind schedule.

At the moment, it only works for PC Users, in a handful of countries, and despite having an extensive listing of tracks, it looks like it might only have downloads available from EMI.

If you search the help files, you'll discover this question:

How big is Qtrax's music catalog?

A simple question. QTrax's answer?

Eventually, Qtrax will have millions of songs available for downloading. Qtrax accesses the universe of P2P directly, which has an ever-expanding galaxy of files. If it's available on P2P, you will eventually be able to get it on Qtrax.

"Hello, Jim, how's your wife?"
"Eventually, she will die. In the fullness of time, she's going to turn back to dust and then be atomised."

I'm a bit lost about why Qtrax is so excited about that last bit: "hey, you know those songs you can find on peer to peer networks? Well, in an undefined period of time in the future you'll be able to find them on Qtrax, too. So... you know... if you wait until... whenever... you can download them from us. Oh, you're downloading them now? Oh."

Still: QTrax all launched, even if it's mostly at the moment just a list of links to Amazon.

[via Hypebot]

IFPI comes up with plan b (or, more like it, plan z) to "end piracy"

The IFPI - which is the RIAA pretending to be an international body - has come up with a new plan which it reckons will bring about an end to online music piracy.

This time, it's going to get British police and the credit card companies to do the job for it.

The idea is that it'll find a website which is flogging tracks online; details will be passed to the police; public money will be spent investigating the sites and, if the police agree there's something dodgy going on, Mastercard and Visa will be alerted and they'll stop processing payments for the site.

The idea of targeting people who are selling tracks they don't own online is a fair one - there's a clear difference between people who share music out of love of music, and people who sell things that aren't theirs out of love of money.

Mind you, anyone who can get past that rubbish Verified By Visa "security" box probably deserves to download half the internet as a reward anyway.

It's unlikely the scheme will be a success - it's being run through City Of London police who are unlikely to do more than scratch the surface of the problem; there are other ways to make money online than just taking credit card details and this won't have an effect on sharing where no money is changing hands - which seems to be most cases. But at least the IFPI are mounting their Quixotic efforts against people who are diverting money that might otherwise have been spent on official products.

Gordon in the morning: How do you feel about working with The Sun?

Neon Trees turned up to do a Bizarre session for the paper. How did they react?

NEON TREES frontman TYLER GLENN has gone down in history as the only singer to vomit before a Biz Session.

I suspect quite a few have done so afterwards, though.

Gordon also has an "exclusive" interview with Charlie Sheen. Admittedly, this particular interview is exclusive to the paper, but surely you only put an exclusive tag on an interview if you're the only one talking to person in question. Given Sheen will shout half-thoughts out if he spots the Horizon FM Rolling Thunder truck in the street, getting him to talk is hardly an exclusive.

MTV pick Belfast to host EMAs; hope music execs don't google 'weather Belfast November'

MTV has announced that the City Of Belfast is the "lucky" venue helping underwrite the costs of this year's European Music Awards:

“Belfast’s vibrant nightlife and compelling music scene, known for fostering emerging artists and turning out international chart toppers, provides the perfect backdrop for one of the world’s biggest nights in music. The spirit of Belfast combined with our expertise is the perfect foundation for an unforgettable event and unique night,” commented Antonio Campo Dall’Orto, Executive Vice President of Music Brands, VIMN.

Plus, they totally offered more cash than anywhere else. That means a lot.

Belfast are excited at having tempted such an almost-famous awards ceremony to their city:

The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Pat Convery, said: “It is fitting that the EMAs are coming to Belfast – one of Europe’s most exciting and vibrant cities and with around 35 per cent of our population below the age of 25. Belfast has a rich musical history and has produced artists such as Snow Patrol and the legendary Van Morrison and we now have an unprecedented opportunity to shine a spotlight on our musical heritage while also providing a major boost to our economy. I am delighted that MTV has chosen Belfast. The decision to host such a world class event in our city is an endorsement of what we have been saying for some time now – Belfast is a happening place.”

Yes. Van Morrison and Snow Patrol. Them formed in the mid 1960s; Snow Patrol came together in 1994. Two whole bands in fifty years and none you can think of for last fifteen years. It's not exactly Hitsville UK, is it?

This isn't having a pop at Belfast which has a whole bunch of beautiful, scrabbling bands doing things at a pitch that MTV and, god bless him, the Lord Mayor are never going to be interested in. When you're barking up interest in an awards ceremony that will feature either Katy Perry or Lady GaGa or both by saying "this is the obvious place, being the home of Van Morrison", you're doing something massively wrong.

Lady GaGa ice cream parlour palaver

This, I suspect, is the point where Lady GaGa had reached the what entertainment scientists call the Madonna Horizon, whereby the protection of the brand takes over from the things that made "the brand" interesting in the first place.

The GaGa management has sent a threatening letter to the bloke selling breast milk ice cream called Baby GaGa:

Matt O'Connor, owner of the newly opened Icecreamists parlour, said he felt like a man "wielding two spoons engaged in hand-to-hand combat". Lady Gaga's letter, he said, "described me as the 'controlling mind' behind the ice-cream, which makes me sound like Blofeld, in a James Bond movie, bent on global domination.

"A global superstar has taken umbrage at what she describes as a 'nausea-inducing' product. This from a woman with a penchant for wearing rotting cows' flesh. At least our customers are still alive when they contribute to our 'art'.

"She claims we have 'ridden the coattails' of her reputation. As someone who has … recycled on an industrial scale the entire back catalogue of pop culture to create her look, music and videos, she might want to reconsider this allegation.

"How can she possibly claim ownership of the word 'gaga' which since the dawn of time has been one of the first discernable phrases to come from a baby's mouth?"

More to the point, nobody is going to actually think that the product has anything to do with her. Even more to the point, they've been forced to stop selling it by Westminster council on the grounds that it's made from "what milk? eeeewwww ewww ewww."

Coca Cola to use music to target teens, destroy teeth, ultimately ruin music

High sugar sticky water Coca Cola has outlined plans to make music a little worse in order to flog bottles of drink to young people. AdAge explains:

"There's a strategic clarity of growth objectives driven by the 2020 Vision," said Shay Drohan, senior VP-sparkling brands. "We can't afford not to talk to teens. You can't think, 'Teens already know us,' and skip a couple of years. Every six years there's a new population of teens in the world."

"... and the ones we'd been talking to six years ago are probably already too busy with type-two diabetes and dental visits to care about us."

So, the plan is to spume out the Coca Cola Music project. Coke and music go together like Ross and Rachel, in that it's a relationship that nobody really quite believes works, but they keep returning to it because the people in charge don't really have any other ideas and hope we all join in pretending it's a good thing and a plausible pairing.

Coke's previous run outs in music included The Moment When Everyone Realised Jack White Was Just A Hack For Hire; that Robin Beck single; the expensive flop of MyCokeMusic and setting Michael Jackson's hair on fire.

I know, technically that was Pepsi but, substantially, they're both the same thing and really any attempt to make people drink fizzy pop might as well work as well for one brand as the other, don't you think?

So, how are Coke going to impose themselves in teenagers' lives? Is it by getting to know them as individuals, taking care to tailor their advertising messages to them as close to personally as possible?

Given the rapid growth of the teen market globally, Coca-Cola plans to take the campaign to more than 100 markets. Six markets, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the U.S., will house half of the teen population by 2020.

Coca-Cola has been focused on making its efforts more global in nature, something it's done for its Olympics and World Cup efforts.

"Now there's a degree of global consistency, so everyone is [targeting teens] at the same time," Mr. Drohan said. Before, one country would focus on teens one year and then another year, another country."

The company views teens broadly as 13- to 19-year-olds, which requires the marketer to "look for the highest common denominator," Mr. Drohan said. "As we go around the world looking for insights and understanding, we say, 'Is this something local that we want to tap into or is this something more universal?'"

Well done to the top-paid marketing boffin Shay Drohan for backing the hitherto never-suspect idea that teens are, broadly, 13 to 19 year-olds. You wonder how many focus groups burned up time spotting that 12 is not pronounced twoteen.

But what a wonderful idea - why not conclude that a thirteen year-old boy in Swindon, once he hides the sticky magazines under his duvet and sprays some Lynx around to hide the smell, is substantially no different to a nineteen year-old woman in Lahore. And - hey - if teens around the world aren't actually a single blob of indistinguishable marketing types, at the very least Coke's advertising department will do its best to push them a little closer in that direction.

This is partly about that thing where "fans" will "work" with Maroon 5 to write a song, none of the royalties from which will flow back to the fans. To be fair, getting British fourteen year-olds to make entertainment products that they can't relate to, and won't share in the profits of, does bring their life experiences a little closer to that of Chinese 14 year-olds working to make ipods, so let's not dismiss Coke's ideas totally.

But Coke has other ideas, too:

Coca-Cola has partnered with One Night Only, an emerging band in the U.K., and Taio Cruz, a British singer and songwriter. One Night Only has written and recorded a new track called "Can You Feel It," which features Coca-Cola's signature five-note melody. It will be the soundtrack for a new global spot from Wieden & Kennedy, Amsterdam. Mr. Cruz will be working with artists selected by teens in various markets on a track he has created.

I'm sure One Night Only's track based around an advertising jingle is precisely the song they would have written anyway, and not the actions of an already dismal band cashing in the last of whatever integrity they might have had left to pass all editorial control to Atlanta.

Of course, you can't run a dead-eyed, heartless carnival like this without having the experts in that sort of destroyed dream on board. The big question is which of the RIAA Big Four are trying to hide the stench.

Step forward, Universal:

"We are working hard at Universal to bring our artists closer to their fans through unique experiences, and we believe that Coca-Cola Music is the perfect, innovative platform to continue this," Andrew Kronfeld, exec VP-international marketing, Universal Music Group International, said in a statement.

Yes. What better way to bring your artists closer to their fans than interpolating the presence of a multinational softs drink company to sell them fizzy drinks before they get to hear a song, eh?

"The artists taking part in the program are all excited to be part of opening up the creative process to teens around the world, and allowing their fans an exclusive chance to get involved with making great new music."

He continued: "You know, the fans could be out there making their own great new music, and indeed, most of the truly talented ones will be. After all, the real revolution of the internet has been to take the controls which used to make it hard for people to make and share and distribute music, which is why we're in this right old pickle having to team up with Mountain Dew or whatever to try and shore up our collapsing share of listening... oh, shit, I've gone off message again, haven't I?"

Indeed, Coca-Cola execs across the board, including CEO Muhtar Kent, have been trumpeting the importance of teens recently. "Our success in growing our sparkling category today depends on our ability to grow and connect with teens, the generation of tomorrow," Mr. Kent said at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference last month.

"Our sparkling category" - that's how they talk about their product, differentiating it from the Dansai and Glaceau, which I suspect they call the "tap water we've put into bottles" category.

To put Kent's comments into less mealy-mouthed words: if Coca Cola can't hook the kids before puberty does, we're sunk.

I can't help feeling that music probably deserves better than being used to sucker kids into that.

Avril Lavigne's record company hates her record, too

Bless the poor souls at RCA who tried to suggest to Avril Lavigne that her new album might not be very good:

She told the News of the World: "It's hurtful actually. I put so much into this record, but the record company were kind of cold. But what it came down to was they really wanted me to go in a different direction and that was not OK with me.

"I've been doing this for ten years now and I write my own music. All of these new people were telling me what to do and I was like: 'NO, NO, NO!' This is my fourth record and I'm 26 so it's time for me to do something a little different. I love this record and I'm really proud of it."

Perhaps the people at RCA remembered that Avril tried "something a little different" the album didn't actually sell that well, and figured that given that her entire career is based around pretending to be a teenage girl, and more aimed at flogging those awful books and brackish perfume, "somthing different" might be a mis-step. Like Black Lace trying to write an opera.

This week just gone

The top ten mobile devices that people prod to look at No Rock is:

1. iPhone
2. Android
3. iPad
4. iPod
5. Symbian
6. Blackberry
7. Samsung
8. Sony
9. Windows
10. Nokia

The interesting releases of the week were...


Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me

Download Tell Me



Lucinda Williams - Blessed

Download Long Player...



Ron Sexsmith - Long Player, Late Bloomer

Download Long Player...



Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

Download Wounded Rhymes



OMD - History Of Modern

Download History Of Modern



Scritti Politti - Absolute

Download Absolute

Streaming now: Wild Flag

NPR have got the first, proper recording from Wild Flag.

If you need a prompt:

[T]he recently formed band featuring former NPR Music blogger and Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein, Mary Timony (Helium), Janet Weiss (Quasi, Sleater-Kinney) and Rebecca Cole (The Minders).

Oh, yes. The album is coming out on Record Store Day, but NPR have a taste to dip your beak into.

[via @sleepssundays]

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Borders

Christopher Caldwell mourns Borders' demise in The FT [irritating registration required]. He focuses more on its core book business, but his analysis applies to the CD department, too:

The forces that crippled it are the same ones that killed Tower Records, with the lag accounted for by the surprising fact that music wound up being easier than literature to digitise to customers’ satisfaction. Borders’ rise was computer-based: it was the first bookstore to carry out the digital revolution in inventorying. It could display more books because its software kept precise track of what was selling and how fast. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Borders’ inventorying turned out to be relatively simple to duplicate. Walmart and Target, not to mention Amazon.com, were soon able to match and beat its prices. Tax policies that favoured virtual enterprises over physical ones hurt, too.

John Lydon didn't like being called a punk

In a bid to try and come up with something new to say as he pushes the same old stories, John Lydon has decided he doesn't like being called a punk:

Speaking at the launch of his book 'Mr Rotten's Scrapbook', he told BANG Showbiz: "I never liked the moniker punk, it was given to us by Caroline Coon (journalist and artist), who called me the King of Punk, but when I found out what the world meant, like, somebody's bottom boy in an American prison, I was none too thrilled with the concept."

Coon might have called Lydon King Of Punk, but the use of the word "punk" surely derives from Creem magazine from back when Lydon was still in short trousers; by the time McClaren was pushing his boys onto the bandwagon, the connection between prison sex and the word had surely been broken?

Besides, for someone who never liked the word "punk", Lydon is always happy to claim his position in the pantheon. Like in The Times, in 1999:

Lydon's recollections of punk suggests that the Sex Pistols documentary, as yet unscheduled by Channel 4, should make great viewing. "The truth about punk will get out," insists Lydon. "It was not an intellectual movement orchestrated by Malcolm McLaren. We didn't set out to be seen as some great, culturally significant force. If we had an aim, it was to force our own, working-class opinions into the mainstream, which was unheard of in pop music at the time."

If it was all your own, how come you didn't come up with your own name for what you were doing?

Gordon in the morning: Cardle can't judge

The one thing we can hope about Murdoch adding all of BSkyB to his Xanadu collection is that maybe he'll tell his editors to stop spending so much time promoting ITV, and the X Factor in particular.

In the meanwhile, we're months away from the next series, and yet we get stuff like this from Gordon every day:

X FACTOR winner Matt Cardle said he'd refuse to be a show judge because he's too NICE.

He hasn't been asked to be a judge. Given that his experience is winning a game show, even Cowell might baulk at bringing on a man whose position in the musical pantheon is just below the man who played the drums at the time the woman danced with a man who'd danced with a girl who'd danced with the Prince Of Wales.

So we've got a story in which someone is turning down a job for which he is unqualified and which hasn't been offered.

Is this story even exclusive?

Matt, 27, told ITV1's This Morning yesterday...

It's a non-story that has already been broadcast on television. Smart might as well just print the X Factor logo and invite his readers to nuzzle their faces against it until Autumn.

Maroon 5 cuts out the middle men, gets fans to do their job

Maroon 5 - yes, it turns out they're still going for some reason - are inviting fans to tell them what their music sounds like.

Given the sludge of their records sounds like it's been created by a series of focus groups anyway, it's not entirely clear what difference this might make.

I think we're supposed to assume that up until now, the band's songs have been created by the five members working together; by inviting all their fans to collaborate instead, they're going to see what it's like if fewer people create a track.

The recording session, to be held in London, will be steamed live on the internet and the band will work with fans in real time to create the one-off track.

Fans will appear to the group through a movement based projection system, which will stream their thoughts and comments to the whole studio space rather than the group - Adam Levine, James Valentine, Jesse Carmichael, Michael Madden and Matt Flynn - having to gather around a computer screen.

Yes, this idea is so dull, they're trying to make having a projector sound like it's an exciting development. Jesus, guys, even the monthly East Midlands Region Wagon Wheel Sales Team meeting hooks a laptop to a projector.

The really heartbreaking thing is that isn't even something Maroon 5 are doing because it's a good idea, but are instead doing it because Coke are paying them:

The session takes place in association with Coca Cola, and Joe Belliotti, Director of Global Entertainment Marketing for the company, said: "We are excited to be working with Maroon 5. "They have worked closely with us to help shape the event and ensure the session will be a fun and engaging experience for fans no matter where in the world they are.

"This is the most ambitious and experimental effort in music Coca-Cola has ever undertaken."

Really, Mr Belliotti? Wasn't attempting to build a Coke-branded digital music download store and unseat Apple as the key provider of online music not a little bit more ambitious than putting an internet-enabled PC in a recording studio?

Still, it'll be a lot of fun, I'm sure, and can I just stress that logging in simply to suggest writing a song about how great Pepsi is, or the way trades unionists whose activities were awkward for Coca-Cola had a nasty habit of turning up dead would be a terrible abuse of the generosity of the Coca-Cola company. If that's the sort of thing you're planning, you might want to keep well away from the project's website.

Embed and breakfast man: Lykke Li

Fresh from last night's Jimmy Fallon:



[Buy: Wounded Rhymes]

Gordon in the morning: Man gets slightly older as he gets a bit older

Robbie Williams won't see 35 again. This irrefutable fact doesn't seem to have stopped Gordon Smart being surprised that Williams' hair has started to grey a little and his waistline has started to expand a little.

Avril Lavigne soaks up life experience

Why hasn't there been an Avril Lavigne record since 2007?

Well, yes, I'm sure that "nobody was interested in buying one" might be part of it, but really it turns out she's been getting life experience so she had something to write about.

So, what has she been doing? Taken a job in a small town supermarket? Climbed a mountain? Studied astrophysics?

No, it appears her "life experience" was marrying another minor celebrity and then divorcing the same minor celebrity:

She said: "I've taken my time on this record, with my life and experienced what I need to in life to write songs that are very meaningful to me. I threw a lot of myself into this record."

'Girlfriend' singer Avril divorced Sum 41 vocalist Deryck Whibley after four years of marriage in late 2010, and confesses some of the album - which he partly produced - is inspired by changes in her life and the relationships she has been in.

She said: "My first single 'What The Hell' is just a song about life and freedom and changes. It's about personal freedom.

"'Push' is definitely one of my favourite songs on this record. All my girlfriends love it. It's a song about fighting for love and believing in love. When you're fighting and you're like, 'Shut up, move forward and move along and let's do this because we love each other.' "

To be honest, Avril, your "girlfriends" might not be the most impartial audience to test your new material on.

Still, an album forged in the white heat of the real life forge of being married to the singer from a Green Day tribute band. I'm sure we can all, like, whatever, relate and that, right?

Vo.x denies homophobia - gays are just wrong, they're not afraid of them

Getting on for a year ago now, Armenia-British band Vo.X churned out a pop video which suggested that being gay was a "peversion", on a par with air pollution and, erm, neglecting historical sites, and should be stamped out if Armenia was to be a nice place to live:

They also seem to think they're a Britpop band, but let's let that one go.

It's taken a few months, but Vo.x have come up with a response:

OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER STATEMENT. RE: MUSIC VIDEO "I LOVE ARMENIA"
by VO.X

March 2nd, 2011
Yerevan, Armenia

To Whom It May Concern

I hereby state that, based on Biblical principles, I personally hold the belief that Christianity and homosexuality cannot be viewed as reconcilable phenomena (This approach was reflected within the context of my music video "I Love Armenia", which spoke of cherishing Christian values in traditional Christian Armenia).

Nonetheless, by no means does that imply that I have ever intended to promote homophobia or hate towards sexual minorities through my musical career.

According to a commonly known definition (also stated by Wikipedia), "the term 'homophobia' is often used inaccurately to describe any person who objects to homosexual behaviour on either moral, psychological or medical grounds. Technically, however, the term actually denotes a person who has a phobia – or irrational fear – of homosexuality. Principled disagreement, therefore, cannot be labeled 'homophobia'." My case is that of objection on moral grounds. Hence, I cannot be viewed as a homophobe, because, in fact, I am not.

Being a human rights defender by nature and generally a peaceful tolerant person with a pacifist world view, I would never deliberately offend or discriminate any person or a group of people. Nor would I ever cross the boundaries, set by the amount of freedom of speech and expression assigned to me as an individual.

Therefore, if it ever appeared that I was willingly offending a specific category of people through my musical activities, I can sincerely assure the persons concerned that I had never been driven by such a motive.

I sincerely regret that it all led to certain forms of misconception, I regret that people were offended by the above-mentioned video and I truly wish to settle the matter once and for all.

Aram Rian
songwriter, musician
(VO.X)

You know that as soon as someone reaches for a dictionary - or Wikipedia - to parse the word "homophobia" to react to such an accusation that they really don't have much a defence. It's a bit like a racist going "how can I be xenophobic? If I was afraid of foreigners, I'd not chase them for a ruck, would I?"

Aram doesn't quite explain why putting a big red cross through gay people's faces isn't hate filled, or that suggesting that Armenia cannot be a happy, shiny place while gays live there isn't calling for discrimination. Perhaps Vo.x are still looking for the Wikipedia page on why being an asshat isn't, strictly speaking, asshattery.

Gordon in the morning: Jessie - an example to all

Jessie J "guest edits" Bizarre this morning. As guest editor, she'll get the respect she deserves, right? Erm...:

IF JESSIE J were a character in The Inbetweeners, she would definitely have featured in Jay's premier league of clunge.

You know, Gordon, even in the context of the sitcom, that was pretty nasty. Using the phrase to introduce a piece in a national newspaper about someone who's sat right next to you is quite something.

J was apparently at stage school with one of the InBetweeners, James Buckley:

"I remember he was really into his music. It was mainly a dance school but he was focusing on drama. I'll have to dig out the pictures of him when he was there."

But you know what? She doesn't have to, as Gordon gets his "team" to mock up what he must have looked like:

Yes. I'd imagine that's exactly what it looked like.

And what of J herself? She wants to be a role model:

"I'm just proud I can be a decent influence on girls.

"As long as I am known for my music first and all the other stuff comes second, I'm cool with it.

"When my arse was on the front page of The Sun this week I knew I had made it."

Yes, having your arse on the front of The Sun both puts your music centre stage and provides a glowing example to young women. Mission accomplished, Miss J.

Record shop update: Birdel's to close

Last time, two years ago, when Joe Long tried to close New York record store Birdels, he wasn't allowed to. His customers made him keep open.

This time, though, he really has closed up for good.

On the down side, the city has lost what sounds like a brilliant music store. On the plus side, it sounds like Joe Long is really planning to enjoy his hard-earned retirement:

Mr. Long’s immediate plans include traveling far from New York, where he has lived since 1954: first to North Carolina, where he will visit family, then perhaps to Aruba or Ghana.

[via @PatrickTrojman]

My name is Prince! And I am apparently a bit rubbish at settling my bills!

Prince is being sued by his own lawyers who claim he owes USD700,000 in unpaid legal bills.

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler reckon that he hasn't settled with them for work done representing the Purple One in overseas affairs; he also hasn't paid them for doing his divorce.

If you don't pay your divorce bill, do you get remarried by default? Prince might want to check on that.

Spotify: Now with added Nazis

Unpleasantly lurking in the belly of Spotify is hard-right band Skrewdriver and their Live At Waterloo album.

I'm sure the advertisers who keep Spotify afloat would be thrilled that you might hear their spot after listening to White Power or When The Boat Comes In (Nigger Nigger). How many companies would feel that doesn't hit their brand values spot on, eh?

You might like to suggest to Spotify they drop the race hate.

Get well soon, Poly Styrene

Some bad news via the press team looking after Poly's new album:

It comes as a huge shock to all those who know Poly Styrene and X-ray Spex that Poly has been diagnosed with cancer, she is currently undergoing various treatments in her battle with this illness.

She is devastated that she cannot commit to any live dates at this stage, but her album remains a very positive force in her current journey.

Poly has been tweeting about her illness and will continue to keep in touch with fans: "It's been a bit of a battle fighting this cancer but hey ho I'm still alive, Luv Poly x". She also recently added via Twitter “Hoping & praying I can fight this cancer. Thank u all 4 ur positive vibes, I'm overwhelmed, ur keeping me in the land of living.
Luv Poly X”

Fingers crossed for a full-on cancer-ass-kicking.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Hanging is too good for them

It's understandable that Gennaro Castaldo might be grasping at any straws right now, but even bearing that in mind, his rant calling for people to be thrown off the internet is surprising:

Gennaro Castaldo, HMV's spokesman for the UK and Ireland, believes government legislation must be in place to compel internet service providers to adopt the so-called 'three-strikes-and-you're-out' policy in order to deter would-be bootleggers.

"It's ironic that the very people who often engage in piracy are those who love the creative industries, be it film or music," he says. "They wouldn't dream about going into a shop and stealing a DVD, but they just don't realise that by downloading a film or TV show illegally they are doing exactly the same thing.

"It's all well and good to educate people about the damage their actions are doing, but maybe the only way to tackle it is to really crack down on illegal downloaders. The problem is people feel they can continue to download because they won't be sanctioned."

Nobody would dream of stealing a DVD from HMV, it's true, as that would mean you'd have to go into a branch of HMV in the first place.

Gennaro: it won't work, it's too expensive and too restrictive. What you're asking for is for the government to make laws compelling the communications industry to try and make up for the entertainment industry's failings. You might as well campaign to insist that newsagents be forced to give you ten pence every time someone whistles while buying tobacco.

Music Week brings news from Canada and Denmark

Music Week reports on a couple of surveys about unlicensed music:

The debate around P2P and its impact on music sales is never short of controversy and now two new studies have been published which reveal the extreme ends of thinking.

Eamonn Forde's piece doesn't quite live up to this eyecatching opening. Not much is "revealed" at all - indeed, one of the surveys is little more than a crunching of other survey findings.

This is done by the Canadian copyright farming industry, which looks at other surveys from between 2005 and 2008, and concludes that people who use peer to peer networks would spend an extra £110 a year on music if p2p didn't exist.

As Forde points out, looking at a survey about the internet in 2008 to draw conclusions about 2011 is flawed from the very start, and even if you can get round that problem, and except their rather elaborate extrapolation, you're still left with the basic problem that this is all "so what?"

If there weren't p2p networks, people would spend £110 more on music. Maybe. If there were no proper shoes, I would wear flipflops. If there wasn't rain, people would spend less on umbrellas. Perhaps the Canadian Intellectual Property Council might like to conduct a survey into what would happen if there were really unicorns?

The second survey is also a bit "so what":

Meanwhile, TorrentFreak is running details of a study into P2P user behaviour and ethical stances by the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit in Denmark. It found that 70% of those polled said that it was “acceptable” to source music illicitly from the web. Three-quarters, however, said they had moral objections to anyone then selling that illegally acquired music for profit.

People who use peer to peer networks don't have a problem using things like peer to peer networks to obtain music without proper licences. Excuse me while I frantically recolour my worldview.

[via @buzzsonic]

Nelly Furtado does the right thing, belatedly

While it's noble of Nelly Furtado to give to charity the million dollars she got for playing a 2007 concert for the Gadaffi family, perhaps the more pressing question is why she thought that playing the gig was the right thing to do in the first place.

Perhaps Furtado's defence might be that it feels wrong to keep the money now that Gadaffi's people are, say, calling for the slaughter of people who want political change.

But that was happening in 2007, says Amnesty:

Later that month, however, Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi urged his supporters to "kill enemies" if they asked for political change.

Perhaps it was the thought of unarmed protesters being gunned down in Benghazi that made Furtado feel the cash was tainted.

But in 2007 police opened fire on crowds outside the Italian consulate in the city, killing at least 12.

In February 2007, Amnesty warned that:

"Libyan authorities may have beaten and raped or sexually abused some [Eritrean] detainees, and some detainees may even have died in custody as a result of such torture or other ill-treatment."

Nelly's jolly little gig came around the same time that Gaddafi's state sentenced those Bulgarian nurses to death for "deliberately" infecting children with HIV.

It's strange that all of that didn't taint the money, but four years on Furtado has suddenly noticed a stench coming from all those dollars.

Shirley Manson: Something new and charitable

Got 79p kicking about that you'd like to swap for something lovely and which will also help stand up to governments who would abuse human rights? Get yourself to the iTunes store and buy The Hunger, lifted from the Prometheus Bound musical and bringing together Shirley Manson and Serj Tankian.

It's all in aid of Amnesty International, so doubly worth investigating.

Gordon in the morning: Rotten tomatoes

As John Lydon grinds through some pantomime fauxpinions on the X Factor.

By accident, Gordon is quite acute in his response:

SEX PISTOLS legend JOHN LYDON's acid tongue is as lethal as ASHLEY COLE armed with a rifle at the Chelsea training ground.

Given that Ashley Cole merely pinged a pellet off an intern, and wasn't ever going to kill anybody at all with his underpowered weapon, Smart is actually spot-on. Lydon is about as lethal as a kid with an airgun. Here, for example, is his "acid" attack on Cheryl Cole:

"There's not much going on in the head, is there?

"Although she does bring men to the TV screen because they're all thinking we'd like a lot more going on in her head. We're just fellas – we live in hope."

Devastating, right?

And on Simon Cowell?

"He's like a pony with blinkers who is slightly embarrassed about his effeminacy.

"I think he's effeminate – any man that wears tight T-shirts and plays with his nipples on TV has got a social dilemma going on.

Really, John? "Has got a social dilemma going on" doesn't actually mean anything, you might as well say "editors please complete this comment".

More disappointing is the way that Lydon thinks that effeminacy - either suspected or genuine - is somehow a bad thing and that accusing a man of being effeminate is a devastating judgement. Disappointing, but even Lydon's hackneyed belief that calling someone a sissy is acceptable fails to surprise these days.

John Lydon is trying to sell his book.

HMV warn leaky boat might leak a bit more

Given that we've only completed two months of 2011 so far, it might seem surprising that MHV are already on their second profits warning already.

HMV told the city that its profits were going to be "moderately" below expectations - which seems right up there with "this might sting a little" and "I've some rather bad news". Stockholders seem to have seen this through Sergeant Wilson approach, and dumped HMV shares faster than you could put Olly Murs albums into a bargain bin.

The Guardian offer this handy graph of HMV share prices:

The company is still expecting to make £45million in profits this year, but set against that is £130m worth of debt. Shares value the company at around £66m at the moment, which the astute amongst you will spot is about half of the value of the debt it carries.

Nipper, the HMV dog, is looking up at Mr Herriot with meaningful, but tired, eyes.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Clear Channel grabs thumbs

So, the mysterious "major media company" who is set to snaffle Thumbplay - the unpopular US subscription service - is revealed: All Things D report Clear Channel Radio are paying not very much to acquire the company.

It sounds like they're less interested in the handful of subscribers, and are instead keen to use the Thumbplay technology to drive their radio business.

The good news is all staff will be kept on; existing subscribers will be able to carry on listening in their dozens but, for now, Clear Channel isn't looking to grow their numbers:

[Bob Pittman, chairman of media and entertainment at Clear] says Thumbplay’s technology will be integrated in the coming months into Clear Channel’s “iheartradio” service, which offers 750 free Web radio stations and boasts 25 million monthly uniques. He says all 65 Thumbplay employees working on music services will get jobs at Clear Channel.

Clear Channel will get into subscriptions “eventually”, Pittman says. Clear Channel says existing Thumbplay subscribers won’t notice any change, but that the company will stop marketing for new customers.

Which also suggests the rest of the world won't really notice any change, either.