No Rock And Roll Fun

ACTS IN THE COURT: As if all the ongoing Napster fun isn't enough to make you actually believe that Record Companies are the spawn of Satan, and so on, more court action this week offers further evidence. Garbage are joining Courtney Love in attempting to use California Labour laws to break contracts with Universal, while Dave and Helen Balfe, co-founders of Food, are in London's busy High Court alledging sharp practice on the part of EMI. The Balfes claim that EMI released limited run Japanese only CDs by Blur and Shampoo to avoid having to pay them their share of royalties on full-run albums. When Food was sold to EMI, the deal being that the Balfes would receive a share in the first two albums by each band released by EMI. Regardless of what the High Court finds in terms of contract law, this sort of manoeuvering is worth writing down on a prompt card to bring out the next time record companies sob into their chianti about how they're only worried about their talent's income when they attack Napster. Winningly, news also broke this week that Mainics drummer Sean Moore - the sexy alternative to Real Paul Merton - was one of the Napster users blocked ont he orders of Sony for having copies of erm, his own ,music on his own computer.