Warner Music, VimpelCom Group sign deal

The following was taken from the Internet. It was not written by REP or anyone affiliated with REP.

Thu Aug 10, 3:16 PM ET

LOS ANGELES – Warner Music International has licensed songs from its catalog of music by Madonna, Green Day and other artists to Russian mobile carrier VimpelCom Group, the companies said Thursday. The deal between the global arm of New York-based Warner Music Group and Moscow-based VimpelCom appears to be the first of its kind to involve a major Western record label and a Russian mobile operator.

VimpelCom, which operates under the Beeline brand, boasts more than 50 million subscribers. It provides mobile service in Russia and the neighboring nations of Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia.

Beeline plans to launch a music portal later this month to sell ringtones, so-called master tones or snippets of master sound recordings, full-track song downloads and other content for customizing mobile phones.

Initially, however, only VimpelCom mobile customers in Russia will be able to purchase the Warner Music content.

As part of the deal, VimpelCom will have a five-month exclusive to sell ringtones, video clips, full-track downloads and other content from Madonna.

At the outset, Beeline will only offer full-track song downloads from Madonna, not other Warner artists.

Beeline is the main sponsor of an upcoming concert appearance in Moscow by the pop diva.

The Russian mobile music market represents a safer bet for record companies, which have seen sales sapped by digital piracy on online file-sharing networks or Web sites that make songs available for free or well below cost, but without permission.

The nature of mobile networks makes them far harder to hack than Internet-based networks.

Russia is second only to China as a source for pirated music, movies and software. One Russian-based music Web site — Allofmp3.com — has become a popular destination for music fans because it sells full albums for less than $1.

___

On the Net:

Warner Music: http://www.wmg.com

VimpelCom: http://www.vimpelcom.com

Punk band accuses label of “illegal schemes”

This was taken from the internet and is not part of REP.

NEW YORK (Billboard) – Pop-punk band Hawthorne Heights, whose latest album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 earlier this year, has sued its label, alleging that its “overly-aggressive, unethical and illegal schemes and tactics” have severely damaged the group’s reputation and its relationship with fans. In the suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, the Dayton, Ohio-based quintet also claims that Victory Records did not pay it for sales of albums, digital downloads, ringtones and foreign sales or for the use of its music in film soundtracks and video games.

The group accuses Chicago-based Victory and owner Tony Brummel of applying a low royalty rate for its payments, and failing to account for merchandise sales.

The suit also excoriates Brummel’s “outrageous” business schemes, and alleges that he physically threatened the band’s manager and radio station personnel who refused to increase airplay for the group’s songs.

In February, Hawthorne Heights and rapper Ne-Yo were vying for the top of The Billboard 200. On February 28, an email from someone at Victory appeared to urge its street promotions team to tamper with Ne-Yo’s sales potential. “If you were to pick up (a) handful of Ne-Yo CDs, as if you were about to buy them, but then changed your mind and didn’t bother to put them back in the same place,” the message read, “That would work … just relocating a handful creates issues.”

Within hours of the email’s appearance on an industry message board on March 1, a second email appeared calling the first message “a joke.” The Hawthorne Heights record, “If Only You Were Lonely,” wound up debuting at No. 3 on sales of 114,000 units in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while Ne-Yo’s “In My Own Words” bowed at No. 1 on sales of 301,000 units.

Band members Eron Bucciarelli-Tieger, Casey Calvert, Micah Carli, Matt Ridenour and JT Woodruff claim that Brummel then signed the band’s name without their knowledge or approval to a so-called manifesto, which falsely stated that the band believed it was in some type of war with artists in the hip-hop and R&B music genres, leading many to brand the band as racist.

In the suit, the band also charges Victory and Brummel with “egregiously fraudulent accounting practices.” Despite sales of nearly 1.5 million units of the band’s recordings and videos, Victory and Brummel claim that the band owes the label in excess of $1 million, the suit says, even though Victory has received in excess of $10 million in revenues from its sale of Hawthorne Heights’ CDs, DVDs and merchandise.

The suit, filed in the federal District Court in Chicago, follows the band’s posting of its own “manifesto” on its Web site (http://www.hawthorneheights.com), in which it describes the way it claims Brummel has treated them.

Hawthorne Heights wants the court to stop Victory from distributing its recordings, to order that the recording agreement be rescinded and to order the company and Brummel to pay unspecified monetary damages.

The complaint alleges a slew of claims, including copyright and trademark infringement, invasion of privacy for placing the band in a “false light,” fraud and interference with business relations.

Said Robert Meloni, Victory’s litigation attorney: “Victory believes there’s no merit to the lawsuit, and Victory maintains the group is obligated to deliver two more albums to the label, and we’ll hold them to it.”

Reuters/Billboard

Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood releasing hits CD

This article was taken from the net and not a part of REP.

Tue Aug 8, 1:31 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood will release a two-disc retrospective in September, collecting tracks from his solo outings and his work with the Stones, the Faces, the Jeff Beck Group, and the Creation. “Ronnie Wood Anthology: The Essential Crossexion,” due September 26 via Virgin/EMI, boasts 37 tracks, including a previously unreleased duet with longtime pal Rod Stewart, the 2005 tune “You Strum and I’ll Sing.”

The first disc draws from Wood’s solo albums, 1974’s “I’ve Got My Own Album To Do,” 1975’s “Now Look,” 1979’s “Gimme Some Neck,” 1981’s “1234,” 1992’s “Slide On This,” and 2002’s “Not For Beginners.”

The second disc offers a sample of Wood’s group outings, from his first late ’60s recordings with the Creation (“Midway Down.” “The Girls Are Naked”), to his subsequent work with the Birds (“You’re On My Mind,” “You Don’t Love Me”), the Jeff Beck Group (“All Shook Up,” “Plynth”), the Faces (“Stay With Me,” “Ooh La La”), and the Rolling Stones (“Everything Is Turning To Gold,” “Black Limousine”).

Collaborations with Beck (“I Ain’t Superstitious”) and Stewart (“Maggie May”) are also featured. Not included are tracks from Wood’s 1988 concert recording with Bo Diddley, “Live at the Ritz.”

The Stones, which Wood joined in 1975 for a $100,000 salary, are currently touring Europe. They return to North America in September. In his early years with the Stones, Wood usually co-wrote one or two tracks on each album, but principals Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have not sought his input since 1986’s “Dirty Work.”

Madonna’s Rome Concert Outrages Vatican

The following was taken from the Internet. It was not written by REP or anyone affiliated with REP.

ReutersNews

Monday Aug 07, 2006 8:00am EST

Madonna in concert in California on May 21
CREDIT: KEVIN MAZUR / WIREIMAGE

 

Madonna staged a mock-crucifixion in the Italian capital on Sunday, ignoring a storm of protest and accusations of blasphemy from the Roman Catholic Church.

In a sold-out stadium just a mile from Vatican City, the lapsed-Catholic diva wore a fake crown of thorns as she was raised on a glittery cross during the Rome stop of her worldwide “Confessions Tour.”

The Vatican had accused her of blasphemy and provocation for even considering staging the sham crucifixion on its doorstep, anger Madonna further enflamed prior to the show by inviting Pope Benedict to come and watch.

The self-styled “Queen of Pop” went on to pepper her two-and-a-half hour show with more controversial imagery, at one point showing photographs of the pope after those of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

“Did you know two miracles have taken place in Rome?” the star, dressed in skin-skimming black, later joked with the crowd. “Italy won the World Cup and the rain stopped before my show.”

The 70,000 fans, crammed into the Olympic Stadium, shrugged off the scandal by dancing, singing and jumping as she performed songs from her latest album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, and classics such as “Like a Virgin.”

Yet the cheering lulled when she was raised on the cross and some fans from predominantly Roman Catholic Italy confessed their disappointment.

“The crucifixion was unnecessary and provocative. Because this is Rome, I wish she’d cut it out. But it’s Madonna, she’s an icon, and that balances out her need to provoke,” said 39-year old Roman Tonia Valerio.

It is not the first time Madonna, whose father is a Catholic Italian American, has caused religious anger for her controversial religious and sexual imagery.

Catholic leaders condemned as blasphemous her 1989 video for the hit song “Like a Prayer,” featuring burning crosses, statues crying blood and Madonna seducing a black Jesus.

In 2004, a Vatican group warned that her latest religious belief, Kabbalah, a mystical from of Judaism, was a potential threat to the Roman Catholic faithful.

And she looks likely to face another storm when the tour reaches Moscow in September, where the Russian Orthodox Church has advised its followers to boycott the show because of the crucifixion stunt, agency Interfax reported on Saturday.

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