Category: Lawsuits

Paul, Ringo sue EMI over royalties
LONDON (AP) — Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and relatives of their Beatles’ bandmates are suing EMI to recover what they claim is more than $53 million in unpaid royalties, their company said Friday.
McCartney, Starr and relatives of John Lennon and George Harrison are pursuing the case both in New York and London.
“We have tried to reach a settlement through good faith negotiations and regret that our efforts have been in vain,” said Neil Aspinall, who heads Apple Corps Ltd.
“Despite very clear provisions in our contracts, EMI persists in ignoring their obligations and duty to account fairly and with transparency,” Aspinall said.
EMI declined to comment on the case.

Ex-“Idol” Star Busted
Former American Idol contestant Julia DeMato has hit a low note in her post-reality TV existence.
DeMato, who was a top 10 finalist in season two of the talent competition, was arrested early Saturday in Brookfield, Connecticut, and charged with possessing marijuana and cocaine, as well as driving under the influence of alcohol, according to police reports.
Members of the Brookfield police force became suspicious after seeing DeMato’s SUV pull into the parking lot of a local Mexican restaurant around 2 a.m., more than an hour after the restaurant had closed.
After approaching the would-be crooner, the officers determined DeMato had been drinking and administered a series of field sobriety tests, which she failed.
DeMato, 26, was subsequently arrested and police went on to search her car, turning up two marijuana pipes, a small quantity of marijuana and a small plastic bag that tested positive for cocaine.
The erstwhile Idol competitor was charged with possession of narcotics, two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana.
She was released on $10,000 bail and ordered to appear in court on Dec. 16.
Speaking from her home Saturday night, DeMato claimed that her arrest was a mistake and denied that she was a drug user.
“I am not a drug user,” DeMato told the News-Times of Danbury, Connecticut. “This was just a misunderstanding. It’s going to be taken care of in court and that’s that.”
DeMato, who worked as a hair stylist before appearing on Idol, gave birth to her first child in July, a baby boy she named James Peter.
She and her fiancÈ, electrician Jim Polches, were said to be planning to marry next year.
DeMato’s arrest adds her to a lengthy list of Idol alumni who have run into problems with the law, including, but not limited to: Bo Bice, Corey Clark, Scott Savol, Jaered Andrews and Trenyce.
The next season of the talent contest kicks off on Fox in January.

Crowe slams media over phone toss
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe slammed the media on Thursday for blowing his phone throwing incident out of proportion.
Crowe pleaded guilty earlier this month to third-degree assault, admitting to a judge that he threw a phone that hit a Manhattan hotel concierge in June. A Manhattan criminal court sentenced the actor to a conditional discharge, which means he must not get arrested for one year.
The judge also instructed Crowe to pay a $160 US court surcharge.
“I think it brings things back into perspective,” Crowe told reporters in Melbourne when asked if he was happy with the outcome.
“Travelling businessmen get touchy or testy with hotel staff in every major city all around the world,” Crowe told reporters in Melbourne. “That doesn’t excuse the fact that I lost my temper … What I did was stupid. I admitted that straight away.”
But, he added: “I got a $160 court cost fine for something that would have had more news print about it than some very horrific and specific things that we should know about in our community,” he told reporters in Melbourne.
“That is what I mean by getting it into perspective.”
Had Crowe been convicted of the more serious charges initially filed against him – assault and criminal possession of a weapon, the telephone – he could have lost his right to work in the United States and might have faced seven years of prison time.
Crowe, 41, who won the Academy Award for best actor in 2001 for Gladiator, has also starred in such films as A Beautiful Mind and Cinderella Man.
The actor said he was planning to make a film next year with Australian director Baz Luhrmann – who made Moulin Rouge! and Strictly Ballroom – and fellow Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman, but would not provide any details.

Hollywood, BitTorrent software creator Bram Cohen reach agreement
LOS ANGELES (AP) – In a deal aimed at reducing illegal Internet traffic in pirated films, Hollywood reached an agreement Tuesday with the creator of the popular file-sharing software BitTorrent.
The agreement requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to prevent his website, bittorrent.com, from locating pirated versions of popular movies, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of films.
BitTorrent must remove web links leading to illegal content owned by the seven studios that are members of the Motion Picture Association of America.
“BitTorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a licence to do so,” Cohen said in the statement. “As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from bittorrent.com’s search engine.”
MPAA chief executive Dan Glickman declared, “They’re leading the way for other companies by their example.”
The agreement represents the latest effort by the entertainment industry to discourage illegal Internet downloads. It also demonstrates Cohen’s sensitivity toward Hollywood’s piracy problems, making him potentially more attractive to studios for future deals related to movie downloads.
Cohen disclosed in September his company had raised $8.75 million US in venture funding to develop commercial distribution tools for media companies.
The BitTorrent technology pioneered by Cohen – and used by an estimated 45 million people – assembles digital movies and other computer files from separate bits of data downloaded from other computer users across the Internet. Its decentralized nature makes downloading more efficient but also frustrates the entertainment industry’s efforts to find and identify movie pirates.
The agreement with Cohen would not prevent determined Internet users from finding movies or other materials using tools or websites other than Cohen’s, but it removes one of the most convenient methods people have used.

‘Wyrd Sisters’ cannot stop Harry Potter
An Ontario judge has dismissed a motion by a Winnipeg band that would have blocked the release of the new Harry Potter movie in Canada.
Winnipeg folk group the Wyrd Sisters was in court Friday asking for an injunction to block the Nov. 18 release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
The group argued in court that they’ve owned the trademark to the name in Canada since 1990, and that release of the movie with a band purporting to have the same name will ruin their reputation.
In the J.K. Rowling book, there is a band called the Weird Sisters, a term taken from Shakespeare. A band also appears in the movie, played by members of Radiohead and Pulp; however, references to the band’s name have been removed.
That doesn’t matter, argued Kimberly Townley Smith who represents the Winnipeg group. She said the fact that people could confuse the two groups is damaging to the group’s founder.
“The problem is, she’s first. She has the right to use it. She’s the Wyrd Sisters and now, when she goes out, people are going to think that she’s them and worse, who is this person ripping off Harry Potter?”
Harry Potter-related merchandise is using the group’s name and could create still more confusion, she said.
But Justice Colin Campbell ruled the public wouldn’t confuse three characters from the film with the real-life band.
The injunction application is part of a $40-million US lawsuit the band filed in September against Warner Brothers √≥ the studio distributing the film √≥ and the three famous British musicians acting in the movie: Pulp’s frontman Jarvis Cocker and Radiohead’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood and drummer Phil Selway.
Warner says it tried to reach a deal with the Juno-nominated group to use the name, but they were unable to come to an agreement.
Websites for Radiohead and Potter fans are calling the court case nothing more than a publicity stunt. But Wyrd Sister Kim Baryluk says it is about protecting her life’s work.
“We’re Canadian citizens. We have a business. We have a right to use that business name how we see fit. And the way WB approached us was to effectively say we don’t have that right and they’ve made life very difficult for me,” she said.
Baryluk said she would be satisfied if Warner Bros. added a line in the credits of the movie saying: the real Wyrd Sisters live in Canada.

McCready Gets Some Good News
Mindy McCready has one less problem to worry about.
Prosecutors in Arizona dismissed two criminal charges against the singer Friday that stem from a June incident involving an allegedly stolen pickup truck. McCready had been slapped with charges of hindering prosecution and unlawful use of means of transportation.
Although few details of the case have publicly released, police had said McCready and a man had taken a pickup truck from a woman without permission. The case also involved an attempt to purchase two speedboats worth more than $1 million.
All along, McCready blamed the incident on a con man, claiming she was actually trying to help police catch him.
Though she no longer has to contend with those charges, McCready still has plenty of issues to resolve.
The “Guys Do it All the Time” singer is due back in court on Nov. 14 for a probation violation hearing.
McCready was jailed in Florida in August after a warrant was issued for her arrest following her second violation.
The singer was previously busted on a DUI charge in May and was convicted of fraudulently obtaining prescription painkillers in November 2004.
On top of her legal problems, McCready has attempted suicide twice in the past several months by overdosing on a mixture of pills and wine.
The singer revealed that she initially tried to kill herself after learning that she was pregnant with her on-again, off-again boyfriend William McKnight’s baby.
McKnight was charged with attempted murder after he beat and almost choked McCready to death after ambushing her in her home, just days after her drunken driving arrest.
Despite the violent attack that almost ended her life, McCready claims she still loves McKnight and is unwilling to give up on their relationship.
During an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show Thursday, she admitted to spending time with him on several occasions since learning she was carrying his child, though they are technically not supposed to see each other.
McCready attributed McKnight’s violence to drug use, but said she did not expect him to hit her again. However, she said she was bothered by his lack of remorse over the attack.
“I wanted him to take responsibility for it,” she said. “I wanted him to be extremely sorry for it.”
But because McKnight, in McCready’s words, “doesn’t think that he’s done very much wrong,” she said that she has had trouble recovering emotionally from the incident.
“As long as I live, I will never get over it,” she told Winfrey. “I will never forget it. And I will forever be haunted by it.”

Beach Boys Feud Feud Feud
So much for good vibrations.
Beach Boys member Mike Love has filed a lawsuit against former band mate Brian Wilson over Smile–the famously unfinished Beach Boys opus that Wilson completed and released on his own last year to much acclaim, and at Love’s expense.
The suit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, alleges that the promotional blitz by Wilson “shamelessly misappropriated Mike Love’s songs, likeness, and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the Smile album itself,” per court papers obtained by City News Service.
Wilson, the Beach Boys’ principal songwriter and general mastermind, scrapped Smile at the height of the seminal surf band’s popularity in 1967, a few weeks before the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The lost sessions became the stuff of music legend; based on the surviving songs and snippets, some music aficionados argued Smile would have rivaled Sgt. Pepper’s in the pop pantheon. Per rock history, it was Love who fought against the release of Smile because it differed dramatically from the Beach Boys’ standard surf sound.
Love, who cowrote and sang lead on many early Beach Boys classics, alleges that the publicity campaign for Wilson’s solo Smile negatively affected sales of Beach Boys albums. Particularly aggrieving Love was Wilson’s decision to give away more than 2.6 million copies of a Beach Boys’ compilation disc in an edition of Britain’s Mail on Sunday newspaper.
Love’s suit seeks damages amounting to “millions of dollars in illicit profits,” claiming the campaign diluted the Beach Boys’ brand name, and addition $1 million-plus for international advertising “designed to correct the effects of its unfair competition and infringing uses.” Other defendants include the Mail on Sunday and Sanctuary Records Group.
Reps for Wilson and Love could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Smile, which features the classic “Good Vibrations,” was among the most critically hailed albums of 2004. It also earned Wilson his first competitive Grammy.
Love, who cofounded the band with cousins Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, and friend Al Jardine, is the only member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame quintet to continue using the Beach Boys moniker.
As Brian Wilson, the most talented and reclusive of the bunch, managed to overcome decades-long depression and launched a successful solo career, both his brothers have died. Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983, while Carl Wilson succumbed to cancer in 1998.
The three surviving members–Love, Wilson and Jardine–each own a share of the Beach Boys corporation, Brother Records. However, due to legal wrangling through the years, Love is the only member allowed to use Beach Boys name for touring purposes.
Wouldn’t it be nice if they all just got along? Jardine tried touring under the name “Beach Boys Family and Friends” with Brian Wilson’s daughters Wendy and Carnie, but an appeals court barred him from doing so.
Despite the infighting, the Beach Boys are in synch on one legal matter.
Brother Records notified London auctioneer CooperOwen last week that 28 memorabilia items about to be put up for bid, including original sheet music by Brian Wilson and Love, were actually stolen, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
No suspect has been publicly named in the theft of the mementos, but Brother Records says it will file a civil suit on behalf of the Beach Boys against CooperOwen and the individual seller of the memorabilia, as well as anyone who purchases the items.

Grandpa Is Sued Over Grandson’s Downloads
MILWAUKEE – A 67-year-old man who says he doesn’t even like watching movies has been sued by the film industry for copyright infringement after a grandson of his downloaded four movies on their home computer.
The Motion Picture Association of America filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Fred Lawrence of Racine, seeking as much as $600,000 in damages for downloading four movies over the Internet file-sharing service iMesh.
The suit was filed after Lawrence refused a March offer to settle the matter by paying $4,000.
“First of all, like I say, I guess I’d have to plead being naive about the whole thing,” he said.
“I personally didn’t do it, and I wouldn’t do it. But I don’t think it was anything but an innocent mistake my grandson made.”
Lawrence said his grandson, who was then 12, downloaded “The Incredibles,” “I, Robot,” “The Grudge,” and “The Forgotten” in December, without knowing it was illegal to do so.
The Racine man said his grandson downloaded the movies out of curiosity, and deleted the computer files immediately. The family already owned three of the four titles on DVD, he said.
“I can see where they wouldn’t want this to happen, but when you get up around $4,000 … I don’t have that kind of money,” Lawrence said. “I never was and never will be a wealthy person.”
Kori Bernards, vice president of corporate communications for MPAA, said the movie industry wants people to understand the consequences of Internet piracy. She said the problem is the movies that were downloaded were then available to thousands of other users on the iMesh network.
“Basically what you are doing when you use peer-to-peer software is you are offering someone else’s product that they own to thousands of other people for free, and it’s not fair,” Bernards said.
Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a year, she said.

“Harry,” Pulp & Radiohead’s Wyrd World
Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker is a Harry Potter fan. Canadian folk band the Wyrd Sisters–not so much.
The Winnipeg-based group has conjured up a $40 million lawsuit seeking to block the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in North America all because the film features a performance with a same-named band fronted by Cocker and backed by members of Radiohead.
The suit was filed late last month in both the U.S. and Canada and touched off a firestorm in the blogosphere as fans of Potter, Radiohead and Pulp threatened to go Dark Arts on the Canadian group.
In the original book, Potter scribe J.K. Rowling christened the band the Weird Sisters, but Warner Bros. changed the spelling to Wyrd for the movie. In both the book and film, the magical group plays a party attended by Harry and pals. The film’s band consists of Cocker along with Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood and drummer Phil Selway (reportedly subbing for Franz Ferdinand, which turned down the gig).
According to the lawyer for the Wyrd Sisters, the band was tipped off that Goblet used the moniker back in June, when Warners offered the trio $5,000 for name rights. The band, which has been together for 15 years, refused. Warners reportedly upped the offer to $50,000. No dice.
The group then launched their lawsuit, seeking $40 million in damages from Warner Bros., as well as Cocker, Greenwood and Selway. The real Wyrds are also asking that the film be blocked from release on Nov. 18.
Now, Warners says it has removed any reference to the band, Weird or Wyrd, from the film and soundtrack.
“The name the Weird Sisters is not being used either in the film or on its soundtrack and we’ve submitted sworn affidavits to the court stating that fact,” the studio said in a statement Tuesday. “Last week, we even showed plaintiff’s counsel the film in its entirety to prove that point.”
The statemenet may, or may not, be good enough for the Wyrd camp.
“Until recently Warner had them credited and the official word was that the name of the band was ‘The Wyrd Sisters’,” the group’s lawyer, Kimberly Townley-Smith, said in a posting on the band’s Website. “They’ve already created an association between the name and the band and that’s all you need.”
Or, as the band’s singer and cofounder Kim Baryluk told the music site ChartAttack.com: “They are so much more huge than us in their reach that we’ll go out on tour a month after the movie comes out–and we’ll go all over to Australia, to New Zealand–and people will wonder who are these strange people stealing the Harry Potter name.”
As the Wyrd dispute winds its way through the legal system, it’s proving difficult for Warner Music’s marketing group to hype the soundtrack, which is eagerly anticipated by alt-rock fans.
In a press release announcing the album, due Nov. 15, Warners simply says there are three original tunes performed by the now unnamed band: “Do the Hippogriff,” “This Is the Night” and “Magic Works.”
Cocker, who wrote two of the Goblet tracks, told E! Online Monday that he was proud of the project.
He was making an L.A. appearance at the small Los Angeles club Tangier, where he tried out a new song that may well end up on his forthcoming solo debut, titled “C–ts Are Still Running the World,” with a little help on stage from former Beck drummer Joey Waronker and Donnie Darko composer Michael Andrews on guitar.
However, he did seem a bit taken aback by the Wyrd folkie attack.
“I didn’t know they had lawyers in Canada,” the singer deadpanned before playing the pick-up gig Monday night.
“I thought Canadians were supposed to be polite.”

Eminem Files Suit Over Cellular Ring Tones
DETROIT – Grammy-winning rapper Eminem’s publishing companies filed a lawsuit in an effort to stop his songs from being used as cell phone ring tones.
In the suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, Michigan-based Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated are seeking a court order to prohibit five companies from selling Eminem song ring tones on the Internet.
Lawyers for the rapper, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, said they also plan to sue karaoke companies that sell Eminem songs without getting the proper licenses.
“This is a big business. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,” said Howard Hertz, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.
The companies named in the suit are Colorado-based Cellus USA, Georgia-based FanMobile, New York-based Nextones.com, New Jersey-based MyPhoneFiles and New Jersey-based MatrixM LLC.