Tag: "lawsuit"

Closing yet another chapter of this ongoing story, Cardiff Crown Court has adjourned the case against Lostprophets frontman Iat Watkins.

Watkins, 35, of Pontypridd, will now appear in court in May to face his charges. He is accused of conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child under 13, more specifically conspiracy to rape a baby, and four offenses of possessing or distributing indecent images of children between May and December 2012. Continue reading ‘Lostprophets’ Frontman Child Sex Case Adjourned’

Alt-rock pop-punk outfit Pentimento have been through a rough patch for the past few months, dealing with the ugly legal side of the music industry. On their website, the Buffalo-based band explains that they have been at battle with their former label Panic Records over the rights to their recordings and the release of their debut self-titled album. The label has issued a legal threat to the band as well as to their current label Paper + Plastick and their second distribution label Black Numbers. As a result, the band has been unable to set any specific release dates or have any physical copies pressed. Even worse, they have decided to part ways with their labels in order to protect them from legal action.

Today, Panic Records released a statement in response to this matter, which you can read on their Facebook page. The message basically points out that “there are two sides to every story,” claiming that the band are responsible for the initiation of this legal debacle.

While the situation is still unresolved, Pentimento still want to get their music out, so they have made their debut LP available online for free, with the humble option of donating to help them cover the costs of recording. If you would like to support them, click here to read their side of the story, check out their music, and consider offering a contribution.

If you like Pentimento, you might also like OurStage’s own Otenki.

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Lil Wayne is going to court! But he’s not the one on trial this time. In fact, it’s Wayne who’s bringing suit.

Wayne, or Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. for legal purposes, is taking Quincy Jones III to court over The Carter, the documentary focused on Lil Wayne that Jones III had a hand in producing. While Wayne had initially agreed to let a film crew follow him around the time of The Carter III’s writing and release, Wayne has since attempted to block the release and distribution of the documentary. The two have been legally entangled for years. In this most recent round of legal wrangling, Wayne had to be questioned by Pete Ross, Jones III’s lawyer, in a deposition which was recorded for reference or evidence at some point down the line.

Continue reading ‘Footage Of Lil Wayne’s Deposition Is The Best Video You’ll Watch All Week’

Paul Gray, the late bassist for masked metal band Slipknot, passed away in May of 2010 due to an overprescription of painkillers by a Des Moines, Iowa doctor named Daniel Baldi. Now, according to Rolling Stone, 50-year-old Baldi is being charged with eight counts of involuntary manslaughter from overprescription, including Gray’s death.

While Baldi has pleaded not guilty to every count, if convicted he may face “up to 16 years in prison.” This is not the first time the doctor has been accused of medical malpractice; three other previous “wrongful death suits” are being “included in the criminal charges” as well.

Gray, a founding member of Slipknot, struggled for years with an addiction to drugs, which makes Baldi’s decision to prescribe him high doses of narcotics that much more negligent in the eyes of the court. Today, the band released a statement on their Facebook page, which reads as follows:

“As the loss of our brother Paul Gray is still very fresh for us in the Slipknot family, this new development has us all in a state of anger and sadness. The fact that this person took advantage of our brother’s illness while he was in a position to help others has outraged everyone in our family. We can only hope that justice will be served so this can NEVER happen to anyone else ever again! Our thoughts go out to the families of the other victims. We plan to cooperate as much as we possibly can to ensure this tragedy is never repeated, and to make sure this man pays for what he has done.”

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Joel Tenenbaum has been in an ongoing court battle with the RIAA over 31 songs that he illegally distributed on Kazaa. The case finally came to a close yesterday, leaving Tenenbaum liable for $675,000. Gizmodo.com summarized it thusly: ”That’s nearly $22,000 per song, plus some wholesale character assassination that has now been sealed with judge’s rubber stamp.”

While it may seem like an excessive punishment (and it most certainly is) this fine is apparently very low compared to the maximum $4.65 million penalty he could have faced. So the judge believes, “it was awfully nice of the jury to be so lenient.” Needless to say, Tenenbaum’s life will be riddled with financial turmoil for quite some time over a measly 31 songs. That oughta teach all those Internet pirates a lesson! …Right?

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Last October, the F.B.I. classified Juggalos (Insane Clown Posse fans) as an official gang in a National Gang Threat Assessment report. The document describes them as “a loosely-organized hybrid gang… rapidly expanding into many US communities.”

In defense of this report, the I.C.P. duo known as Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope have decided to take legal action to investigate the situation and try to sue the F.B.I. for “monetary compensation and/or other injunctive relief on behalf of their fan base,” according to The New York Times. The group made an official announcement of this plan at their annual Gathering Of The Juggalos this past weekend, and they have also created a website, www.juggalosfightback.com, “where fans can provide information about harassment, arrests or denials of rights they may have experienced because of their affiliation with the band.” Watch I.C.P.’s announcement in the video below:

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That Madonna. She’s certainly trying, isn’t she?

At a concert in Paris this past Saturday, a projected screen playing behind the singer flashed an image of far-right politician Marine Le Pen with a swastika imposed over the politican’s forehead. If that wasn’t enough, the image on the screen then switched over to that of Adolf Hitler’s visage partially imposed over that of Madonna’s. The video montage included images of famous leaders and other recognizable figures with the face of the “Material Girl” spliced in.

Le Pen, the head of France’s Front National (FN) party, was furious at the display and had indicated potential legal action against Madonna after the video montage was played at a performance in Israel. “If she does that in France, we’ll be waiting for her,” Le Pen said in reference to the video. SOS Racisme, an anti-racism organization, has come out in support of Madonna, calling her video, “anti-racist and feminist.” It should be noted that the FN party has been associated with Nazi sympathizing and historical revisionism in the past. Le Pen, since her rise to FN party leader, has been working to change those perceptions of her party.

Madonna has been garnering headlines and publicity that is usually reserved for performers half her age. Her most notable press-grabbing stunt of late saw the pop star asking if “anyone [had] seen Molly?” at Ultra Music Festival back in March (we’ve tried to erase those flashing episodes from our minds). Some, most notably EDM producer Deadmau5, criticized the singer for making what appeared to be a thinly veiled drug reference. The name “Molly” is often synonymous with ecstasy, a drug whose rise in popularity has gone hand in hand with the rave culture found in EDM.

Check out video of the controversial montage below.

California death metal act All Shall Perish – who have penned tracks with titles like “There Is No Business To Be Done On A Dead Planet” and “Stabbing To Purge Dissimulation” –  aren’t known for their sunny disposition. But the group has had justification for their gloomy outlook as of late, thanks to a lawsuit being brought upon 180 of their fans. Panama based company World Digital Rights, Inc. filed suit on April 20th in the US District Court For The Middle District of Florida against two groups of John Does whose IP addresses were picked up in BitTorrent download swarm for the band’s latest album This Is Where It Ends. As TorrentFreak reported, the band, their management and record label were blindsided by news of the suit. All Shall Perish only learned of the lawsuit after catching a wave of negative fan feedback.

The lack of information from the band isn’t the only strange wrinkle in this story. Very few lawsuits have been filed against individual downloaders in the past few years. The practice, once popular in the early Aughts, has been largely abandonded by the major labels and by the RIAA. There is some precedent for lawsuits being filed against P2P infringers en masse: in 2010, the producers of the movie The Hurt Locker filed against a staggering 24, 583 users who were charged with downloading the film over P2P services.

While this current suit from World Digital Rights, Inc. isn’t a fraction as large as The Hurt Locker case that hasn’t diminished pushback against it from the band and fans alike. Unfortunately the group has little say in the matter as it appears that their label, Nuclear Blast, signed the some of the band’s rights over to World Digital Rights, making them the exclusive licensee of the group’s most recent album. And with statutory damages of up to $150,000, it looks like the 180 soon to be ex-John Does may soon have to pony up some cash.

The popularity of LimeWire, the now-defunct peer-to-peer file-sharing network, predictably drew the ire of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which went into full-attack mode within the last year. The RIAA first went to federal court and had LimeWire, which they called a “massive piracy machine,” effectively shut down in that the court ordered them to cease their central operation—an application designed to allow sharing of copyrighted material. The next logical step then was to seek damages. The RIAA has a history of overreaching in their compensation goals, making actual recoupment of damages unlikely and further casting themselves as the greedy, monolithic villain. In this case, they settled with LimeWire for a relatively more reasonable $105 million (a jury could have gone as high as $1.4 billion).

So where does the money go? Who absorbed the actual damages? This is where the RIAA may very well cement their reputation as the Monty Burns of corporate associations. Ostensibly, they have sought this recompense on behalf of artists, whose hard work is being stolen—STOLEN!—from them by nasty pirates…and children… and hospitalized teens…and grandmothers. But there is rampant speculation that artists will see none of the $105 million. While the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) broadcasted their satisfaction with the settlement, they simultaneously made it clear that they expected the money to go to their musician members. For a few days, the beneficiaries remained undetermined, and rumors surfaced that the RIAA intended to keep the money for their ongoing operations.

RIAA spokesman J.M. Burns

Needless to say, people were pissed.

But the RIAA quickly denied that they ever intended to keep the money and countered that they have no control over how funds would be distributed. Subsequently, Warner Music, EMI and Universal announced their intention to share the settlement with their artists. But the lack of specifics and the continued silence of other plaintiff-labels did little to ameliorate the concerns of the artistic community. AFTRA has pledged to see the funds distributed fairly to their artists, but questions remain, especially in terms of how much of the settlement will remain after legal and other costs incurred by the RIAA are paid.

This here is a joke.

For artists, this will likely signify nothing. There is a chance that small fractions of the settlement will reach certain recording artists, and while Metallica might be psyched, few others share the backward-looking mindset of the RIAA and affiliated labels. In the end, the labels typically blew this case out of proportion, explicitly blaming LimeWire in court for the steady decline in music sales over the past ten years. Yeah, no one believes that. While this is a nice little settlement and is being celebrated as a great victory by the powers-that-be, it is more likely that this is a last gasp—the final effort to contain an uncontainable sea change in the way people obtain and consume music.