News archive items listed by month below (click here).
WILL
WARNERS TURN THE TABLES ON EMI? 30/05/06
Warner
Music are thought to be examining options to raise
finance to counter EMI's bid and buy out
the UK company. With both companies of almost equal value
(EMI at £2.13
billion and Warners at £2.11 billion) Warners would
need to bid at least 300p per share for EMI. EMI has already
offered $28.50 per share for Warners which was rejected. EMI's shares
were 269.75p at close of business on the 26th May whilst Warners
were $26.33. Both companies believe there will be big cost
savings from synergies and a focus on digital sales (where
Warners have done better than EMI). EMI had sales of £1.15
billion last year of which digital was 5.9%; Warners had sales
of £991
billion of which digital was 8.6%. Bertlesmann have
put BMG Music Publishing up for auction, expecting to raise
approximately £1 billlion but the future of their 50%
stake in SonyBMG remains unclear although
press reports said that Bertlemann were renegotiating their
joint venture agreement with Sony to potentially
facilitate a later sale of the BMG share. To
add to all the twists and turns, it seems Warner Music may
be interested in buying BMG Music Publishing (which surely
would prevent a takeover by EMI as EU regulators would insist
on the unbundling of two such big music publishing arms
from a 25% global market share recorded music giant formed
by such a merger).
TELECOMS
GIANTS EYE EACH OTHER UP 30/05/06
Dwarfing
the music industry merger deals are reports that telecomms
giant Deutche
Telekom may bid for fellow leviathan BT (British
Telecom) - seeing the UK company valued at £25
billion. With Duetche Telekom valued at £36.2 billion,
the combined company would be valued at more than £50
billion. Telefonica of Spain have alreday
snapped up UK mobile operator O2 and Virgin have
inked a deal with NTL. With music such
a key driver in telecoms use particularly as the internet
and mobile telephony merge this is an interesting time.
Digital music sales in Japan are now 95% straight to mobile and
music is a key to the youth market leading to speculation
over whether or not any of the telecoms giants (including Vodafone or Orange) would
be tempted to eye up the likes
of EMI and Warners which they could easily swallow whole
- a tasty starter at approximately £2 billion each.
Deutche had a trading profit of £14.2 billion in
2005 on sales revenue of £40
billion: BT had a trading profit of £5.7 billion
on sales of £18.4 billion. Having reported losses
of £14.9B
last year - a record loss for a UK company - Vodafone
are now
said to be close to realising anything between
$48 billion and $60 billion from the sale of their shareholding
in Verizon in the USA. Vodafone
is capitalised at over £70 billion - or 35
Warner Musics - or 70 BMG Music Publishings!!
WHO RETURN TO
LEEDS UNI 30/05/06
The
Who have been pursuaded to begin their new
UK tour at the 2000 capacity University of Leeds where
the band recorded their seminal 2000 album 'Live At
Leeds'.
PEOPLE
IN MUSIC 27/05/06
Sanctuary have
parted company with Chief Executive Andy
Taylor.
It is thought that the indie group was unhappy with how
Taylor handled the company's financial accounts last year.
Taylor will be replaced by Frank Presland,
CEO of Twenty-First
Artists Management (which was acquired by Sanctuary
last year). Emap has appointed Rob
Munro-Hall (formerly
with Emap in Australia) to oversee the group's music and men's
magazine portfolio. Commencing in September, his remit includes Mojo,
Kerrang! and Q. Meanwhile, Carl
Ratcliffe has joined as Emap's head of brand strategy
development. And its a sad farewell and 'rest in pace' to
ska legend Desmond Dekker who had big
hits with 'The Israelites' and 'You Can Get It If You Really
Want it' (aged
64). Desmond was due to tour this summer with dates booked
in Europe. And a fond farewell to Freddie Garrity, lead
singer of Freddie and the Dreamers, aged 69.
IVORS
HONOUR BEEGEES, KINKS AND NEW ORDER 27/05/06
The
five past and present members of New Order picked
up the outstanding song collection trophy at the prestigious Ivor
Novello Awards in London. Bernard
Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert and Philip
Cunningham were recognised by fellow composers at the British
Academy of Composers & Songwriters (BACS) for their long
and successful career. The Bee Gees were inducted
into the Academy fellowship. The surviving members of the act, Robin and Barry
Gibb, paid tribute to their former manager Robert
Stigwood during their acceptance speeches. Stigwood, who
made a rare public appearance at the event. "We wouldn't be here today
if it wasn't for Robert Stigwood. Ray Davies collected
the PRS award for outstanding contribution to British
music. Scottish songstress KT Tunstall won best song
musically and lyrically for "Suddenly I See" and
multiple winner on the day was James Blunt's international
chart smash "You're Beautiful," which took out the
PRS most performed work and international hit of the year. The Bucks
Music Group/EMI Music Publishing song was
performed by Blunt, and written by Blunt, Amanda Ghost and Sacha
Skarbek.Legendary songwriting and producing team Kenny
Gamble and Leon Huff who wrote "Love
Train" and "If You Dont Know Me
By Now" amongst many many hits in a forty year partnership, won
the special international award.
ARE
ALL THE MAJORS IN PLAY? 24/05/06
With reports that Bertelsmann is planning
to buy the 25.1% stake held in the company by Groupe Bruxelles
Lambert (GBL) to avoid a public offering, rumours abound that
Bertlesmann could sell off its music interests (its 50% stake
in Sony
BMG as well as all of BMG Music Publishing) to raise
cash. Add to this the EMI bid for Warners and
speculation over Vivendi 'unbundling' and
it seems that all the majors are in play. With BMG, Sony would
have the first option in buying the 50% stake in SonyBMG, but Sony
is reported to be concentrating on rebuilding its electronics
arm and perhaps could sell its own interest in SonyBMG. Last
week Vivendi, owners of Universal, rejected
an informal takeover offer from Sebastian Holdings that
could have seen the music arm sold off.
CHRYSALIS
PROFITS DROP 24/05/06
Media
group Chrysalis has blamed a sharp drop in profits
on a weak radio advertising marketplace. Releasing
its half-year results, the owner of Heart Radio has
seen its pre-tax profits decline 46% to £2.1m ($3.9m) from £3.9m
a year earlier. Turnover at the firm for the six months to 28 February
was up to £68.6m from £67.7m for the same period last
year.
EMI
PLAYS SWEET MUSIC AS REVENUES INCREASE 24/05/06
EMI predicted
that its revenues would continue to rise with new releases from Norah
Jones, Janet Jackson, Robbie Williams and
a Beatles compilation. Group revenues were 3.9% up
in the year to March 30 2005 at £2.08 billion, the first year
of growth since 2001. Both Gorillaz and Coldplay were
major albums for the label in 2005. Gropup digital sales leapt 139%
to £112.1 million. Digital downloading accounted for 5.5% of all
recorded music sales. EMI, currently bidding for Warner Music,
has a 13.1% global market share. The UK's recording industry collection
societies have also announced year end figres with combiend licence
fee income for Phonographic Performance Ltd and Video
Performance Ltd of £99.3M - PPL accounted for £86.5M.
Broadcast income made up £50M, public performance accounted for £33.6M
while international income was £2.9 million. Distributable revenue
from PPL was £75.5M while it was £12.8M for VPL. And a
new study by eMarketer suggests that global mobile
music revenues will leap from $434M in 2005 to a massive $7.7B in 2010.
It also suggests that digital music will make up 35% of the music industry's
revenues by 2010. Of this, mobile will account for the lion's share
(65%). By 2010 it is projected that total global music revenues (across
all formats) will stand at $34B. While this is an improvement on the
$31B in 2005, it will still fall short of the $40B generated in 2000
(reflected in EMI's figures as well). Total digital revenues will grow
more than tenfold from 2005 ($1B) to reach $11.9B by 2010.
BRIGHTON
ROCKS 21/05/06
The Brighton Great Escape Festival which hosted
over 180 bands in 18 city venues from May 18th to May
20th was hailed as a major success by organisers and industry commentators
with over 700 delegates attending and all of the publicly available
wristbands (access for all gigs at £35/E50) sold out. Promoted
by Barfly, headline acts included local
hot favourites the Kooks, The Futureheads,
the awesome Mohair, Martha Waingwright,
The Maccabees, The (fast rising) Feeling,
SXSW hot
tips Tapes n Tapes, the Guillemots, Mumm-Ra and Electric
Soft Parade and a host of new Canadian
talent including the High Dials, Holy Fuck and You
Say Party! We Say Die!. Sponsors included Kerrang!,
Mojo, Music Week, MTV, MSN, Canadian Music Week 2007/CAMAA, BMI,
PPL, the BPI, AIM, Attitude is Everything, South East Media Network and
the MMF: Talking heads included Glastonbury's
Michael Eavis, New Order's Pete Hook and legendary
producer Ken Scott. Panels included Mobile Technology
(moderated by music lawyer Ben Challis,
Digital Marketing
(moderated by Nicola Slade) 'Breaking the Band'
(moderated by Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq with Franz
Ferdinand's manager Cerne Canning, Domino Record's
Lawrence Bell and ex-Food records boss Andy
Ross) and the future of downloads moderated by (another
music lawyer!) Helen Searle. Big conference talking
points included the high profile presence of Finnish and Canadian
acts supported by organised and established trade initiatives
('Come,
hear. Finland' and Made In Canada' respectively),
a general lack of sleep and just, well, how nice Brighton was!
FINLAND'S
LORDI STORM EUROVISION 21/05/06
Finnish hell
rockers Lordi walked away with the Eurovision Song
Contest on the 20th May as 'Hard Rock Hallelujah!'
blasted all competition in their way. You cant say you weren't warned
- ILMC Round the Clock News posted up a brief on the 27th
April warning of the goth/metal rockers invasion. Songs from Sweden, Russia,
Armenia, Eire and Bosnia were the closest to offer any sort
of competition with the UK's awful Teenage Life a
long way down the final placings only just ahead of Spain and Malta.
UNIVERSAL
PROFITS UP BUT BERLESMANN FACES LISTING 17/05/06
Vivendi, owner of Universal Music Group and
French mobile operator SFR, has reported first quarter profit
gains of 41% for both units. Sales at UMG rose 8.4% to E1.13B. Digital music
sales now make up 10% of sales - more than double the share from a year earlier.Vivendi
says it has rejected a 'break-up proposal' from shareholders as it was “based
on economic and legal hypotheses that are unrealistic”. Also in Europe,
there are suggestions that Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL)
will formally request next week that Bertelsmann goes public.
GBL is the sole outside shareholder in Bertelsmann. Its is thought that the
Group may sell BMG (BMG Music Publishing and
the group's share in SonyBMG) to fund a share purchase to
keep the group private.
APPLE'S FUTURE
GROWTH IN MUSIC? 17/05/06
Five
Eight Magazine report that music could double the size of Apple
Computers's business by 2011. In 2002 music contributed
just 3% to the Compuer comany's drinks. Last year, 40% of revenues
were derived from music (mostly music hardware sales). In five years,
however, the iTunes Music Store could contribute
37% of Apple's revenues. Apple now sell more iPods than Sony
Ericcson does mobile phone handsets.
RIAA
SUES XM OVER NEW PORTABLE PLAYER 17/05/06
The Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) is suing XM over
its new portable device (the Inno) as it allows
the recording and storage of broadcast music. XM and other satellite
services currently pay remittence to rights owners through a public
performance license as the digital services have, up until now,
been "non-interactive".
The device, which went on sale a few weeks ago for $400, has been
marketed under the slogan "hear it, click it, save it" and can store
up to 50 hours of music. The RIAA is seeking compensation to the tune
of £150,000 for every song that has been saved on the devices
by XM's customers. Rival satellite service, Sirius,
has already agreed to pay for the more expense distribution licence
which the RIAA hopes to force XM to use.
FiveEight
magazine
JAIL
SENTENCE IN GREAT WHITE TRIAL 12/05/06
Former Great
White manager Daniel Biechele (whose pyrotechnics
caused a fire in a New York nightclub in 2003 that killed 100 people)
has been sentenced to four years in prison. Biechele had plea bargained
with the court but faced a potential maximum sentence of ten years.
KEITH
BRAIN SURGERY 10/05/06
Having
been releaed from Hospital last week, Keith Richards has
had to undergo emergency brain surgery after his fall from a palm
tree. The operation Rolling
Stones guitarist was to remove a blood clot. A
spokesman for the band said the operation at a hospital in New Zealand
on Sunday was a success, and that Richards was already up and about
and talking to his family. Richards, 62, is planning to join the
rest of the band for the European leg of their world tour, although
the opening concert in Barcelona has been postponed from
27 May to a date in June to be announced.
EVANS,
MOYLES AND LOWE TRIUMPH AT SONY'S 10/05/06
BBC Radios
1 and 2 triumphed at the UK's Sony
Radio awards in London on May 8th. Ceback kid Chris
Evans won Music Radio personality of the Year. BBC Radio
1 breakfast show presenter Chris Moyles took
the Entertainment Award and Radio 1 had a good night overall
- it was named UK Station of the Year and DJ Zane
Lowe bagged
two awards, for Specialist Music Programme and Music Broadcaster
of the Year. Radio 2 veteran Terry Wogan was
honoured with the Gold Award for outstanding achievement. Nick
Ferrari of London station LBC won the
Breakfast Show Award while the Speech Programme Award went to Stephen
Nolan of BBC Radio Ulster. Station Programmer
of the Year was Richard Park of Magic
105.4.
Local station Kerrang! 105.2 West Midlands scooped
four awards including Station of the Year.
BPI SUGGEST
THAT PRIVATE COPIES SHOULD BE LEGAL 10/05/06
In
a remarkable move towards common sense the BPI, body
that represents British record companies, has said that it believes
copyright on CDs and records should be changed to allow consumers
to copy music they have legally acquired if this is for
personal use according to a report in The Telegraph.
Currently, it is technically illegal for anyone to copy a CD
onto their computer or other format or to burn a legally
downloaded track from iTunes for an iPod onto
a CD or copy a CD onto a cassette tape for use in a car stereo.
The suggestion is reportedly in the BPI's submission
to Andrew Gowers who is chairing a review of UK intellectual
property law.
FAKE
PASSES ON EBAY FOR SCOTTISH WEEKENDER 10/05/06
The BBC report
that fake backstage passes for the Radio 1 Big Weekender in
Dundee are being offered for sale for £7,000 on eBay.
Over 300,000 pepole applied for the 30,000 tickets for the event featuring The
Ordinary Boys, Pink, Feeder, Sugarbabes, Editors, Snow Patrol, Muse,
The Streets, Keane and many others. Tickets for the event (which
is free) are 'changing hands' for £100 on eBay.
APPLE
WIN, APPLE LOSE 08/05/06
Apple Corp has lost
its High Court action in the United Kingdom to prevent Apple
computers using the mark (name) Apple in connection
with it's iTunes online music store. Mr Justice
Mann held that the ongoing use by the computer company
has not broken a earlier deal aimed at ensuring there would not be
two Apples in the music industry. Apple Corp had argued that the
1991 agrement gave them the exclusive rights to use the Apple
trademark for the record business but Mr Justice Mann ruled that
the computer company used the Apple logo in association with its store,
not the music, and so was not in breach. iPods and iTunes will
still be able to carry the Apple name and logo. Apple Corps manager Neil
Aspinall said "With great respect to the trial judge, we consider
he has reached the wrong conclusion" and made it clear that Apple Corps
still maintained that Ap-le Computers had extensively "broken
the agreement" and that Apple Corps would be "filing an appeal
and putting the case again to the Court of Appeal."
MEAN
FIDDLER WIN APPEAL ON LEEDS' POLICE COSTS 08/05/06
The Mean
Fiddler Group (owner of Reading Festival Limited)
have won a Court of Appeal battle over who pays
to police major events. The had been ordered to pay West Yorkshire
Police nearly £300,000 for its services at the Leeds Festival in
2003. But The Court of Appeal said that "special
police services" had not been requested in 2003 and could not be recovered
from the promoter. Lord Justice Baker said the ruling
had implications for major events and any large gatherings of the public. He said the court was being asked to
decide on the dividing line between services the police must provide
as part of its public duty and special services provided at the request
of promoters, for which promoters must pay. Lord Baker said: "There
is a strong argument that where promoters put on a function such as
a music festival or sporting event which is attended by large numbers
of the public, the police should be able to recover the additional cost
they are put to for policing the event and the local community affected
by it and that "this seems only just where the event is run for profit.
That, however, is not the law." Allowing the appeal, he said it had
not been established that a request had been made for "special police
services" at the three-day event at
FRENCH
RECONSIDER DRM LAWS 03/05/06
Much
to the annoyance of consumer groups, the French government is reconsidering
a proposal to force Apple Computers (and other download platforms) open
up their encryption technologies to make the songs it sells through its
iTunes Music Store playable on devices that compete with its iPods. A French
parliamentary committee has removed wording (or 'gutted' disputed clauses)
from proposed legislation that would have forced technology companies to
license their digital rights management schemes. While the law must still
be voted on, the alterations in the legislation signify willingness by some
in the French government to honor the rights of companies that don't wish
to share their technology with competitors. The French Senate debate on
the bill begins Thursday.
CANADIAN
ARTISTS REBEL AGAINST MAJOR'S ACTIVITIES 02/05/06
Major
international music artists based in Canada have banded together
to form a group aimed, among other things, at protesting the
recording industry's practice of targeting fans with lawsuits.
With Sum 41, Barenaked Ladies, Avril
Lavigne and Sarah McLachlan as members,
the new Canadian Music Creators Coalition says
that ‘Suing our fans is destructive and hypocritical’ and
that the major labels have been “suing our fans
against our will’ and that “laws enabling these
suits cannot be justified in our names”. The Coalition
goes further by saying that they “oppose any copyright
reforms that would make it easier for record companies to do
this” adding that the government should repeal provisions
of the Copyright Act that
allow labels to unfairly punish fans who share music for non-commercial
purposes. The Group are also concerned about DRM saying
that digital locks ‘are risky and counterproductive’ Last
month six major Canadian independent labels including Nettwerk left
the Canadian Record Industry Association (CRIA)
saying that they could no longer support the Association.
The decision stems from a disagreement about radio content
rules and programmes for emerging artists. "It has become increasingly
clear over the past few months that CRIA's position on several
important music industry issues are not aligned with our best
interests as independent recording companies," the group wrote
in a letter to the association's president Graham Henderson.
The six companies are Nettwerk Records, Aquarius
Records, the Children's Group, Linus Entertainment, Anthem Records and True
North Records.www.musiclawupdates.com
PETE
DOHERTY BACK IN CUSTODY AGAIN 02/05/06
A
familiar headline in these news pages, but Pete Doherty is
back in custody against after photographs surcfaced allegedly
showing the Babyshambles frontman injecting
a unconcious or near unconcious female. Previous to this
Doherty was arrested just three hours after receiving a drugn
treatment and testing order (DTTO) from a District Judge, that
time for possession of Class A narcotics.
KEITH
OUT OF HIS TREE 02/05/06
Antipodean
press report that Keith Richards has left
a New Zealand hospital where he was admitted last week with
a head injury suffered while on vacation in Fiji. "I can categorically
confirm Mr. Richards ... is no longer a patient in this hospital," Geoff
Sparks, duty manager at Auckland's Ascot Hospital said.
The injury apparently came from a fall from a palm tree.
The Rolling Stones Tour resumes on schedule
on May 27 in Barcelona. Dates on the tour are
scheduled through the summer, ending August 29th in Cardiff,
Wales.
NEW
'CODE OF PRACTICE' FOR UK EVENT TICKETING 02/05/06
The
UK government has launched a new code of conduct to
'stamp out ticket touts' in perhaps one of the most disapointing announcements
of the year for the UK live music industry. Music, theatre and sport
ticket agents have been asked to adopt a new code of conduct to stamp
out ticket touts but the code falls far short of legislative moves promoters,
artists and fans were looking for. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell launched
the code, saying entertainment events risked becoming "the preserve
of people with bulging wallets" and added "I want to see ticket
agencies squeezing ticket touts out of business to protect genuine fans
from being frozen out of the market." The measures in the code include
limiting the number of tickets purchased in a single sale and blacklisting
known touts. The first phase of the initiative aims to prevent tickets
from falling into the hands of touts by asking ticket agencies to introduce
an effective returns policy. But the code is nothing new and indeed
many of the issues were debated in detail at ILMC17 in
2005 - many promoters and Festivals already utilise sophisticated systems
to limit touting but are almost powerless against eBay re-sales
and touts on the streets.
FINLAND
ROCKS EUROVISION 01/05/06
By Crum and the hammer of Thor,
The Finnish entry for this year's Eurovision song
contest is stirring up some interest - so much so that UK radio
station XFM is
supporting the Finnish song in preferences to the UK's own entry
by Daz Sampson -
with XFM breakfast Lauren Laverne saying that "we
have been left behind - our own entry makes me want to swallow my
own legs". Finland doesn't have a great Eurovision record - Finland
has only qualified five times in the last ten years and the
highest position reached in the last fifteen years is 14th.
In 1982 they received 'null points'. But now the Finns have
Artic Lapplanders Lordi -
who "look like Slipknot but sound more like Bon
Jovi". "Eurovision has never been so metal' according
to XFM whose presenters are actually asking UK listeners to lobby
the UK TV host Terry Wogan to push Lordi on to even
greater success. Lordi, who are Tomi Putaansuu, Awa, Ox,
Kita and Amen take four hours to put on their make up
and sport eight foot rubber satan wings, horns, slabs of smoking
meat, a caged drummer and chainsaws on stage. The content puts Lordi's song 'Hard
Rock Hallelujah' up against DJ Daz's 'Teenage Life,
described as " a hideous mix of Clive Dunn and St
Winnifreds School Choir" (from a man who is definately
not a teenager himself). And breaking news - Lordi Lordi long live
metal - It appears that the Spanish are pro-Lordi too with reports
of street posters
up in Spain saying 'vote Lordi' - so maybe Finns will be a changing!
As the band themselves say ... Europe .. get ready to ge scared
...www.lordi.org
SNOOP ARRESTED
AT LONDON HEATHROW 01/05/06
Snoop
Doggy Dog and five of his entourage were arrested at London's Heathrow airport
after Snoops 30 strong party were refused entry to BA's First Class
lounge. It appears trouble then started in a duty free shop with
bottles broken and one police officer slightly injured. Snoop and five
people were kept in custody over night.
LATIN
SALES JUMP IN US 01/05/06
The RIAA report that
total US Latin music shipments to retail jumped 14% to 55.6
million units in 2005 compared to 48.6 million in 2004. DVD music shipments
also increased steadily, experiencing a 34% gain in units shipped
to retail. Reflecting the growth and popularity of Reggaeton,
the subgenre of "Urban Latin" has been added to the RIAA shipment
report. Hits from artists like Daddy Yankee, Don
Omar and Wisin & Yandel all helped
fuel the Latin marketplace's strong performance in 2005. In addition,
Latin pop has performed well, with breakthough artists such as RBD, Juanes, Alejandro
San and Shakira all featuring. Additionally,
the RIAA reports that it has continued to initiate and implement
specific programs aimed at the Latin music piracy problem. For the
Latin music genre, traditional physical goods piracy remains an
acute threat: Latin music accounts for about 6 percent of the overall
U.S. music market, yet nearly 40 percent of all pirate product seized
by RIAA investigators.
TICKET TOUTING ON
UK GOVERNMENT AGENDA 01/05/06
UK
culture minister James Purnell met with music promoters,
legitimate ticket agents and representatives of venues on April
26th to begin dialogue on the live music industry's plea to bring
in legislation to fight ticket touting. Supported by a campaign
in the NME, citing
the re-sale of tickets on the internet (particularly on Ebay) at
inflated prices within minutes of going on sale and the angst of
fans paying over the odds for tickets, the UK industry hopes to
convince ministers that legislation is needed to protect the legitimate
sale of tickets. The 'top five' of most searched for tickets on AOL.co.uk are
(1) George Michael (2) FA Cup Final (3) Take That
(4) Carling Weekender and (5) Madonna.
EU
TO PROPOSE NEW PIRACY LAWS 01/05/06
The European
Commission is to recommend common European sanctions against
counterfeiting and piracy of goods, including custody provisions of
at least four years in prison and fines between E100,000 and (£70,000) and E300,000 (£210,000). Other possible measures
are the confiscation or destruction of the objects, and a permanent
or temporary ban on offenders from engaging in commercial activities.
The seizure of counterfeited goods at the borders of the European
Union increased by 1,000 percent between 1998 and 2004, with 103 million
counterfeited and pirated items seized in 2004, Commission figures
show. The EU says that different penalties in the 25 EU countries
make it difficult to combat counterfeiting and piracy effectively.
The draft legislation deals only with sanctions for infringements
as physical product and does not cover the downloading of music via
the Internet for private use.
WEMBLEY
STADIUM DISPUTE GOES TO COURT 01/05/06
The
lead Wembley contractor, Australian firm Multiplex, and
British business Cleveland Bridge are suing each other
for alleged breach of contract on the troubled and late running Wembley
Stadium project. Cleveland left the project in 2004 after
a row with Multiplex and is seeking damages for lost earnings. Multiplex
partly blames its former contractor for delays to the stadium.
Multiplex is suing Cleveland - which built the stadium's centrepiece £60m
steel arch - for up to £38.5m in damages while Cleveland is counter-suing,
seeking up to £22.5m. The hearing, at the Technology and
Construction Court in London, is expected to last at least
four weeks. Source www.bbc.co.uk
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