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John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and EMI Records, the world's fourth largest music company, dropped copyright infringement lawsuits against the makers of a documentary that used the portion of the song "Imagine" without permission. The news was made public on Tuesday by a Stanford Law School's Fair Use Projects release. The dismissal follows unsuccessful attempts by Yoko Ono in federal court and EMI Records in state court to enjoin Premise Media Corp's documentary, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," because it uses a 15-second clip of the song. "We think it was clear from the beginning that our clients had every right...

Amid growing concern in Moscow about the potential impact of a U.S. missile defense deployment in Europe, Russian strategists are retooling their country’s nuclear posture and warfighting strategy. "NATO is so close to the Russian borders nowadays that strategic bombers cannot hope to take off in case of a sudden attack (the order will take too long reaching them, and besides, they will have to be fuelled and outfitted first)," writes analyst Aleksei Vaschenko in the November 10th edition of Defense and Security. Likewise, although "[r]ailroad missile complexes posed a bona fide threat to the Americans," these systems have been...

Study: In-flight cell calls pose risk to planes CMU group finds danger increasing You might want to think twice the next time you're tempted to make a call from your cell phone during an airplane flight. Or flip on your portable game player. Or work a spreadsheet on your laptop. Besides possibly annoying fellow travelers and breaking federal regulations, you might be endangering the airplane, according to a Carnegie Mellon University study that quietly monitored transmissions on board a number of flights in the Northeast. The study, by CMU's Department of Engineering and Public Policy, found that the use of...

"Down with America" is the title of a recent song by the popular Belgian musician Raymond van het Groenewoud. Written in Dutch and published by EMI , "Weg met Amerika" ("Down with America") will be available in record shops as of next week, and was played on Belgian state radio last Thursday and Friday. Here is a quote from the lyrics of the song: Hamburgers and coke, yes you already knew But do you also know the cause of the general decay? Short-sighted thinking, loud talking Sticking to one-liners forever Down with America! Down with the jerks from America Down...

A roll of toilet paper that was criticised by the Beatles is up for auction on Ebay. The snubbed toilet roll was not received with appreciation by the members of the band, who noted with disgust that it was "too hard and shiny". Despite it giving them something to read during their visit to the toilet, they were also unimpressed with the fact that each sheet had "EMI LTD" stamped on it. The toilet paper, which once sat in an Abbey Road lavatory, has been kept in a glass box since being auctioned at a 1980 Abbey Road sale, reports...

Music industry face US radio playlist probe EMI Group, the world's third-largest music company, said on Friday it and other music companies faced a US probe into how music companies influence what songs are played on the radio. "We are cooperating fully with this inquiry, which is at a preliminary stage," EMI said in a statement. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who has already taken on the investment banking, mutual funds and insurance sectors, has served subpoenas against Universal Music, Sony BMG Music, EMI and Warner Music, sources familiar with the matter said, confirming a report in the...