Free Republic

With many major labels posting significant losses every quarter, Warner Music have decided that enough is enough and as such have decided to require all of their artists to sign the new '360 deal' before working with them. Whereas previously, labels only got a cut of album sales and related airplay, under the '360 deal' they will entitle themselves to a slice of the merchandise and touring pie. In effect, the band will become a subsidiary company to the record label and be required to declare its earning in every field which the label will then take a cut of. The...

Time Inc., the world’s largest magazine company, is set to announce a revamping that will result in job cuts of 6 percent — more than 600 positions — and a reorganization that could radically alter the culture at the venerable publishing house. The company plans to reveal the overhaul in a memorandum Tuesday evening from Ann S. Moore, Time Inc.’s chairman and chief executive, and the layoffs will begin in about two weeks. No magazines are scheduled to close, but some are likely to be severely cut back. Ms. Moore was already planning an overhaul because of the upheavals in...

Michael Ware, the TIME magazine Baghdad bureau chief who gained renown for in-depth coverage of the insurgency in Iraq, will join CNN as a correspondent based in Baghdad, it was announced today by Tony Maddox, senior vice president of international newsgathering operations. A frequent guest to CNN over the last five years, Ware becomes a full-time international correspondent providing news reports and analysis across all CNN networks. On CNN/U.S., Ware will be a regular contributor to Anderson Cooper 360° as well as appearing on other programs. “Michael is one of the most accomplished correspondents working in Iraq. His exclusive stories...

BACK-SCRATCHING BIZ: Lil' Kim, one of many artists whose popularity was rigged. WireImage Eliot Spitzer.......unveiled a deal to halt bribery of DJs and rigging of ratings — schemes designed largely to hype mediocre acts, but also bigger names, in order to score higher returns. Four months ago, he extracted a $10M settlement from industry leader Sony BMG to break up its payola ring involving DJs, radio station executives and crooked middlemen. He's still probing the industry's two remaining mega-firms — EMI and Universal Music. In his crackdown on Warner music — the industry's No. 3 label — Spitzer accused...

The link above goes to the ABC website showing the tape obtained by Time magazine this week showing a terrorist bombing, killing three US soldiers, under the heading, "Terror Tape". As an aside, guess who is on the cover of Time this week. Yep the rotund America hater, michael moore, who said that he had cameramen in Iraq. Also of interest. Michael Moore’s Middle East Distributors: We Won’t Reject Help From Hezbollah

For America's multimillion-dollar Superman industry, it's a serious problem. This is a guy who's from outer space — he was born on the planet Krypton, let's not forget — but he's also from another time. He debuted in the 1930s, when Americans liked their heroes like they liked their steaks: tough, thick and all-American. Nowadays we prefer our heroes dark and flawed and tragic. Look at the Punisher (wife and kids dead), or Hellboy (born a demon), or Spider-Man (secretly a nerd). Look at Batman: his parents were killed in front of him, and he dresses like a Cure fan....

Though I read them occasionally as a boy, I have never been overly interested in comic books, especially the American sort, the ones featuring superheroes dressed in super-tight costumes fighting super villains, none of whom ever seemed to receive super-long jail sentences for attempting, yet again, to destroy Our Way Of Life. A junior realist, I tended to read, instead, the British-produced, four-times-a-month Commando comics, which were generally set during the Second World War. Commando — whose fabulous titles included Hun Bait, Iron-Cross Yankee, Ghost Stuka, and the unforgettable Deserters Deserve Death! — abjured those pathetic ads one saw in...