Artist Direct Inc

Bertelsmann's BMG record division has purchased a minority stake in Artist Direct, the latest start-up label from Los Angeles entrepreneur Ted Field, according to sources familiar with the deal. BMG, which paid an estimated $5 million for the stake, will distribute Artist Direct's albums in North America as part of the deal, sources said. The agreement is expected to be announced today. The first album to be released under the pact is by the music group Custom, which signed an estimated $1.

Bertelsmann's BMG record division has purchased a minority stake in Artist Direct, the latest start-up label from Los Angeles entrepreneur Ted Field, according to sources familiar with the deal. BMG, which paid an estimated $5 million for the stake, will distribute Artist Direct's albums in North America as part of the deal, sources said. The agreement is expected to be announced today. The first album to be released under the pact is by the music group Custom, which signed an estimated $1.

Artist Direct Inc., Encino, announced that it obtained $15 million in equity financing from investors, including Chase Capital Ventures, Bowman Capital, Flatiron Partners, Cassandra Capital, Psilos Group Ventures and Constellation Ventures, part of the Bear Sterns Asset Management Group.

ArtistDirect Inc., the financially struggling Los Angeles "dot-com" music firm backed by four of the major record labels, said it will buy back more than 7.5 million shares of its common stock and unexercised options to satisfy regulatory requirements. In addition, the company's stock price closed below $1 for the 30th consecutive day Monday, triggering an automatic warning that it is in jeopardy of being delisted from Nasdaq.

With strong ties to the music community, support from the mainstream industry and several years of experience online, ArtistDirect Inc. seems to have all the makings of a true "new media" record label. There's the ArtistDirect talent agency and record company it manages, where unknown musicians' works are marketed and sold over the Net and in the real world.

ArtistDirect Inc., which received a chilly reception from investors when it debuted on the stock market Tuesday, disclosed that it violated federal securities law by issuing more shares to investors and artists than it should have. The violation, which could cost up to $27 million to remedy, would eat away a good part of the $60 million the Encino company raised with its initial public offering, according to a document filed late Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

One of the most popular Internet-based television networks was shut down all weekend, a casualty in the entertainment industry's fight against pirated material. The outage at Revision3, which features shows such as "Diggnation" and others targeted at techies, highlighted the risks of serious collateral damage in the usually invisible but bare-knuckled technological war between copyright holders and pirates. The victimized company said Thursday that the culprit was MediaDefender Inc.

Another wave of relocations by media and entertainment companies is quickly filling up the remaining vacant office space in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles. But some of the newest arrivals share one distinct difference from the show biz firms that moved to the historic neighborhood east of Beverly Hills in the early 1990s. The difference is the Internet.

Chris Tucker, who co-stars with Jackie Chan in the popular "Rush Hour" movies, has put his home in a gated San Fernando Valley community on the market at just under $2.2 million. Tucker has lived in the home since 1996 and is thinking of building a home in another gated development. The home Tucker is selling has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms in slightly more than 6,300 square feet.

Displaced dot-com employees and nervous Hollywood technicians have found an unlikely shelter from the economic downturn: the porn industry. Executives at the area's leading adult entertainment firms report a surge of resumes and telephone inquiries from disillusioned techies, as well as mainstream camera operators, grips and lighting experts who are worried about strikes by Hollywood writers and actors.

Although Val Thomas and Jed McCaleb have never met, their careers have been locked in a hostile embrace for much of the last two years. From his office in Midtown Manhattan, Thomas commands a virtual army of more than 4 million simulated humans that fed a steady diet of fake songs, films and other digital goods to unsuspecting downloaders. One of his prime targets has been the eDonkey file-sharing network, a hotbed of online piracy.