Sony Music Entertainment Inc

Administrators of Michael Jackson's estate and his longtime record label, Sony Music Entertainment, Monday announced a seven-year distribution deal for as many as 10 new Jackson projects, including unreleased recordings, DVDs and perhaps even video games, valued at as much as $250 million. "We and Sony feel that the future for Michael Jackson is unlimited," said John Branca, a special administrator for the estate. Rob Stringer, chairman of the Columbia Epic label group, a division of Sony, described the deal as a landmark for the recording industry.

Sony Music Entertainment Inc. said Tuesday that it signed a contract giving MTV Network worldwide rights to air the music videos of Sony's recording artists. News of the deal raised doubts about Sony's participation with other recording companies in a proposed rival music channel. Sony's announcement read like something of a peace treaty between Sony and MTV. Thomas D.

Sony Music must pay the founder of a small record company $5 million for failing to put his company's logo on reissues of Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" album, a federal appeals court ruled. Steve Popovich, 65, who started Cleveland International Records in 1977 and soon afterward signed the singer named Marvin Lee Aday, persuaded Epic Records to release the wildly successful album. Epic was owned at the time by CBS. Sony, which bought out CBS Records, paid $6.

Yahoo Inc., which runs a group of Internet sites used by 213 million people a month, said it settled a lawsuit with Sony Music Entertainment Inc. over its Internet radio service. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo said it would pay a one-time fee to Sony for prior use of the company's recordings on its Launchcast service. The companies also inked a licensing agreement. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Yahoo's Santa Monica-based Launch Media Inc.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment Inc. won a ruling that it didn't illegally use a songwriter's voice and name when it included a 10-second sample of one of her songs on an album by Jennifer Lopez. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said federal copyright law preempted singer Debra Laws' lawsuit over the use of her work in the song "All I Have" by Lopez and rapper LL Cool J.

Technology buffs have cracked music publishing giant Sony Music Entertainment Inc.'s elaborate disc copy-protection technology with a decidedly low-tech method: scribbling around the rim of a disc with a felt-tip marker. Internet newsgroups have been circulating news of the discovery for a week, and users have pilloried Sony for deploying "high-tech" copy protection that can be defeated by paying a visit to a stationery store. "I wonder what type of copy protection will come next?"

Major recording labels, including BMG Music, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Warner Bros. Records, sued MP3Board Inc. Friday to prevent its Web site from linking users to pirated music on the Internet. The copyright infringement suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, comes three weeks after Warner and BMG settled a copyright suit with online music company MP3.com Inc., which uses the MP3 technology to store and transmit music over the Internet. The two companies are not connected.

Rock band Incubus signed a lucrative new pact with Sony Music Entertainment Inc. on Thursday, according to industry sources, ending a two-month legal battle that cast a spotlight on some of the record industry's more controversial compensation practices. The Calabasas band in February asked a court for a release from a 1996 record contract, claiming the deal underpaid it. Sony countersued, saying the band owed four albums and had gone to court as a negotiating ploy.

Only months after resolving a bitter battle over the company's top executive slot, Sony BMG Music Entertainment announced Thursday the departure of two of its senior-most executives. Don Ienner, an 18-year veteran of the company, stepped down as chairman of Sony Music Label Group U.S. less than three months after being promoted to the position. Michele Anthony, who joined Sony Music in 1990, resigned as president and chief operating officer. Company insiders said the two were forced out.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment Inc. won a ruling that it didn't illegally use a songwriter's voice and name when it included a 10-second sample of one of her songs on an album by Jennifer Lopez. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said federal copyright law preempted singer Debra Laws' lawsuit over the use of her work in the song "All I Have" by Lopez and rapper LL Cool J.

The recording industry is coming out of the closet. Sony Music said it was launching the first major music label dedicated to nurturing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists. The label, Music With a Twist, is a joint venture with Wilderness Media & Entertainment, a company led by Matt Farber, who founded MTV Networks' new gay and lesbian channel Logo, which is available in an estimated 20 million homes.

Several months after resolving a high-profile dispute with artist Fiona Apple over an album release, Sony Music ended a conflict with another singer-songwriter in a less harmonious manner. Nellie McKay, who signed with the company's Columbia label in 2003 after a bidding war, said Monday that she had split with the label after a long dispute over the length of her upcoming second album.

Sony Music is expected to announce shortly a shake-up at two of its largest labels that will include the departure of the head of its Columbia Records unit. The changes were confirmed by three company executives. They said Will Botwin would be replaced at Columbia by Steve Barnett, who would move over from Sony's Epic Records label. Charlie Walk, executive vice president of creative marketing and promotion at Columbia, would head Epic.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the nation's second-largest music company, is expected as early as Monday to agree to a settlement with New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer in a payola investigation, said sources familiar with the talks. Sony BMG is one of four record companies that Spitzer subpoenaed last fall as part of his inquiry into whether music corporations were skirting payola laws by hiring intermediaries to influence which songs were heard on public airwaves.

Cartoons are not just for kids. While most animated programming is aimed at youngsters, the prime-time success of Fox-TV's "The Simpsons" seems to have sparked a new interest in sophisticated animated humor. In fact, adult-oriented cartoon projects are in development at all three major television networks, with NBC and ABC expected to deliver animated evening shows by next winter. But is the public ready for a pornographic cartoon?

Don Henley is turning up the heat in his bitter legal dispute with Geffen Records, charging that entertainment impresario David Geffen conspired with other powerful record corporations to blackball the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter.

Music giant Sony/BMG has reached a licensing agreement with file-swapping service iMesh, one of the first such tie-ups since a U.S. Supreme Court decision clamping down on online copyright infringement. The deal, confirmed by iMesh, followed a high court ruling that unauthorized networks such as Grokster could be held liable for the copyright infringement of their users. Analysts said that decision added momentum to the move toward networks sanctioned by media companies.

Music giant Sony BMG finalized its deal with the legal file-sharing network Mashboxx, two days after a U.S. court dealt a blow to Mashboxx's unauthorized rivals such as Grokster. Mashboxx, headed by former Grokster President Wayne Rosso, is a peer-to-peer file-sharing network that requires users to pay for copyrighted songs. The companies said Wednesday that Sony BMG songs would cost 99 cents each, in line with the price charged by Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes online music store.