Vivendi Universal Company

Interscope Records is No. 1 -- with an asterisk. The Vivendi Universal-owned label just locked up the title as the nation's top seller of new hits so far this year, though not by cranking out another blockbuster album. Instead, Interscope executives directed Nielsen SoundScan, the music industry's top market research firm, to credit Interscope with sales of an estimated 8 million albums released in the last 11 months by DreamWorks Records, a label Vivendi plans to acquire.

The long and often tortured script for Universal Studios was put to bed Wednesday as French-owned Vivendi Universal and General Electric Co. finalized an agreement to marry their entertainment assets in a deal that could spur far-reaching changes in Hollywood.

It's strapped for cash, and it wants to unload its theme parks, but Vivendi Universal isn't about to let Walt Disney Co. off easy. The two entertainment giants have been in a ride rivalry for 13 years.

Three Hollywood studios have won compensation payments in a battle against film piracy in China, a small victory in a market criticized for lax policing of intellectual property rights.

French media giant Vivendi Universal, in the midst of trying to sell its U.S. entertainment assets, has unloaded a prime piece of real estate with the $190-million sale of a 35-story skyscraper in Universal City.

Right about now, the behind-the-scenes moneyman orchestrating Marvin Davis' audacious $13-billion bid to control Vivendi Universal's entertainment assets is somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean, hopefully closer to South America than to Africa.