You should not be surprised to learn that a federal judge yesterday ordered BlueBeat.com to immediately stop selling Beatles songs and other music from its site, rejecting a goofy assertion that the company had copyrights on the songs via the use of something called “psycho-acoustic simulation.”

The company had been sued by EMI earlier in the week, after it came to light that BlueBeat had been selling Beatles tracks and other music for 25 cents a track, and offering free streaming of albums from the Fab Four and other groups. To date, no online music site has the rights to sell or stream the Beatles music.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The Beatles catalog finally became available for paid digital downloading, but not the way the band’s record label, EMI Group Ltd., intended.

London-based EMI on Tuesday filed suit against Bluebeat.com, accusing the online retailer of violating copyright law by offering the British band’s entire catalog without permission.

Also named as defendants in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, were Bluebeat’s parent company, Santa Cruz, Calif.,-based Media Rights Technology Inc., and Media Rights Chief Executive Hank Risan.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Can Hollywood improve on a Beatles classic? Director Robert Zemeckis and Disney evidently hope to do just that with a 3-D remake of Yellow Submarine. The 1968 cartoon featured McCartney-Lennon gems including “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “When I’m Sixty-Four” and “With a Little Help From My Friends” in a fantasy involving grumpy grownup types called Blue Meanies.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Every year, the annual E3 videogame expo kicks off with media briefings by the three console makers: Microsoft (MSFT), Nintendo and Sony (SNE). The trio vie to get the most buzz for their games and products by trying to one-up each other with the most entertaining, star-studded show they can muster up.

Microsoft, who kicked off E3 Monday morning, set a high bar this year with a media briefing that was preceded by a mysterious email the day before. That email stated that the event would start five minutes early “due to a very special addition.”

Its special surprise guests turned out to be the Beatles’ Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as the spouses of the late John Lennon and George Harrison, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison. All showed up to promote the much anticipated “The Beatles Rockband” music simulation game by MTV Games, in which users can pretend to be members of famed music group.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Why is Kevin Rose on a publicity binge? In the past two months, the founder of headline-voting site Digg has garnered two magazine covers. There he is, with a smoldering leer on local San Francisco magazine 7×7. The look reminds everyone why Diggnation cohost Alex Albrecht once said that Rose, a prolific dater, has “plowed through everyone in town.” For Inc., Rose participated in a wacky crowd shoot that echoed the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.” It’s obvious why Rose is a hot commodity: Write about him, and traffic to your magazine’s Web site will soar. (Will he sell print copies? I doubt Digg users visit newsstands.)

Read the rest of this post

Last year, here on the Voices blog, I asked you all for your thoughts on how to finance and put out my next record. I got some swell advice, as well as some good wishes. Many agreed that the patronage system–asking fans to donate money–was a promising idea.

I really had no idea if I would make it, or end up embarrassed with just my mom donating at the “polished rock level.” By the way, the polished rock level (free early download) was $10. But you could donate all the way up to “weapons-grade plutonium” ($10,000), where you get to sing a duet with me. One businesswoman from the United Kingdom, named Jo Pottinger, flew in last month to sing and, honestly, did a bang-up job.

So, how have I spent my money so far? Well, I got production help from my pal Don Was (The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt). He got me a great rate at the old A&M studios (where Carole King did “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell did “Blue” and where so many of my favorites recorded). Normally, I would never be able to afford to record there.

He also hooked me up with some of my favorite old-time session players, like Jim Keltner, who played on all those Beatles solo records. We recorded old-school and played live with not much overdubbing–and that includes the vocals.

I wanted to have the energy and looseness of some of my favorite childhood records, before everything got so quantized and auto-tuned. And because of that, we did it really fast.

Oh, I have also booked a day where I will sing and play guitar on 10 songs to a click track. My idea is to release it with the audio files so that people (pro or amateur) can put the tracks on their garage band or pro-tools and mix, produce and deconstruct the songs as they see fit. Thinking of having a contest for the best production.

So, now that I have spent a little more than half my budget on recording, plus another $10,000 on various stuff (donation prizes, Webmaster fees, the PayPal percentage, iPhone apps), I have around $25,000 left to play with.

I still don’t want to license the record to any of the labels. But now I have to figure out how to do all the things they traditionally do (distribution, marketing, publicity) and take advantage of the opportunities with new media (which they have not been so great at).

There have been more than a few companies that have come to me with their new paradigms for how to make money in this digital age–mostly how they can make money. I am trying to look at all of them (some do sound sort of promising and intriguing).

Oh, and I still want to have hard copies available too–I have a friend who will make a mini graphic novel that would include two pages for every story (song).

So here I am, asking you smartypants AllThingsD.com people for ideas. You do seem to know more than most in the “industry.”

By the way, I reopened the Jillsnextrecord site recently, upon request, for those who told me they wanted to donate and have their names in the liner notes (or sung in a song). If any of you are interested–and I’m just saying–it will still be up until we go to the printers in a week or two.

Beatles representatives, who haven’t yet reached a deal to offer the band’s music online, are now in talks with two video games companies for a Beatles-themed video game, in a move that could pave the way for a broader licensing of the Fab Four’s catalog, reports the Financial Times. The reps have been talking to with both Activision (ATVI) and MTV Games, the respective makers of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games…the two games have been successful in sales of the digital versions of songs featured on the games.

Read the rest of this post