Another day, another digital royalties dispute. This time its one of the Doobie Brothers who is suing a major label for a bigger cut of download revenue.

As much previously reported, the major labels treat downloads as record sales, and pay artists the same royalty on iTunes revenue as they would on CDs. But many artists with pre-internet contracts that don’t mention downloading say that revenue generated by digital sales should be treated as licensing income, because it stems from licensing deals with companies like iTunes rather than the provision of records to retailers, which involves more risk for the label. It’s an important distinction because under most record deals the artist gets much bigger cut of licensing revenue that record sales money.

All four majors are now being sued on this issue after Eminem collaborators FBT Productions won a legal action against Universal. And Doobie Brothers singer Michael McDonald, who is suing Warner Music, is being represented by the same lawyer as FBT, Richard S Busch, who has also filed digital royalty litigation on behalf of Peter Frampton and Kenny Rogers.

Though the McDonald lawsuit has an extra interesting element to it, according to Billboard. Among the allegations made is that the majors have conspired together to pay all artists the lower royalty on digital revenue, because if one record company paid the higher rate it would put an obligation on the others to follow suit. Whether there is any actual evidence of collusion on this issue isn’t clear.

The Greek courts are the latest to issue web-blocking injunctions against internet service providers on copyright grounds. As previously reported, such web-block orders have now been issued in various countries, including the UK, and are used where websites are deemed to be liable for copyright infringement, but are based outside the jurisdiction of a national court, so can’t actually be forced to change or cease their operations directly.

The Greek web-block order, issued by the Athens First Instance Court, targets file-sharing community Ellinadiko.com and a Russian download store called Music-Bazaar.com. According to Torrentfreak, the former isn’t actually even operating anymore, so the block against the latter is more interesting.

Music-Bazaar.com isn’t a file-sharing service, but is similar to the now defunct Russia-based download store AllofMP3.com, which sold Western-released pop music worldwide at bargain basement prices, usually pennies per track (and, in AllofMP3.com’s case, major label music in the MP3 format at a point at which the major’s had not yet embraced DRM-free downloads). AllofMP3.com claimed it was licensed via Russian royalty organisations, but the Western record companies disagreed.

In some ways bargain-basement download stores are more of a problem than file-sharing services, partly because somebody is actually profiting directly from the download sales, and more so because – with money changing hands – many consumers will understandably believe they are buying music from a legitimate operation.

Although legal action was pursued, in the end AllofMP3.com was really defeated by persuading the Western credit card companies to not take money on the service’s behalf. Presumably targeting Music-Bazaar.com through the Russian legal system is proving complicated, hence why rights owners in Greece have gone the web-block injunction route.

Of course web-blocks are always circumventable by those who know how to, and various web pages have already appeared online in Greece explaining how that can be done, though rights owners would argue that anything that makes accessing unlicensed content more complicated is a step in the right direction.

The US Supreme Court has refused to take on the Joel Tenenbaum case, meaning the file-sharing student can now only hope that the damages he was ordered to pay the record companies for illegally sharing music files via Kazaa back in 2004 can be reduced back in the lower courts.

As much previously reported, Tenenbaum was one of the few people targeting during the Recording Industry Association Of America’s big sue-the-fans lawsuit party last decade to actually let his case get to court. He lost, and was ordered by a jury to pay $675,000 in damages.

The judge hearing the original case felt that was way too much and tried to cut the damages payment down to size. But she did so on constitutional grounds – arguing that such a high pay out for an act that in itself caused nominal damage to the plaintiffs was unconstitutional, despite it being based on parameters set out in US copyright law – rather than using a more complicated damages review process called remittitur. An appeals court subsequently criticised the judge’s process, and reinstated the $675,000 damages sum.

Tenenbaum’s legal rep Charles Nesson hoped to persuade the Supreme Court that his client’s damages were indeed unconstitutionally high, to such an extent that Judge Nancy Gertner was right to go straight to constitutional considerations when reviewing the file-sharer’s obligations, rather than going down the more time-consuming route of considering remittitur first.

But the Supreme Court declined to hear Nesson’s arguments yesterday, meaning Team Tenenbaum will have to continue to fight the damages sum in the lower courts, which could involve several more hearings and appeals yet.

Of course Tenenbaum doesn’t have $675,000 and has previously suggested he’d have to bankrupt himself if that figure stuck. Though for both sides there are points of principle at play here, even if the chances of the record companies ever getting anything near $675,000 from arguably America’s most famous file-sharer are almost zero.

MegaUpload founder Kim ‘Dotcom’ Schmitz is refusing to give New Zealand police the passwords to encrypted data that they seized from his home earlier this year unless they agree to give him access to the digital files too.

While the debate rumbles on in the US about what should happen to all the files stored on the old MegaUpload servers, which are currently off limits and filling up now unusable computers owned by an increasingly tetchy server company, in New Zealand the courts have been considering digital data belonging to Mega chief Dotcom, taken when his home was raided in January as various execs linked to the controversial file-transfer and video-sharing site were arrested.

Dotcom’s lawyers have complained that they are being denied access to that data, which is hindering their efforts to defend the Mega chief against America’s attempts to extradite him to face criminal charges in the US. The legal men add that while it is Auckland authorities who are holding their client’s computer files, they suspect it is America which is insisting he be deprived access.

But a chunk of the data on the seized computers is encrypted, and Dotcom says he won’t reveal the passwords required until he is assured access to the files himself, and that police acknowledge that some of the data is subject to privacy and legal privilege.

As much previously reported, Dotcom and various other Mega execs are accused of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering in the US, where authorities seized MegaUpload servers in January taking the service offline.

George Clinton has reached an out of court settlement with The Black Eyed Peas over the use of a sample in one of the group’s remixes.

As previously reported, Clinton sued BEP in December 2010, claiming a remix of their 2003 hit ‘Shut Up’ sampled his band Funkadelic’s classic hit ‘(Not Just) Knee Deep’ without his permission.

When the case reached court earlier this month the Peas claimed that they believed (albeit incorrectly) that they had licensed the sample. The judge in the case then lowered the threshold for any damages Clinton could claim. This seemingly prompted the settlement.

Neither side has commented as yet, but the mediator in negotiations told Reuters that the settlement had “fully” resolved the matter.

Australian band The John Butler Trio have won a legal battle with a US advertising agency, Poptent. The band sued after the company sampled their 2003 song ‘Zebra’ for an advert for Dannon Oikos Greek yoghurt, which first aired on American TV during the Super Bowl in February.

Poptent has now been forced to remove the sample from the advert, though it’s not clear what, if any, financial reparation is due for plays of the advert up to this point.

A spokesperson for the band said: “The advertisement will no longer contain this particular piece of music and both parties are happy this issue is behind them. We thank all JBT fans worldwide for their support on this matter. No further comment will be entered into”.

The ruling comes after Beach House spoke out against a new VW advert which uses a piece of music apparently written to sound very similar to their 2010 song ‘Take Care’, after they refused to allow the original to be used itself. News of the copycat track came, much to their dismay, just as the band were releasing their new album, ‘Bloom’. Hence, when commenting on it last week, they said: “We will release a proper statement weeks fom now when we don’t have more interesting things to do/talk about”.

It’s not clear at this stage if Beach House plan to launch legal action, but it would be an interesting case if they did.

The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry has welcomed a ruling in the Russian appeal courts which upholds a previous judgement regards the sharing of music over the Russian social networking website vKontakte. In January a lower Russian court said vKontakte did not do enough to stop its users sharing unlicensed music files, and was therefore liable for the copyright infringement its network enabled.

As previously reported, vKontakte is very similar to Facebook, down to its design, colour scheme and many of the social networking tools it offers (indeed, some might call it a straight Facebook rip off), and is big news in Russia and neighbouring countries, where it boasts 110 million registered customers and 33 million users daily.

A number of Western and Russian music companies have criticised vKontakte’s role in facilitating file-sharing, and two sued. The owners of the social networking company insisted they had no control over the actions of their customers, that they published warnings against infringement, and had offered to provide rights owners with the contact details of any users who uploaded unlicensed music. But in January the commercial courts in St Petersburg said that wasn’t enough, and last week an appeals court reached the same conclusion.

Welcoming the appeal ruling, IFPI boss Frances Moore told CMU: “This judgment sends a clear signal to those in Russia that seek to build their businesses on the back of other people’s content. We urge vKontakte to take immediate steps to stop its service being used to infringe copyright on a massive scale. Widespread digital piracy is preventing Russia from developing a thriving legitimate digital music sector and this in turn denies Russian artists a chance of success and starves them of investment by producers”.

Last year Lil Wayne was collecting copyright disputes in relation to his 2008 album ‘Tha Carter III’. This year he seems to be collecting legal actions relating to altercations involving photographers and skateboards.

Actually, the circumstances surrounding the latest alleged altercation involving the rapper, a photographer and the violent use of a skateboard are so similar to one reported last month, there’s a case for assuming they are actually the same incident, the first being reported from a criminal law perspective (ie a complaint had been made to the police) and the second revolving around subsequent civil action (ie a lawsuit has been filed against Wayne).

But TMZ seems to think these are two separate run-ins, with the latest alleged to have occurred on 3 May, while the previous incident took place in early April. Some key facts about the second fracas also vary from the first, though the two events do have a lot in common.

The latest claims come from Alfredo Marino, who is suing the rapper and his associates for damages caused during an alleged run in. Marino says that he saw Wayne and his posse skateboarding. As a big fan of the rapper, he approached the group and asked if he could take a photo. The rapper declined, so Marino retreated to his car and tried to take a long distance picture instead.

Wayne seemingly saw this, took his entourage over to Marino’s car, told the photographer: “Don’t you know all it takes is a word and these motherfuckers are going to fuck you up?” Then one of the rapper’s posse hit the claimant on the back of his head with a skateboard, knocking him to the ground and leaving him bleeding and concussed.

A legal rep for Marino told TMZ: “My client will enforce all of his rights under the law and all individuals responsible for this outrageous incident will be blamed for the damages that my client has suffered and continues to suffer”.

In April a photographer filed a complaint with the Miami police, claiming he had been photographing Wayne and his posse skateboarding, but was subsequently threatened by the rapper’s entourage, who pushed him to the ground and spat on him. Though in that incident the skateboard was seemingly used to damage the snapper’s bicycle rather than his head.

Wayne’s people are yet to comment on either alleged altercation.

And so the Joel Tenenbaum story continues, as lawyers for the file-sharing student seek a US Supreme Court hearing in their ongoing bid to quash the mega-damages their client has been ordered to pay the American record companies for illegally accessing a few tracks via Kazaa back in 2004.

But first, the customary recap. Joel Tenenbaum. Student. Does some naughty file-sharing of unlicensed content. Sued by Recording Industry Association Of America. Chooses not to settle out of court. Goes to court. Bullish legal rep Charles Nesson presents pretty lacklustre defence. Tenenbaum found guilty of copyright infringement. Ordered to pay $675,000 in damages. Can’t pay, won’t pay. Judge cuts damages to $67,500 on constitutional grounds. Appeals court says if damages to be cut different legal process (called ‘remittitur’) required, reinstates $675,000 damages.

Nesson has since been pursuing various routes in a bid to have the damages his client has to pay cut back to something more realistic. He continues to argue that a $675,000 damages bill is unconstitutionally high, while adding that, in his opinion, the judge hearing the case – Nancy Gertner – was in fact right to cut the damages figure down to size based on constitutional arguments, even though technically another process for reviewing damages should have been used first. Nesson argues that the labels will continue to appeal any ruling that doesn’t go in their favour, meaning eventually the constitution element would have been up for consideration, and by going there first Gertner was simply saving his client from the hassle of unnecessary legal wranglings.

In his submission to the Supreme Court, Nesson argues that the record industry’s subsequently axed “litigation assault” on small time file-sharers was “procedurally unfair and profoundly unethical”. According to Ars Technica, he adds that the Recording Industry Association Of America sought to
“punish [Tenenbaum] beyond any rational measure of the damage he conceivably caused, not for the purpose of recovering compensation for actual damage caused by him, nor for the primary purpose of deterring him from further copyright infringement, but for the ulterior purpose of creating an urban legend so frightening to children using the internet, and so frightening for parents and teachers of students using the internet, [so] that they will somehow reverse the tide of the digital future”.

On the requirement or Gertner to initially review Tenenbaum’s damages payment using the process of remittitur, he continues: “The deployment of remittitur as a means of fending off constitutional issues empowers the copyright-holding corporations to subject any individual who is seeking to protest the unconstitutionality of their settlement methods to years and then further years of endless litigation and repeated trials”.

It’s thought the Supreme Court will confirm any day know whether or not it will review the Tenenbaum case.

One of the more interesting questions raised by any anti-piracy three-strikes system, whereby internet service providers can be forced to send warning letters to suspected file-sharers of unlicensed content, and to then reduce the net connection of any such file-sharing customers who ignore the warnings (either to slower speeds or to full disconnection of service), is what happens if the customer claims the illegal content sharing was committed by a third party on their wi-fi network?

Is the owner of a wi-fi network liable for any copyright infringement that occurs via their net connection? Can liability be circumvented if the wi-fi network is password protected, but a third party hacks in somehow? And if so, does that mean any three-strikes legislation – such as that contained in the UK’s Digital Economy Act – implies into law an obligation on every ISP customer to password protect their wi-fi?

This question doesn’t actually come up quite as often as you might imagine – in either straightforward file-sharing litigation cases or the operations of active three-strikes systems – mainly because in most cases, when ISP customers are hit with legal or warning letters about file-sharing, they generally say “fair cop mate, I won’t do it again”. But occasionally the accused pleads ignorance of any file-sharing activity via their net connection, and assuming they are willing to maintain those claims at the witness stand, the question must be considered: is ‘someone else did it on my wi-fi’ an acceptable get out?

One previous case that considered this question in an albeit relatively junior German court decided that there was an obligation on ISP customers to put at least basic password protection on their wi-fi networks in order to circumvent any liability for copyright infringement then conducted on said net connection.

Which makes it easier to enforce three-strikes and more conventional file-sharing litigation, though many fear such a conclusion, as it arguably puts new liabilities onto the libraries, hotels, colleges and cafes which provide open wi-fi (or at least password protected wi-fi where the password is openly published). And such extra liabilities might make such institutions less likely to offer wi-fi as a matter of course, just as plentiful wireless internet hotspots are becoming the norm in many townsand cities.

The good news for those concerned about wi-fi liabilities is that a Finnish court has just ruled that there is no obligation to password protect wireless networks, and that the ‘someone else did it on my wi-fi’ defence is satisfactory in illegal file-sharing cases, even if the wi-fi network had no password protection, providing the evidence available gives that excuse some credibility.

In the Finnish case, reported on by Torrentfreak, the defendant was accused by anti-piracy group CIAPC of downloading unlicensed content in July 2010, but it was shown that that downloading occurred during a twelve minute window via the woman’s open wi-fi network while she had 100 guests at a party at her house.

The defendant’s lawyer told Torrentfreak: “The applicants were unable to provide any evidence that the connection-owner herself had been involved in the file-sharing, the court thus examined whether the mere act of providing a wi-fi connection not protected with a password can be deemed to constitute a copyright-infringing act”.

And, unlike its German counterpart, the Finnish court ruled on that question with a resolute “no”. In doing so Finnish judges considered a number of European Union directives on copyright, which means the ruling possibly has ramifications beyond Finland itself. Indeed, should CIAPC choose to appeal, lawyers for the accused say they might ultimately push to have the matter considered at the European Courts Of Justice. If the ECJ decided this was, indeed, a matter for European rather than national law, any such ruling could settle the ‘does the wi-fi excuse stand’ question across the Union.

Katherine Jackson’s lawsuit against AEG Live regards its employment of Conrad Murray as her son’s personal doctor will now not reach court until next April, after lawyers for the live firm said they needed more time to prepare.

As previously reported, AEG’s attorneys had already said they were struggling to get all the information they needed from the Jackson camp in order to prepare their defence. Last month a judge ordered the Jacksons to provide whatever information was still lacking pronto, though their lawyers argued that they had gathered together the required material as fast as they could, noting that doing so had required asking the late king of pop’s children some pretty harrowing questions, which had taken a certain amount of time to do.

Murray, of course, was last year found liable for the 2009 death of Michael Jackson, with the LA criminal courts ruling that the doctor had caused the singer’s demise through negligence, in particular in providing his patient with the dangerous surgical drug propofol in a domestic environment as a cure for insomnia, and then failing to properly monitor his patient.

Mrs Jackson says AEG Live should accept civil liability for Murray’s actions as it was the company which hired the doctor and was paying his bills. However, the live firm argues that, while it may have provided the money to pay Murray’s fees, he had been recruited by and reported to Jackson himself, and the company therefore cannot be liable for the doctor’s actions.

The case had originally been due to reach court in September, but legal reps for AEG say they need more time to prepare, because of the amount of information they are processing and the time it took to gather that material, as well as number of other ‘procedural issues’. The live firm’s court submission also said the company had new information that showed Jackson’s drug dependencies preceded the appointment of Murray, and that that evidence should be reviewed before any trial begins.

The Jackson camp seem undecided about whether or not the oppose the proposed postponement of the case. The family’s attorney, Kevin Boyle, said he thought the lawsuit should have ‘priority case’ status because it involves a minor under fourteen years old – Jackson’s youngest son Blanket – which, under the LAsystem, means the courts have a duty to avoid unnecessary delays. That said, ‘priority case’ status wouldn’t speed up any court hearing that much, and Boyle seemed to admit earlier this week that having more time to prepare might help his side too.

American rocker Bret Michaels has reached an out of court settlement with the organisers of the Tony Awards, in relation to an incident at the 2009 edition of the event.

As previously reported, the Poison frontman was knocked on the head by moving scenery as he left the stage after performing at the 2009 Tonys show. The programme’s producers said Michaels had messed up his exit resulting in him being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the singer’s people insisted he’d never been told scenery would be lowered onto the stage immediately after his performance. Nevertheless Michaels initially said he wouldn’t sue.

However, in 2010 Michaels suffered a near fatal brain haemorrhage, which, according to the lawsuit he filed after recovering from it, was a result of the Tony Awards incident. The legal papers again insisted that the singer was given no warning about the scenery or the dangers it presented, adding that the subarachnoid haemorrhage was “at the hands of the Tony Awards”.

Michaels will now receive an undisclosed sum, which a rep for the awards called “an amicable resolution”.

While MP3 resale service Redigi insists it has the resources required to fight EMI in court after the major sued the digital start-up claiming its business model infringes copyright, another company facing litigation from the record company reckons EMI’s legal action could push it out of business.

As previously reported, EMI is suing gaming companies 4mm Games and Terminal Reality over the ‘Def Jam Rapstar’ game, which was basically rap karaoke. The major claims that some of the tracks that featured in the game included samples owned by either the EMI record or publishing companies, and that the gaming firms failed to secure licenses to use said samples in the context of the gaming platform. It is suing for $8 million.

The litigation is all the more devastating for 4mm Games because, despite some positive reviews and the power of the Def Jam brand, the ‘Rapstar’ game was not a commercial success. In an interview with Games Industry, the firm’s co-founder Jamie King suggests various reasons why the game failed, mainly that the companies involved in the project didn’t have the resources to make a gaming product of this scale succeed, and admitted that the EMI litigation now has to potential to kill his company.

King: “We have not got any new funding and obviously we need to resolve everything with ‘Rapstar’. And we’ve also got to eat. I get very annoyed at times, I would like there to be a way out of it but I don’t know if that’s going to happen”. He added that most of the former 4mm team are now working on new projects elsewhere, and that he himself is mainly working for a marketing agency.

Of course the Def Jam brand is owned by Universal Music, although the major doesn’t seem to have been actively involved in the marketing or distribution of the game itself, and was not named as a defendant in EMI’s lawsuit. Though given there’s a very high chance Universal will own EMI by the end of the year, perhaps there’s hope for King to reach some kind of amicable deal via the Def Jam connection, if he can hold off until Universal’s big EMI takeover is complete.

So, with those pesky jail sentences now hanging over the founders of The Pirate Bay in their home country of Sweden, two of the three creators of the always controversial file-sharing search service are trying very different approaches to avoid prison.

According to Torrentfreak, legal reps for Fredrik Neij are ready to fight the Swedish legal system by taking his case to the European Court Of Human Rights. They will argue that, under the European Convention Of Human Rights, Neij has the right to “receive and impart information”, and that via operating The Pirate Bay he was merely exercising that right.

Neij’s lawyers will again stress that The Pirate Bay itself did not host or copy any infringing music or movie files, and will argue that while the information TPB distributed may have primarily directed users to copyright infringing content, the imparting of that information in itself is not illegal, and, moreover, the right to impart such things is protected under European human rights legislation.

It’s a timely argument, given the increased tendency of the pro-file-sharing community to equate copyright enforcement with censorship, and the convention article Neij will rely on – should his case be accepted by the Human Rights courts in Strasbourg – is the freedom of expression provision.

The article in question does allow the freedom of expression right to be restricted for the “prevention of disorder or crime”, which is presumably how Sweden will fight the case if it reaches court – arguing that by setting up an online operation that enables and indeed encourages others to infringe copyright law, TPB was guilty of copyright crimes and therefore the convention right does not apply. Though quite when copyright infringement, and especially so called contributory infringement (where you help others to infringe), should be dealt with under criminal rather than civil law is very debatable.

It will be interesting to see how this one turns out. And if the European Court Of Human Rights were to rule that the convention right to freedom of expression was being breached via various forms of copyright enforcement, that could have a big impact on the copyright systems of countries bound by the convention, including the UK.

And given that, arguably, under European Union law (which is separate to European human rights law), EU countries have a duty to protect copyright, such a ruling could have the potential to put Europe’s two judicial systems (the human rights courts and the EU’s European Courts Of Justice) in conflict for the first time, which could cause all sorts of constitutional quandaries. I’ll say this, The Pirate Bay story is one that just keeps on giving.

Elsewhere, Neij’s fellow TPB founder Peter Sunde has opted for a very different route to avoid prison, pleading with the Swedish authorities rather than taking them to the European Courts Of Human Rights. Sunde’s lawyers have said that their client being forced into jail for eight months now would be damaging for his new business Flattr, as well as offering albeit undisclosed health reasons as to why the former Pirate Bay spokesman should be given clemency.

Sunde’s legal reps have also said that, if their client’s prison time can’t be revoked, it would be helpful if it could at least be postponed (presumably to the 29th Century). The Swedish courts are yet to respond to that application for clemency, though Sunde, who was due to start his prison sentence last week, remains free for the time being.

As much previously reported, the so called Pirate Bay Four – founders Neij, Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm plus funder Carl Lundström – were handed jail sentences after a joint civil and criminal trial over their involvement in running The Pirate Bay in 2009. The sentences were postponed pending appeal hearings though. They lost their first appeal in 2010, although the jail terms were reduced, and earlier this year Sweden’s Supreme Court refused to accept a second appeal hearing.

Lundström has reached a deal to serve his sentence under house arrest rather than actually going to jail, while Svartholm has been AWOL for sometime, so much so he didn’t even take part in the first appeal hearing, meaning the one year jail term handed to him at the original trial is binding.

Lil Wayne has settled two of the four (by our maths) lawsuits that stemmed from his 2008 album ‘Tha Carter III’.

First up, TMZ is reporting that Wayne’s legal reps have just settled with producer and songwriter David Kirkwood, who sued last June claiming he was owed $1.5 million for royalties and “production services” in relation to the track ‘Love Me Or Hate Me’.

The gossip site also reckons that last month a similar out of court agreement was reached with Darius ‘Deezle’ Harrison, who also sued claiming he was still owed money for work on the same album.

Terms of both deals are not known.

William Balfour was found guilty on Friday of killing three family members of singer and actress Jennifer Hudson back in 2008.

As previously reported, Balfour, who had been married to Hudson’s sister Julia, shot dead the singer’s mother Darnell Donerson and brother Jason, seemingly after seeing balloons outside the Hudson family home, and believing them to be from his estranged wife’s new boyfriend. He then abducted and later killed the singer’s seven year old nephew.

Testifying at the start of Balfour’s trial last month, Hudson told the court: “None of us wanted [my sister] to marry him. We didn’t like how he treated her and I did not like how he treated my nephew”.

Balfour, a small time drug dealer, now faces life imprisonment without the chance of parole in relation to the killings. He denied being responsible for the murders, with his defence reps proposing that a rival drug dealer had committed the crimes and framed their client. The jury spent three days deliberating, with three members uncertain of the defendant’s guilt, though enough were convinced he committed the crime. Nevertheless, one of Balfour’s lawyers, Amy Thompson, has already said she intends the apply for an appeal hearing.

Responding to the guilty verdict, a joint statement from Jennifer and Julia Hudson said: “We have felt the love and support from people all over the world and we’re very grateful. We want to extend a prayer from the Hudson family to the Balfour family. We have all suffered terrible loss in this tragedy”.

A nephew of Stevie Wonder has been arrested and charged over allegations he tried to extort money out of his celebrity uncle. According to reports, Alpha Lorenzo Walker and another man were arrested earlier this month, with LA prosecutors confirming basic details about the charges on Friday.

According to TMZ, Walker demanded $5 million from Wonder and said he would go to the press with allegations of incest if the singer failed to pay up. After being knocked back, Walker and his friend lowered their demands rather considerably to $10,000. Undercover cops then met with the two men, posing as representatives for Wonder, and the arrests were made.

Both Walker and his accomplice have so far pleaded not guilty to the extortion charges. Both are being held in jail pending a hearing that will decide whether there is enough evidence to move to full trial.

The estate of Michael Jackson have settled with the former Playboy model who appeared in the iconic video for ‘Thriller’. Ola Ray sued Jackson shortly before his untimely death in 2009 claiming she was owed royalties from the monies generated by the pop promo. It’s not clear what kind of pay off Ray has now received, but, according to TMZ, representatives for the Jackson estate reached an out of court settlement with the actress earlier this month.

Legal reps for MegaUpload and its founder Kim ‘Dotcom’ Schmitz have asked the US courts to postpone civil lawsuits filed against their clients, pending the criminal case against the now shutdown file-transfer platform.

Lawyer Ira Rothken said that the previously reported civil cases already filed against the MegaUpload enterprise, by smaller rights owners Microhits and Valcom, are based around allegations almost identical to those made in the American criminal case, and therefore it would put unfair pressure on the defendants if they had to give testimonies in the civil actions that could impact on any later criminal trial.

Rothken’s court filing also noted that the MegaUpload company was unable to secure vital evidence off the old MegaUpload servers, because with its assets frozen it is unable to pay the company which owns the servers the required fees. The debate about the future of the data stored on the old MegaUpload servers is, of course, ongoing.

It remains to be seen if the courts concur with Rothken that criminal proceedings should occur before any civil claims are given court time. While Microhits and Valcom are relatively small players in the music and TV/film industries (respectively), a bigger civil action from the Motion Picture Association Of America, representing the big movie studios, is anticipated, though that too might need to be postponed until after the criminal trial.

In a move that can probably be filed in the drawer marked ‘poor timing’, it has emerged that The Beastie Boys were hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit on 3 May, the day before the band’s Adam Yauch died. It’s all the more unfortunate given that the litigation relates not to recent Beastie Boys output, but to tracks on the rap trio’s first two long players in 1986 and 1989.

The lawsuit, filed by the Tuf America record label, related to two songs on the band’s debut album, ‘Licensed To Ill’, and two more on the follow-up, ‘Paul’s Boutique’. The company claims that the group illegally sampled two Trouble Funk songs – ‘Say What’ and ‘Drop The Bomb’ – on said tracks.

That it has taken over 20 years to pursue this litigation is partly linked to the fact Tuf America only gained control of the copyrights in Trouble Funk’s catalogue in 1999, the additional ten year wait seemingly being down to the fact it’s only recently that the label noticed the alleged infringements.

See the full lawsuit here, courtesy of All Hip Hop.