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FRIDAY 1ST OCTOBER

Look at us, here we are in 2010 and we're still talking about illegal file-sharing. Well, you probably weren't at this very second, but I'm about to now.

This week has been all about illegal file-sharing, but not in the way it should have been. It's a week that has been in my diary for a long time, because The Pirate Bay Four were set to go on trial in Sweden again as their appeal hearing got underway. And, indeed, they did. It all started on Tuesday and continues to roll merrily along. Except, aside from a few mentions that it had begun, no one is really talking about it. And this is a case that was talked about a great deal the first time around, with every detail written up extensively in the music business press.

But this week something else illegal file-sharing-related also happened. Pro-file-sharing activists in the 4chan online community chose to launch a cyber attack on the website of ACS:Law, a legal firm which has been sending out letters to internet users accusing them of downloading files illegally and demanding money, threatening to take them to court if they don't pay up. As most of the claims relate to porn, rather than music, many of the accused do pay the company hundreds of pounds, regardless of guilt, for fear of having this all brought up in public.

The Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) launched by 4chan, the latest in a string of attacks on anti-file-sharing organisations, easily took down the legal firm's website. But while bringing it back up again, engineers accidentally published the details of more than 5000 people who had been sent letters by ACS:Law, as well as emails sent to and from the company. Although only online for a short time, these details were taken by hackers and published on various sites, including The Pirate Bay.

One of the results of this may by that ACS:Law is fined £500,000 for breaching the Data Protection Act. You can follow the whole story on theCMUwebsite.com here: news.thecmuwebsite.com/?tag=/acs:law

It's also worth reading this great exposé of ACS:Law by Ars Technica: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/amounts-to-blackmail-inside-a-p2p-settlement-letter-factory.ars/

Blimey, when did the internet become such a serious place? What happened to those innocent days when bands thought it might be worth having a section of their website devoted to a story about their frontman falling over and hurting his ankle. Or that a man called Ian was going to pick them up from the airport. Oh yes, people, Britpop band Northern Uproar's 1998 website is still very much online: www.n-uproar.u-net.com

Andy Malt
Editor, CMU

		THE BBC IS LOOKING FOR NEW MUSIC TV FORMATS The BBC is looking to develop a new flagship music telly programme but, and this is very important, I want you all to write this down, it will not be 'Top Of The Pops'. According to The Guardian, Parfitt told a breakfast gathering of the Broadcasting Press Guild: "We are working on it. It would be great if we could get a new popular music-based programme with a new format, a new kind of offer that really worked for the audience". Knowing the BBC, they'll probably come up with a great new format and then have Fearne Cotton present it and it will be awful. Then they'll excitedly relaunch 'TOTP' in 2017.

		FILE-SHARING LAW FIRM COULD BE FINED HALF A MILLION ACS:Law, the London-based legal firm that has been much criticised for its work in the sue-the-fans anti-file-sharing domain, could face a fine from the UK Information Commissioner after hackers were able to acquire confidential information about thousands of Sky web users, the identities of whom it had got off the ISP via its P2P litigation work. BSkyB has now said it will no longer cooperate with the lawyers until they can guarantee data security, but with a possible £500,000 fine for breaching the Data Protection Act now amongst the company's woes, it may be out of business before that becomes an issue.

		WYCLEF JEAN HOSPITALISED DUE TO STRESS A rep for Wyclef Jean has confirmed reports that the musician and would-be politician was been admitted to hospital this week due to "stress and fatigue". He has since been discharged. Marian Salzman told Associated Press: "[Jean is] suffering from stress and fatigue based on the gruelling eight weeks he's had [and] plans to take it easy". Last week Jean officially withdrew from the Haitian presidential election, though it had been several weeks since it was decided that he was ineligible by the country's electoral council.

		ABBA HIT OUT AT RIGHT WING DANES ADOPTING MAMMA MIA Abba men Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus have revealed that they recently threatened to sue a right wing political party in Denmark after they used their song 'Mamma Mia' at political rallies, though a spokesman for Universal Music has since confirmed an out of court settlement has been reached. Abba are the latest in a string of musicians around the world to object to politicians adopting their songs.

		REZNOR YEAR ZERO TV SERIES PLANS MOVING FORWARD Trent Reznor has long wanted to make his 2007 'Year Zero' concept album into a TV series, and now through a partnership with HBO and BBC Worldwide that might just happen, though he himself admits the project is still in its early days with "a thousand hurdles before anything shows up in your TV listing". It was originally rumoured that Reznor planned to work with director Quentin Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender on the project. Bender is involved in the HBO production, though there's no mention of Tarantino here.

		SUGABABE CONFIRMS DRINK DRIVE CHARGE Sugababe Amelle Berrabah confirmed earlier this week that she was charged with drink driving last week, but accuses newspapers of reporting on the story in a misleading way, adding that the coverage is "sending her rock bottom again". Some reports claimed she'd got in her car while drunk after a "boozy bust up" with her other half Tom Benn. She says she'd been drinking with friends the previous night and, as it turned out, the alcohol was still in her system the next morning.

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Dermot O'Leary
TV and radio presenter Dermot O'Leary started his career in local radio but has spent much of the last decade fronting numerous successful TV shows, including 'T4', 'Big Brother's Little Brother' and, most recently, 'The X-Factor'. Between 2001 and 2003 he also worked as a presenter on Xfm in London, before moving to BBC Radio 2 in 2004, where he still presents a Saturday afternoon show.

Next week, he is set to release his first compilation album, 'The Saturday Sessions', with features session recordings taken from his Radio 2 show. Spread over two discs, the album features acoustic tracks and covers by artists such as Mumford & Sons, Biffy Clyro, Florence & The Machine, Lily Allen, Will Young, Bat For Lashes, Elbow, Kasabian, Imogen Heap and Amy Winehouse.

Dermot explains: "The Saturday Sessions is my favourite part of the show. It's a privilege to hear such a diverse and brilliant range of artists singing songs you wouldn't necessarily associate with them, which makes these performances so unusual and special. This album has really fuelled my passion for live music".

With the album out on Monday, we asked Dermot to put together a Powers Of Ten playlist featuring some of his favourite songs, and here is what he came up with...

DERMOT O'LEARY'S TEN
01	Fanfarlo	I Am A Pilot
	I recently stumbled across this band, love them!
02	Bombay Bicycle Club	Rinse Me Down
	I really like this band. I've followed them for about a year now and love this album.
03	Adele	Make You Feel My Love
	This never fails to make my heart flutter.
04	Avett Brothers	I And Love And You
	They did this on my Radio 2 show, it was beautiful.
05	Athlete	Black Swan Song
	Stunning, the song tells the extraordinary story about Joel's granddad who was a POW in WW2, trying to escape to get back to his wife.
06	Elbow	Station Approach
	This song reminds me of getting home.
07	Biffy Clyro	Many Of Horror
	I love this song, it's a real lighter in the air moment.
08	Ryan Bingham	The Weary Kind
	It's from the film 'Crazy Heart'. It's just a really sad song about a guy's fears of growing old and the struggles that come with it.
09	Turin Brakes	Sea Change
	Indie stalwarts who never let the side down.
10	A Camp	Love Has Left The Room
	This is just the perfect indie broken heart love song in three minutes and 37 seconds.

Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess describes the moment when drummer Jon Brookes collapsed on stage, before being diagnosed with a brain tumour: "Jon just stopped playing. Myself and Mark [Collins, guitarist] didn't know what to do. We looked over at him and he gave us a really distant look. At first we all thought it was dehydration but then things seemed to take a turn for the worse"

It turns out that, despite both releasing new singles this week, Tinie Tempah and Labrinth aren't actually at each other's throats: "It's funny, everyone keeps asking if there is beef between us. There isn't. We're really rooting for each other. I helped make him. My success is his success and his success is my success. Whoever gets to number one, we'll be going out together to celebrate"

Mark Ronson says that he may give up performing live on the grounds that it's quite difficult and he's getting on a bit: "Well, I'm 35. I'm probably in the last five years of performing on stage. I get nervous before I go on stage because I'm not a born performer. I only started playing guitar three years ago and I only started singing, like, yesterday. But there are worse problems to have, I think"

N-Dubz's Fazer on taking their sound to, er, ground ten million: "Every record we do is better than the one before. We try to up the levels. Someone said to me the other day: 'You've gone from ground zero to ground ten million'. [The new record is] a very dancey album but it still has an N-Dubz element to it as we have gone back to the roots a bit with this one"

MGMT's Andrew Van Wyngarden on reports that the band are handing creative control over to their label on their next album: "We aren't even close to starting the process of making a new album, label-relations are currently quite friendly, we are very proud of 'Congratulations' and the new videos, looking forward to making more music on Columbia. Don't believe everything that you read"

Ozzy Osbourne reveals that the excesses of the 80s stretched as far as athelete's foot cures: "Funnily enough, in the 1980s I used to cure athlete's foot by pouring cocaine on my toes. They cut the stuff with so much foot powder back then, it was the best treatment you could find if you had an outbreak on the road. The only problem was the price, which was around $3000 a toe"

		Tinchy Stryder. Since last we heard from him, Tinchy Stryder has gone into business with Jay-Z, ready for his launch in the US with his third album, 'Third Strike', which is due out on 8 Nov. But what does his new material sound like? Well, you need wonder no more, as Tynchy made a seven-track EP, entitled 'III', available for fans to download for free online this week - usershare.net/m0ayrnooxt83

		Animal Collective. You're no one until you've designed your own shoes, which means ever single member of Animal Collective is now someone. Each member of the band has designed an exclusive pair of trainers for Keep Shoes, which will come with a free compilation of unreleased material by the band on audio cassette. This is exactly the sort of thing people invent when they want to make jokes about hipsters - keepcompany.com/ac/

		The Temper Trap. Following the success of their debut album, 'Conditions', The Temper Trap have announced that they will release a compilation of remixed versions of tracks from it on 1 Nov. Meanwhile, the band are working on their second studio album as we speak and will be on tour in the British Isles later this year. You can download a track from 'Conditions: Remixed', a remix of 'Drum Song' by Breton, for free - thetempertrap.com/remixed/

		School Of Seven Bells and Active Child. CMU favourites School Of Seven Bells and Active Child have announced that they are to release a split seven-inch single, with each side featuring one remixing the other. SVIIB have chosen to remix Active Child's 'I'm In Your Church At Night', while Active Child has put his spin on 'Heart Is Strange', which you can also download for free - lefserecords.com/tracks/HeartisStrange-ActiveChildRemix.mp3

		Torpedo. One of the highlights of last week's Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Torpedo's new single, 'An Invention', was released in Sweden last week. It was produced by Justin Timberlake. The Justin Timberlake. If you find yourself in a situation where you don't want to know what a krautrock-influenced band produced by Justin Timberlake sounds like, then something has gone wrong with you - myspace.com/torpedo

		To All My Friends. Not a million miles away in sound from fellow Swedes First Aid Kit, this duo released their eponymous debut album last month (it's available through iTunes in the UK). The standout tracks are those written about animals. 'Fish', which sees the duo wishing they were fish, while 'Polar Bear', looks at global warming through the eyes of a polar bear in a manner that can only be described as 'cute' - myspace.com/tamfmusic

#37: Calvin Harris v Chris Brown
Every once in a while you get a sudden reminder of how relationships between us normal folk and celebrities have changed in the internet age. It used to be that if you had a gripe with someone in the public eye, you'd have to shout at their car as they drove past or write a stern letter to whatever magazine you got your famous person fix from. But now, of course, all you need is a Twitter account and a certain level of unhinged rage and you can insult the object of your distaste direct. As Calvin Harris found out this week.

It all started with one sentence and a link. "Choked on my cornflakes when I heard the new Chris Brown single this morning", tweeted Calvin, along with a link to the track on YouTube. Within minutes he was being subjected to a constant barrage of insults from Brown's fans. Though as most seemed to be claiming not to know who Harris was, it seems unlikely that they actually knew why he was irked in the first place. "Shit, I only went online to renew my tax disc", noted Harris when faced with a barrage of teenage rant.

Chris Brown fans may be happy to throw insults at someone based solely on a feeling that the someone in question might have said something negative about their favourite singer, but to everyone else it was pretty clear what had caused Harris to swallow his cereal the wrong way. The new Chris Brown track, 'Yeah 3x', contains a synth line almost identical to his number one single 'I'm Not Alone'. Well, I say 'almost identical', it sounds like someone was aiming for Calvin's synth line, but didn't know what the chords were, tried to play it anyway and got it wrong. As a result, the track just sounds weird.

Still, how long could Brown's fans keep this barrage up? Cut to the next day: "Can all these Chris Brown stans stop it now please? You are all unbelievably offensive and ignorant beyond belief", tweeted Calvin. "Literally getting threatened by fourteen year old girls right now! Racist, xenophobic and misguided. I'm sure Chris is very proud of you all".

That should stop them. What, no? After four full days of non-stop insults (Brown's fans are persistent, if nothing else), Harris fired up his computer once more to issue a statement: "Chris Brown fans: I don't care that you call me a 'nobody' - stealing is still stealing, doesn't matter who you are! Because Chris Brown is an international celebrity doesnt make it OK to rip off a guy from UK not many people have heard of. How are you going to call me irrelevant when his brand new song sounds just like my two year old song?!"

He continued: "And those saying I'm doing this for publicity, that's fucking laughable - what I have I got coming out? Fuck all! Don't want or need it. This is my twitter, i'll talk about whatever is going on in my life! Thats what its for! Believe it or not i'm not trying to be known by you. [So] why not put it on Twitter? Way more entertaining than doing it behind closed doors. Unprofessional? I'm not a professional!"

Answering suggestions from his own fans that the matter should go legal, he said: "Of course I'm not going to take it to court! What good would that do?! Happy for people to make their own mind up".

So, here you go:

Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZqitqw1fU0#t=0m14s
Chris Brown - Yeah 3x: www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8TPXFoXO5A#t=0m45s

Andy Malt Editor	Chris Cooke Business Editor & Co-Publisher	Caro Moses Co-Publisher

Paul Vig Club Tipper	Katy Perry Creche Manager	Chris Moyles Milk Monitor

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