Universal alleged that Grouper.com – recently acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment – and Bolt.com had built up traffic by encouraging users to share music videos from its artists without their permission. It claimed a video for the Mariah Carey song “Shake it Off� was viewed more than 50,000 times on Grouper without the company’s permission.

Josh Felser, co-founder and CEO of Grouper, said: “The lawsuit is without merit and we expect to prevail. Our website is protected by federal law and we’re vigilant about taking down copyrighted content when we’re properly notified.�

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Unsigned Annekei is a singer/songwriter/pianist and guitarist who grew up in Denmark. Recently had the single “More Of Your Love” released in the UK with Shan & MKL. She performs frequently at hospitals all over New York through the organization “Musicians on Call. She released a full length “Brother” on September 13th through a Japanese label “Being Records”. In 2 weeks the single “Brother” climbed to #4 on the “North FM” charts.
Performing at Pianos (NYC) tomorrow Oct 18 at 10:00PM.

• Music industry in 8,000 new file-share lawsuits. 20 Billion Illegaly Downloaded Songs.
  The music industry has launched 8,000 ‘new’ lawsuits against alleged file-sharers around the world, hoping to stamp out online piracy and encourage the use of legal download services. The trade group said more than 1 billion music tracks were illegally downloaded last year in Brazil, the largest market in Latin America. Record company revenue has nearly halved in Brazil since 2000, IFPI said. IFPI has said some 20 billion songs were illegally downloaded worldwide last year. The industry has now filed about 18,000 lawsuits in the United States, the largest market for music sales, and 13,000 in the rest of the world.
• Let the Games Begin. The CEO of Time Warner, fired a shot across the bows of Google, saying his group would pursue its copyright complaints against the video sharing site YouTube.
• Check out “EMI’s Mixed Messages Forbes:
  Will digital music sales make up the loss of physical CD’s sales?

• The Dresden Dolls – Do it themselves:
  The Dresden Dolls made its own video and posted it on YouTube attracting more than 300,000 viewers. The label did not feel the album was selling enough to invest into a new music video so the band did it their way.

`The record labels still don’t know how to use the Web as adroitly and adeptly as the young people who grew up with it, who are now in these bands,” says Phil Leigh, senior analyst at Inside Digital Media, a Tampa consulting firm. `I do think that the labels will continue to be the major force in the music industry, but they won’t be as dominant as they were in the past.” The wonderfully democratic thing about YouTube and the Internet in general is that all you need is a good idea and a way to execute it.”

• EMI hopes albums from Robbie Williams, Norah Jones and other second-half releases will help meet full-year expectations.
  EMI said its recorded music division was on track for a 4 percent decline in revenue in the six months ended Sept. 30 on a constant currency basis. EMI said the decline was due to its release schedule, which is expected to be stronger in the second half than in previous years, with albums from Jones, Williams, Joss Stone and Moby.

According to the New York Post (Page Six) staffers at Capitol Records sent a letter to EMI’s Chairman Alain Levy and David Munns claiming that Capitol President and CEO Andy Slater is an out of touch exec who needs to resign. They claim he is running the company into the ground by signing and spending money on mediocre artists including Morning Wood (Pictured) that is absolutely going nowhere while ignoring the career artists including Bonnie Raitt and Roseanne Cash. Staffers at Capitol also claim that the employee moral is at an all time low.

“We are in constant disbelief of the amount of money spent on these acts who are clearly a step behind what is happening in music . . . We work in constant fear of ‘what Andy wants.’ This man is a control freak . . . How much longer do we need to make sure he is happy – only to then see those choices fail?”

A source, who says the letter represents “dozens” of Capitol employees, told Page Six:

“There are core artists like Bonnie Raitt and Roseanne Cash who are just being ignored. The feeling is [Slater] just let them die. Then there are artists like Morning Wood, which is going nowhere.” The source adds that Slater is often unreachable and comes into the office late: “He’s out at night at clubs and partying with girls

An EMI spokeswoman not surprisingly disputed the letter’s claims: “Andy and his team at Capitol are doing a great job. He’s revitalized the roster. He’s more than doubled the label’s market share since he arrived five years ago.”