Country artists win US radio royalties victory - BBC News
A new deal between media giant Clear Channel and a leading Nashville music label could pave the way to all artists being paid for US radio airplay.
The agreements gives artists on the Big Machine label payment for songs played on traditional radio stations for the first time.
In exchange, artists have agreed to a cap on payments from tracks played on digital stations.
Taylor Swift and Tim McGraw are among artists who will benefit from the deal.
"We're going to more than double our income from Clear Channel in the short term," said Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta.
"They'll make it up on the back end as digital continues to grow."
Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman called the deal "an opportunity... to align our interests in all of our revenue streams and grow digital listening to its full potential."
The deal is a significant coup for the record industry, which has been trying to secure royalties from songs played on traditional radio for decades.
Songwriters receive a small amount when their songs are played on US radio, whereas performers do not.
But they are paid royalties for online usage, placing a heavier financial onus on digital radio platforms than their terrestrial counterparts.
Rather than compensating artists every time a song is played, the Clear Channel agreement will pay them a share of advertising revenue generated across all platforms.
Clear Channel's 850 stations make it the largest radio group in the United States and a major influence on broadcasting practice.
Google to warn users about possible 'state-sponsored attacks' - San Jose Mercury News
BEIJING -- Google (GOOG) said Wednesday that it has added a feature to warn users whose accounts it believes are targets of "state-sponsored attacks," but the Internet giant did not cite a specific government.
Google Inc., however, closed its search engine in China in 2010 after saying it no longer wanted to cooperate with Beijing's Internet censorship following hacking attacks traced to China.
A message that says "Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be trying to compromise your account or computer" will appear onscreen if users are targeted, Eric Grosse, a vice president for security engineering, wrote on a company blog.
Google cannot say how it knows activity is state-sponsored without giving information that would help attackers, Grosse wrote. But detailed analysis and victim reports "strongly suggest the involvement of states or groups that are state-sponsored," he wrote.
A report in November by U.S. intelligence agencies said Chinese and Russian intelligence services and companies with state ties systematically break into American computer systems to steal commercial information.
Western security experts say China's military is a leader in cyberwarfare research.
Beijing has rejected suggestions by Western security experts that its military or
government agencies were involved in the Google hacking. But it has not responded publicly to appeals by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other officials to help investigate hacking attacks.Google's latest move comes after the company added a feature to its Chinese-language search engine in Hong Kong last week that warns users in China who enter search keywords that might produce blocked results. It highlights which terms might trigger filters, challenging official Chinese efforts to conceal censorship.
Google's 2010 announcement that it was closing its search engine in China said email accounts of human rights activists critical of China had been hacked. The company said some of its intellectual property also was stolen in a separate attack that targeted at least 20 other large companies.
Last year, Google said computer hackers in China broke into the personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists. That intrusion was based on less sophisticated trickery used to obtain passwords and other information.
Trott backs decision to rest Anderson - ESPN.co.uk
Jonathan Trott did not earn his reputation as a cricketer through playing an array of dashing shots, so it should be of little surprise that he took a similarly cautious approach to a tricky off-pitch episode at Edgbaston on Tuesday.
Placed in a potentially awkward position - charged with talking to the media a few days after the retirement from limited-overs cricket of Kevin Pietersen and the enforced resting of James Anderson - Trott adopted a characteristically dead bat to all questions in a safety-first display which a generation of bowlers would recognise in an instant. Indeed, had Trott paused the press conference to mark his guard, it would have hardly have seemed incongruous.
"You can understand it in a way, but it's a huge disappointment as well," Trott said of Pietersen's decision, thereby ensuring he neither offended Pietersen nor the England team management. "It wasn't a huge surprise. Kev is his own guy and has to make his own decisions. The team fully support his decision. Whatever he decides to do with his cricketing career is fine."
Trott's diplomatic response - as admirable as it was sensible - did inadvertently highlight the uneasy truce that pervades within the England camp at present. It will take careful management over the coming months to ensure that the constructive working environment that helped England to No. 1 in the Test and T20I rankings is maintained.
A recurring theme of the next 18-months or so will be the schedule. Those members of the squad who play all three formats of the game can expect to spend less than two weeks in the UK between mid-October and April. Those involved in the World Twenty20 will be absent for several weeks before that. Irrespective of the actual amount of cricket the squad play or of the comparison with teams of the past, the fact of the matter is that men with young families - be they players or coaches - are uneasy with those demands.
Trott's situation is somewhat different from Pietersen's. Trott is not currently in the England T20 side and he did not even enter the draw for the 2012 IPL season. His T20 record is better than might be presumed, too: only five men (Marcus Trescothick, Darren Stevens, Darren Maddy, Murray Goodwin and Owais Shah) have scored more runs in English domestic T20 cricket and none of their averages comes anywhere near Trott's 39.20. Indeed, no England-qualified player with more than a dozen games behind them has a higher T20 average than Trott, while the 525 runs he scored in the 2009 T20 Cup was a then-record.
"Not being involved in T20, you get that little break," Trott said. "You have to speak to the guys who play all three about how they feel, but I'm really happy with the scheduling for me. It's really busy but that's part of being an England cricketer. We're the only country who play constantly from April through until September and there are always places to go in the winter. It has got a little bit busier, but it's part and parcel. You have to accept and get on with it.
"I didn't put my name forward for this IPL because I knew the workload. I'd been in international cricket for a year at the point when I did, but you now realise it is a lot of cricket. You make a decision and you've got to live with your own decision. Kevin's made his mind up about what he wants to do and that's fine. The guys support and understand the decision he's made. There's plenty of talent to come in and take his place. It's a bit of a blow, but you have to pick yourself up and get on with it.
"Kev was playing all three formats and he's been doing it since 2004, a lot longer than myself. He'll have his reasons. It is quite strenuous but you accept that when you get selected, you go there knowing what's ahead of you. From my side, I've no complaints about how the schedule has been."
Trott did admit, however, that he could see the logic in rotating players. "It's happened in the past, and probably will in the future with the schedule getting busier and busier," he said. "It's only right that these things happen.
"Jimmy Anderson would have liked to have played and quite rightly. He's the spearhead of our bowling attack, and you can understand that he will probably be a little bit disappointed. But with the bowlers and their heavy workload, it's going to happen from time to time. But it's not as if you're giving away international caps. We have guys who are vying to play and whoever takes his place should do a great job."
George Dobell is a senior correspondent at ESPNcricinfo
© ESPN EMEA Ltd
The Platters founder Herb Reed dies at 83 - BBC News
Herb Reed, the last surviving founding member of the US vocal group The Platters, has died in Boston aged 83.
The singer's manager said he died after a period of declining health that included chronic heart disease.
Founded by Reed in 1953, the group had hits with songs including Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Only You and The Great Pretender.
Following the replacement of original band members, he was the only singer to appear on all 400 recordings.
Reed continued touring, performing up to 200 shows per year, until last year.
Formed as harmonising street singers in Los Angeles, The Platters were the most popular black singing group of their time.
Reed is credited with coming up with the group's name - inspired by disc jockeys who referred to their records as "platters".
The original line-up included Reed, female vocalist Zola Taylor, David Lynch, Tony Williams and Paul Robi, who went on to have four number one hits in the US between 1955 and 1958.
Reed credited his survival in the music industry to the poverty he experienced as a child.
Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, he said in his biography he was careful with money because he did not want to assume the group's success would continue.
The Platters continued to record until the late 1960s and tour in various incarnations, with more than 100 different members, until the present day.
The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
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