By Robert Thompson 3 minutes ago

TORONTO (Billboard) - A revolutionary plan that would effectively legitimize file-sharing here has been slammed as "a pipe dream" by Canadian labels.

The Songwriters Assn. of Canada proposes to allow domestic consumers access to all recorded music available online in return for adding a $5 Canadian ($4.96) monthly fee to every wireless and Internet account in the country.

The SAC claims that the proposal, which has been presented to labels' bodies the Canadian Record Industry Assn. (CRIA) and Canadian Independent Record Production Assn. as well as publishers' groups, would raise approximately $1 billion Canadian ($993 million) annually. Although the SAC does not detail how revenue would be collected and distributed, it says it would go to artists, labels and publishers.

The idea doesn't strike a chord with everyone. The SAC proposal "would signal the death of paid music services in Canada," said Alistair Mitchell, CEO of Canadian music service Puretracks. "It would be saying we're just giving up on developing new models. The concept is so flawed, I don't know where to start."

"This proposal is incredibly well thought out and well constructed," acting SAC president Eddie Schwartz said. Producer/songwriter Schwartz, whose songs have been performed by Joe Cocker, Pat Benatar and Donna Summer, says the scheme would "allow people to gain access to the entire repertoire of Western music" for only $60 Canadian per year.

That, he added, "amounts to $0.16 ($0.159) per day. (Which) seems like a pretty good deal." Schwartz said it's unlikely that users with both a wireless phone and an Internet account would have to pay twice for access.

MANY HURDLES TO CLEAR

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Assn. estimates that Canada had 18.5 million wireless phone users and 7 million residential Internet users at the end of 2006. In 2006, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the trade value of recorded music fell 9.1 percent to $598.7 million Canadian ($529.8 million); CDs accounted for 85 percent of that total.

CRIA president Graham Henderson said he has discussed the plan with Schwartz, but his organization is reluctant to become involved. "We don't want to pursue what amounts to a pipe dream that is presented as a quick fix," he said. "We'll lose focus on the real issues that will help us resolve the industry's problems."

Schwartz said he has received positive feedback from consumer groups. But he noted that the plan would require clearance from the Copyright Board of Canada, and the SAC has not yet taken the concept to the regulatory body.

The SAC also has yet to present its proposal to Canadian Internet service providers, although some are dismissive of the plan.

"It appears (the SAC) would ask wireless carriers and ISPs to collect this surcharge on their behalf," said a spokesman for Bell Canada, one of the country's largest telecommunications companies and the majority owner of Puretracks. "(That) would not go over well with our client base, especially with the large number already signed up for our (legal) mobile and online music services."

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2004 that ISPs are not responsible for the actions of clients using their Internet services. One senior source at a Canadian ISP said, "ISPs are not required to — nor would they — police this kind of usage. Nor would they charge, collect and remit what is in essence a tax."

However, the proposal has received support from the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, a group of 187 acts, including the Barenaked Ladies and Avril Lavigne.

Artist Andrew Cash described the SAC suggestion in a statement on behalf of the CMCC as "the first progressive proposal we've seen in Canada to address file-sharing."

Reuters/Billboard

Natalie Finn Fri Jan 4, 2:29 PM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - Hannah Montana fans are getting the best of both worlds, leaving the less entertaining aspects to the show's lawyers and publicists.

A lawsuit brought against the Disney Channel by an award-winning comedy writer who claims he pitched the original idea for Hannah Montana and was never compensated for his efforts was referred Friday to mediation in the hope that the two sides can cut a deal.

Buddy Sheffield sued parent company ABC Cable Networks Group on Aug. 23, alleging breach of implied contract, breach of confidence, unfair competition and unjust enrichment. He is seeking unspecified damages.

ABC Cable has denied any wrongdoing on its part, but Sheffield, who won a Cable Ace Award in 1993 for the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series Roundhouse, maintains that he pitched an idea to the Disney Channel in 2001 about a series focusing on a seemingly average middle school student who actually moonlights as a pop star.

Sheffield's creation was called Rock and Roland. According to the complaint, the networks seemed interested but eventually passed on the idea. Some time later, the Disney Channel took the writer's concept and fashioned it into the mega-hit Hannah Montana, the suit alleges.

While the sitcom has turned 15-year-old star Miley Cyrus into a tween idol, spawned two hit soundtracks and a sold-out concert tour and made millions for the Disney Channel, network executives "have not paid a penny to Mr. Sheffield, and have refused to recognize that Hannah Montana" was his idea, the lawsuit says.

Sheffield has also written for In Living Color and the Dolly Parton variety series Dolly, according to his imdb.com profile.

In addition to sending the case into mediation, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Reginald Dunn set a trial date of Aug. 26 in case the opposing parties can't reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, the mother of a six-year-old girl who submitted a made-up personal essay in order to win tickets for Cyrus' Best of Both Worlds tour publicly apologized Friday during an appearance on the Today show for the scandal she caused.

Priscilla Ceballos' daughter actually won the contest sponsored by Club Libby Lu, a Chicago-based chain of girls' apparel boutiques, with an essay claiming her soldier father had died in Iraq this past year. The Garland, Texas, youngster was surprised last month with an in-store makeover and Dallas and was awarded four tickets and airfare to a Jan. 9 Hannah Montana concert in Albany, New York.

The family had to scrap their concert-going plans, however, after Club Libby Lu learned that the essay was fabricated.

Ceballos said that she knew her daughter had made up the subject matter and that, when asked by the concert organizer if the story was true, she, having nothing to hide, said no. (The child's father is alive and living in another Texas town.)

"We never said this was a true story. We do essays all the time. My daughter does essays at school all the time. It never did say it had to be true, but [organizer Robin Caulfield] said, 'That's what we expected,'" Ceballos told Dallas-Fort Worth's Fox 4 News on the day her daughter was named the winner.

"We are reviewing the facts in the matter so that we may determine an appropriate resolution to the situation," Club Libby Lu said in a statement before deciding to give the tickets to another child. "Club Libby Lu had no knowledge of the inaccuracies in the essay until 2:45 this afternoon—Friday, December 28. We regret that the original intent of the contest, which was to make a little girl's holiday extra special, has not been realized in the way we anticipated."

But while she may have been fuzzy on the contest rules, Ceballos is clear about her remorse for cashing in on a false story that's all too true for some.

She didn't intend to mislead anyone—she just got caught up in helping her daughter "realize her dreams of seeing Hannah Montana," Ceballos said Friday on Today.

"Instead I brought so much negative attention to my family. Please accept my heartfelt apology and please do not punish my child for my mistake," she said, while also issuing a pointed apology to those serving in the military and their families.

"I just wanted to help my daughter write a compelling story. There is no more compelling story than the struggle and sacrifices of our military and their families…I meant no disrespect. I just made a bad decision which I sincerely regret."

15 minutes ago

KINGSTON, Jamaica - A massive collection of 1970s music including original recordings by reggae greats Bob Marley and Peter Tosh has disappeared from the archives of the former Jamaica Broadcasting Corp., authorities said Saturday.

The possible theft of thousands of vinyl records and compact discs is a blow to the island’s history, said Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s information minister.

Musicians and former JBC employees criticized the government for not properly maintaining the archives.

“The latest development is a national disgrace,” said Gladstone Wilson, former program manager for JBC radio.

Workers at the newly formed Public Broadcasting Corp. of Jamaica noticed the disappearances earlier this week while touring the old JBC building. They had planned to use the archived material for their first programs, Grange said.

The archives also contain such iconic videos as the 1977 visit of Fidel Castro and the 1978 “One Love Peace Concert,” in which Marley famously called two bitter Jamaican political rivals onstage to join hands.

By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer 11 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Britney Spears was derailed yet again in her struggle to get her life back on track, losing custody of her two sons to ex-husband Kevin Federline. A court commissioner Friday gave sole physical and legal custody of the former couple’s two little boys to Federline and suspended the troubled pop star’s visitation rights.

Spears was hauled away from her home to a hospital by paramedics a day before, after police had to intervene when she refused to return the children to Federline after a court-monitored visit.

Commissioner Scott Gordon ordered another hearing to be held Jan. 14.

Federline had previously been awarded temporary custody of 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James because Spears has defied court orders, resulting in limitations on her visitation.

“I’m not happy about any of these events,” Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan said when he left a closed-door emergency hearing Friday afternoon. “There’s no winners here.”

Federline was not in court for the hearing, Kaplan said.

The attorney had said he did not expect the ruling to be released until Monday, but it was issued shortly after the hearing concluded.

Law professor Steve Cron, who is not involved in the Spears-Federline matter, predicted that Spears will face sanctions from the court for her behavior.

“My guess is that she won’t be seeing her kids for a while,” said Cron, who teaches at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

Gordon has little option other than to further reduce the time Spears can legally spend with her children, Cron said, “at least for the time being until she gets some help. She’s obviously a very troubled person.”

The 26-year-old pop star remained hospitalized Friday.

Her latest troubles began around 8 p.m. Thursday when officers were called to her home to help resolve a dispute over her refusal to turn the children over to Federline, as dictated by their custody agreement.

It took two to three hours to resolve the conflict, said Los Angeles police Officer Ana Aguirre.

“There was a time where she was within the residence and wasn’t available to be speaking to the officers, apparently,” she said. “There was no threat to the children.”

“Police resolved the conflict,” Aguirre said. “Both children were turned over to her ex-husband Kevin Federline for custody, and she was in fact taken to a local hospital for medical treatment.”

Early police reports said officers thought Spears might have been under the influence of some substance, but Aguirre said there was no evidence of that.

“Our understanding is that was not the case,” she said.

Officers at the scene determined that paramedics “needed to be called” but it was unclear why, she said.

“We’re not aware of any type of injuries that she sustained” and she was not combative with authorities, Aguirre said.

Spears wasn’t arrested in connection with the custody dispute, Aguirre said.

“There was no actual crime that was involved,” the police spokeswoman said.

Kaplan said he went to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after Spears was admitted there, but he declined to provide any details about the pop star, her ex-husband, or their two sons.

Spears’ mother, Lynne Spears, also would not disclose any information about her daughter’s condition. “Just say prayers,” she told the celebrity news show “Access Hollywood” by phone Friday.

Hospital spokeswoman Simi Singer wouldn’t confirm or deny reports in entertainment media that Spears would be held for 72 hours for psychological evaluation. The reports didn’t identify their sources.

Spears “needs an enormous amount of help to find out why the erratic behavior,” said Ruth Schreibman, a marriage and family therapist who does not treat the pop star.

“Is she bipolar? Is she depressed? Is it postpartum depression? Is it drugs and alcohol?” she said. “There’s just so much attention and it’s such an accelerated speed of life that how can there be any normalcy?”

Spears and Federline were married in October 2004. Her life has spiraled downward since their divorce in July. She has been photographed without underwear and appeared to be drunk and out of control in public. She shaved her head, beat a car with an umbrella and spent a month in rehab.

She had hoped to regain her pop crown with a much-hyped performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards in September, but it was universally panned by fans and critics.

Still, Spears’ latest album, “Blackout,” earned positive reviews when it was released in October and brought Spears her first No. 1 hit in years, “Gimme More.”

However, Spears remains a paparazzi target for her bizarre antics, which include frequent stops at gas-station bathrooms and holing up in a hotel room with a paparazzo.

Her 16-year-old sister, Jamie Lynn, made headlines last month when she announced that she is pregnant.

___

Associated Press writer Robert Jablon contributed to this report. Raquel Maria Dillon contributed for the AP.

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago

VIENNA, Austria - They clapped before Rolando Villazon sang a single note.

After all it was the star tenor’s first performance since he suddenly canceled all engagements more than three months ago, for what his manager said were health reasons.

So for the audience cramming the Vienna State Opera on Saturday, it didn’t matter what Villazon sang — or even whether he sang. The first sighting of the slightly built Mexican tenor in the opening minutes of Massenet’s “Werther” set off a ripple that within moments grew to waves of thunderous applause interspersed with shouts of “bravo.”

It was an almost unnerving outburst of warmth from what is known as one of the world’s more reserved audiences.

But then, Villazon isn’t just any tenor.

Many critics consider him as the heir in waiting to the likes of Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. His performances with Russian diva Anna Netrebko sizzle, and the pair has been hyped up as opera’s new “love couple.” At its best, his voice is a mixture of silver and honey. And even if it isn’t, his masterful theatrics are worth the price of even a better seat in any opera house.

So news in September that he was canceling his performances until at least early this year after a series of missed performances sent out shock waves beyond the reaches of the opera world.

His return Saturday set the stage for huge expectations that were mostly — but not completely — met.

While wonderfully supple — and surprisingly strong at times — Villazon’s voice was occasionally lost in the more powerful orchestral passages — and it wasn’t the fault of conductor Marco Armiliato.

Although he appeared to be hitting his high B’s, it wasn’t always apparent — because when trying too hard to be heard, Villazon’s lyric tenor just seemed to top out among all those potent brass passages of the second and third acts.

Villazon himself appeared to be less than completely satisfied. Miguel Perez, who described himself as a friend of Villazon from Barcelona, said the tenor told him between breaks that he was “very happy” with the first act but “not very happy with the second.”

“It’s a very emotional evening for him,” Perez told the AP.

If so, Villazon put those emotions to wonderful use. On Saturday, his theatrics made him the quintessential Werther, the emotionally vulnerable, brooding young man who obsesses over a woman he cannot have, shoots himself — and dies happily in her arms after she confesses her love for him.

His face and body tortured, Villazon made believers even of those who normally have trouble sitting through the opera’s final 20-minute death scene. And he received a post-performance standing ovation from an audience that normally stays glued to its seats.

But — dare one say it?

Villazon was outperformed Saturday.

As Charlotte, the woman Werther loves, Sophie Koch was flawless, her voice powerful and pliant, her physical presence commanding and her dramatics gripping.

The late great Wagnerian soprano Lilli Lehmann once said a mezzo-soprano is “a soprano without the high notes.” She might have had to rethink that had she heard Koch in the upper registers Saturday. If Villazon’s voice was silver, hers was an alloy of precious and rugged metals forged for strength, endurance and beauty.

Her Act III aria, “Va, laisse couler mes larmes” (Please let my tears flow), had stern-faced men sitting in the pricey seats reaching for the tissues. And where Villazon’s French pronunciation was occasionally fuzzy, her diction was clear and precise.

More fine musical work came from the pit, with Armiliato easily alternating string-quartet like sounds from the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, with poignant woodwind and powerful brass passages as suitable underpinnings to the action on stage. Heavy and light, serious and incidental, Massenet’s music was in good hands Saturday.

Also good: Markus Eiche as Albert, Charlotte’s husband; soubrette Laura Tatulescu as the bubbly Sophie, Charlotte’s kid sister, and Alfred Sramek as their father.

Director Andrei Serban’s staging of Saturday’s version that premiered two years ago put Werther not in Massenet’s 19th century but the 1950s — a time of sexual and emotional suppression that is very fitting for this opera.

___

On the Net: http://www.staatsoper.at

By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer 29 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Television’s “Dr. Phil” McGraw said Britney Spears was released from a hospital Saturday but still needs psychological help, the syndicated programs “Entertainment Tonight” and “The Insider” reported in a press release.

The troubled pop star was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center by paramedics Thursday night after police were called to her home because of a dispute involving the two sons she had with ex-husband Kevin Federline.

“My meeting with Britney and some family members this morning in her room at Cedars leaves me convinced more than ever that she is in dire need of both medical and psychological intervention,” McGraw told the programs.

“She was released moments before my arrival and was packing when I entered the room. We visited for about an hour before I walked with her to her car. I am very concerned for her,” he said.

McGraw planned to talk more about Spears on his daytime talk show this week, the press release said.

Responding to an e-mail request for further comment from McGraw, a “Dr. Phil” publicist referred The Associated Press to his statement posted on the etonline.com Web site.

Medical center officials have had no comment on Spears, and authorities have given no full explanation of why she was hospitalized.

The incident at Spears’ home lasted several hours. A Los Angeles police spokeswoman said Friday that officers at the scene determined that paramedics “needed to be called” but it was unclear why.

A message seeking comment from Spears’ attorneys at the law firm Trope and Trope was not immediately returned Saturday.

At an emergency hearing Friday, a court commissioner suspended Spears’ right to visit sons Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1. The commissioner also gave sole physical and legal custody to Federline.

Previously, Federline had temporary custody and Spears had court-monitored visitation.

The court set another hearing for Jan. 14.

Spears and Federline married in October 2004. Her life has spiraled downward since their divorce in July. She has been photographed without underwear and appeared to be drunk and out-of-control in public. She shaved her head, beat a car with an umbrella and spent a month in rehab.