It looks like rapper Ray’s adult film debut in the Kim Kardashian sex tape is going to be delayed.

Steven Hirsch, co-chairman of adult film studio Vivid Entertainment, said today that he was putting distribution of the Kim Kardashian Superstar DVD on temporary hold while he tries to arrange a meeting with Ms. Kardashian, star of the notorious video.

Vivid announced in a press release on February 7th that it had acquired the sex video from a third party for $1-million and that the DVD would be in stores by February 28th and available online the same day.

“We remain very confident that we have
the legal right to distribute this video, but we feel it is most important that we have an opportunity to meet with Ms. Kardashian as soon as possible. We have reached out to her to try to set up a meeting.”

Ms. Kardashian, a high profile socialite and fashion entrepreneur, is the daughter of O.J. Simpson lawyer Robert Kardashian, the stepdaughter of Olympic Gold Medalist Bruce Jenner and the best friend of Paris Hilton.

Ray J, her partner in the video, is a best-selling indie hip hop recording artist who has been linked with Lil’ Kim and most recently Whitney Houston.

It’s Friday, and you know what that means at Axehole - sex, drugs, rock and roll and surviving 9 months at sea with the help of Jesus and air guitar.

Earlier in the week, we reported that Purdue University is the top school for stealing music. Some colleges are the best best business schools; some are tops in basketball; Purdue gets the prize for being the top school for stealing music.

Purdue gets the honor for getting over 1,000 threatening letters from the RIAA in less than six months, and for pretty much ignoring them.

But Purdue isn’t alone in earning the RIAA’s wrath, dozens of other schools have received hundreds of threats, too:
The RIAA’s Top 25 Most-Threatened Schools 

1. Ohio University - 1,287
2. Purdue University - 1,068
3. University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 1,002
4. University of Tennessee at Knoxville - 959
5. University of South Carolina - 914
6. University of Massachusetts at Amherst - 897
7. Michigan State University - 753
8. Howard University - 572
9. North Carolina State University - 550
10. University of Wisconsin at Madison - 513
11. University of South Florida - 490
12. Syracuse University - 488
13. Northern Illinois University - 487
14. University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire - 473
15. Boston University - 470
16. Northern Michigan University - 457
17. Kent State University - 424
18. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - 400
19. University of Texas at Austin - 371
20. North Dakota State University - 360
21. Indiana University - 353
22. Western Kentucky University - 353
23. Seton Hall University - 338
24. Arizona State University - 336
25. Marshall University - 331

Somehow, I’m not sure if publishing this sort of information will have the effect that the RIAA hopes. In fact, this may just inspire competition for the top spot.

Bootleg Bowl, anyone?

Image: ckirkman

The Recording Industry Association of America is promoting a new report that says that global piracy and counterfeiting cost Los Angeles-area companies $5.2 billion and the city at least $483 million in tax revenues in 2005. This is despite the fact that the number is nearly half the music-industry’s annual sales.

The study(PDF), conducted by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) and commissioned by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Councilmembers Wendy Greuel and Jan Perry and County Board of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavksy, estimates losses in local revenues, jobs, wages and taxes due to piracy. While the report describes economic devastation of piracy across nine different sectors of the Los Angeles economy, it finds the entertainment industries – motion pictures, music, and related industries – to be hit hardest.

According to the report, global piracy disproportionately hurts Los Angeles because of its concentration of so many of the firms that make the original products prone to counterfeiting. As a result, the LAEDC report indicates that the local black market across the nine identified sectors could be valued as high as $17.4 billion. Continue reading ‘Piracy Reportedly Costing Los Angeles $5.2 Billion Annually’

The recordings of a British concert pianist who found fame in the last years of her life have been exposed as hoaxes - by iTunes.

Joyce Hatto, who died in June 2006, has become a cause célèbre with fans of classical piano. A series of recordings appeared to show her masterful command of a wide range of composers including Liszt, Schubert, Rachmaninov, Dukas and more.

Last week, a critic at the Gramophone magazine got a surprise when he put a Hatto recording of Liszt’s 12 Transcendental Studies into his computer. The iTunes player identified the disc as being recorded by another pianist, Lászlo Simon. The critic dug out the Simon album and found it sounded exactly the same as the Hatto one.

iTunes had identified a hoax. The Gramophone critic tried another Hatto disc, this time of Hatto playing Rachmaninov, and again iTunes identified it as belonging to someone else.

Examinations of the waveforms of Hatto recordings confirmed what iTunes had suggested. Many are direct copies of other pianist’s work, while some are tweaked versions where a recording has simply been slowed down.

Hatto’s husband, who produced and released the music, says he cannot explain the similarities.

via New Scientist Technology Blog

It looks like Apple CEO Steve Jobs may be on a mission to piss off everyone in the world.

At an education conference on Friday, Steve Jobs blamed teachers’ unions for America’s educational problems.

“I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized,” Jobs said. “This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”

“Apple just lost some business in this state, I’m sure,” Jobs said.

Jobs is no stranger to controversy:

• Earlier in the year, Steve Jobs blew off Mac fans at Macworld, the largest convention of Mac users in the world, by not making any Mac introductions. There were no announcements of new Macintosh computers. There were no updates of Mac OS X. No mention of iLife updates. Apple didn’t even announce any cool new applications for Macs. Instead, Jobs introduced the Apple phone and some cross-platform products.
• Jobs angered Windows users when Apple blamed virus-infected iPods on Windows. “As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses.”
• Jobs angered Apple investors by profiting at their expense when Apple used stock purchase backdating to give him sweet deals on stock and then reportedly falsified documents to cover it up.
• Jobs pissed off people who just spent hundreds of dollars on a new iPod when he said “if you always want the latest and greatest, then you have to buy a new iPod at least once a year.”
• Jobs made an enemy of the major music labels when he challenged them to release their music without copy-protection.
• Jobs pissed off Zune buyers when he said that iPods beat Zunes for connecting with chicks. “I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times,” said Jobs. “By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear.” Ewwww!

Fortunately for Jobs, Zune buyers haven’t turned out to be a large demographic. Nevertheless, Jobs appears to be well on his way to pissing off everybody.