SONG CONTEST BLOG

A Swedish court has sentenced the four founders of The Pirate Bay for one year and ordered them to pay damages to the tune of $4.5m after the most high profile filesharing crackdown since Shawn Fanning’s Napster came to ruling.  In spite of the hefty punishment, The Pirate Bay website, a BitTorrent search platform (BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer program used for uploading and downloading files), contains video footage of the founders’ amusement by the verdict, which they intend to appeal.

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Epic Records, part of Sony’s Columbia/Epic Label Group, has appointed singer/songwriter, Amanda Ghost, as its new President, replacing Chris Walk who left the label after his contract ran out last year.  With 25 million record sales in the last three years under her belt, Ghost is one of the leading commercial songwriters in today’s music market, responsible for major cuts including “Beautiful Liar” (Beyonce/Shakira), “You Are So Beautiful” (James Blunt) and “Tattoo” (Jordin Sparks), to name a few.

Ghost’s appointment, somewhat unconventional for the label behemoth, comes as surprising news.  Perhaps it’s part of a new game plan to denote a new positioning in the record industry; putting the ‘creatives’ at the very top of the ladder.

Rob Stringer, Chairman of Columbia/Epic Label Group, statement:

“I am delighted that Amanda has chosen to bring her creative vision and flair to the Epic label. In the changing environment of the music business, record labels undoubtedly need to be complete partners with the artistic community and Amanda will be the perfect executive to meet that challenge.”