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| U.S. movie studios sue Megaupload, founder Dotcom Monday, Apr 07, 2014 08:26 PM PDT  By Bernard Vaughan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Several major U.S. studios filed a copyright infringement lawsuit on Monday against the file-sharing website Megaupload and its ebullient founder, Kim Dotcom. Megaupload, which U.S. authorities shuttered in 2012, facilitated a "massive copyright infringement of movies and television shows," according to a statement issued by the Motion Picture Association of America on Monday. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, all MPAA members, are Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, Disney Enterprises Inc, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Productions, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. "Megaupload wasn't a cloud storage service at all, it was an unlawful hub for mass distribution," Steven Fabrizio, an attorney for the MPAA, said in the statement. Full Story | Top |
| NBC executive predicts first win in a decade in key U.S. age group Monday, Apr 07, 2014 02:36 PM PDT Longtime ratings laggard NBC is expected to win this season's broadcast TV ratings race in the age group most prized by advertisers, 18 to 49, for the first time in a decade, NBC Universal Chief Executive Steve Burke said on Monday. The last time NBC won that age group was in the 2003-04 season, a spokeswoman said. NBC, owned by cable operator Comcast Corp, is averaging 3.7 million prime-time viewers through March 30 for the season that started in September, according to ratings data from Nielsen. The winner will be determined when the TV season ends in May. For the season that ended in May 2013, CBS won 18- to 49-year-olds while NBC landed in third place. Full Story | Top |
| Chris Brown's bodyguard said he, not singer, punched man: detective Monday, Apr 07, 2014 02:34 PM PDT  By Lacey Johnson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bodyguard for R&B singer Chris Brown told police that it was he, not Brown, who punched a man in the face outside a hotel in Washington last year, a detective involved in Brown's arrest said in court on Monday. Brown and the bodyguard, Christopher Hollosy, are both facing misdemeanor assault charges for allegedly punching a man who was trying to board Brown's tour bus outside Washington's W Hotel in October. Police Detective Kimberly Metivier testified in Washington Superior Court that Hollosy yelled for officers to arrest him, not Brown, for hitting the man after he tried to board the singer's tour bus. Full Story | Top |
| Band Aid founder's daughter Peaches Geldof dead at age 25 Monday, Apr 07, 2014 02:26 PM PDT  By Sarah Young and Michael Roddy LONDON (Reuters) - Peaches Geldof, second daughter of Band Aid founder and musician Bob Geldof and a media and fashion personality in her own right, has died at her home in Kent, southern England, aged 25, her family said on Monday. Bob Geldof, the Irish singer who rose to prominence as the leader of the 1970s-1980s band the Boomtown Rats, and later organised the charity Band Aid and the Live Aid concerts to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, said in a statement that the family were "beyond pain". Peaches' husband, rock musician Thomas Cohen, issued a statement saying: "My beloved wife Peaches was adored by myself and her two sons ... I shall bring them up with their mother in their hearts every day. We shall love her forever." Making an early debut in the London glamour and society scene, Peaches Geldof wrote a weekly social and political column for the Daily Telegraph from the ages of 14 to 17 and also contributed to the Guardian. Full Story | Top |
| Mexico TV mogul Salinas says telecoms watchdog does not go far enough Monday, Apr 07, 2014 02:17 PM PDT  By Gabriel Stargardter MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Ricardo Salinas, the billionaire owner of Mexico's TV Azteca, said on Monday that the new telecommunications regulator, created by a phone and TV industry overhaul, does not have sufficient power to effectively police companies it deems too powerful. Mexico is trying to open its telecoms industries to more competition following last year's passage of landmark legislation that targets the vast market shares enjoyed by Carlos Slim's telecoms giant, America Movil, and broadcaster Televisa. Late last month, Mexico's government sent to the Senate proposed legislation fleshing out the details of the reform. Mexico's high telecoms prices and patchy service are viewed by many as a drag on economic growth. Full Story | Top |
| 'Game of Thrones' premiere gives HBO top draw since 'Sopranos' Monday, Apr 07, 2014 01:23 PM PDT  The season four premiere of fantasy epic "Game of Thrones" drew an average of 6.6 million viewers, making it the largest audience for HBO since the 2007 finale of mafia drama "The Sopranos," the premium cable network said on Monday. The highly anticipated premiere on Sunday of "Game of Thrones" beat out its season three premiere of 4.4 million viewers and topped its all-time-high audience of 5.5 million. The series of civil war, extreme weather and mythical creatures is shaping up to be the Time Warner Inc-owned network's biggest show since "The Sopranos," which drew 11.9 million viewers for its 2007 finale. After the slaughter of the main members of the Stark family in the "Red Wedding" episode last season, the season four premiere saw the remaining Starks coming to terms with the deaths. Full Story | Top |
| Don Draper at odds with changing world of 1968 as 'Mad Men' returns Monday, Apr 07, 2014 01:12 PM PDT  By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The dresses are shorter, the women are bolder and the weather is sunnier, but Don Draper has never been more at odds with the changing world around him, as AMC's advertising drama "Mad Men" enters its final season. In Sunday's seventh season premiere entitled "The Beginning," the show's leading man Don, played by Jon Hamm, finds himself in unfamiliar territory as the vibrant, funky atmosphere and social upheaval of 1968 surrounds him. As his Madison Avenue advertising company SC&P plans to expand to sunny Los Angeles, Don is suspended from work by his partners, and takes his young children to Pennsylvania to see the destitute house he grew up in. It's a very dark place for Don," Hamm said at the show's Los Angeles premiere. Full Story | Top |
| Comedian John Pinette found dead in Pittsburgh hotel room at age 50 Monday, Apr 07, 2014 12:31 PM PDT  (Reuters) - John Pinette, a stand-up comedian who guest-starred as the victim of a carjacking in the final episode of the comedy show Seinfeld, has died at age 50, an official said on Sunday. Pinette was found dead inside a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, hotel room on Saturday, an official with the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office said. The show's stars stand by and watch the incident and make fun of the man's weight before they are arrested by a police officer for violating the "Good Samaritan Law." The medical examiner's official said Pinette was in Pittsburgh to attend a wedding. Full Story | Top |
| Disney to release 'Captain America 3' film in May 2016 Monday, Apr 07, 2014 12:10 PM PDT  After a record-breaking weekend at the box office, Marvel's "Captain America" series will return for a third installment on May 6, 2016, Walt Disney Co said on Monday. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," the sequel to 2011's "Captain America: The First Avenger," stormed the U.S. and Canadian box office with $96.2 million in its opening weekend, setting a record for an April film release. The films, based on the Marvel comics, star Chris Evans as a scrawny World War II reject who gains super-powers from an experimental serum and becomes America's first superhero, donning a suit of stars and stripes. The success of "Captain America" follows Disney's long line of recent hits from the Marvel universe, led by Robert Downey Jr.'s "Iron Man," Chris Hemsworth's "Thor" and 2012's superhero ensemble "The Avengers," which became the third-biggest film in Hollywood history with $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office. Full Story | Top |
| Strait, Lambert lead winners at Academy of Country Music awards Monday, Apr 07, 2014 11:54 AM PDT  By Robert Galbraith LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Country music veteran George Strait and singer Miranda Lambert led the winners at the 49th Academy of Country Music awards, while the genre's biggest names, including Blake Shelton, Lady Antebellum, Eric Church and Keith Urban, sang their hits. Strait, 61, won the night's top prize of Entertainer of the Year, beating out Lambert, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton and Taylor Swift. Full Story | Top |
| German recluse agrees to cooperate on Nazi art trove Monday, Apr 07, 2014 10:27 AM PDT  By Monica Raymunt BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany reached an agreement with an elderly recluse on Monday on the future of a billion-dollar art trove confiscated by authorities, part of which is suspected of being stolen or extorted by the Nazis. The federal government and Bavaria state said Cornelius Gurlitt, 81, has agreed to cooperate with authorities to determine if some of the 1,280 art works were stolen from their original owners, many of whom were Jewish, during the Nazi era. Gurlitt has agreed to waive the statute of limitations under which his lawyers claim he is the rightful owner of some of the artworks, which include masterpieces from artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Otto Dix and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The government has been heavily criticized - notably by families whose relatives were robbed by the Nazis - for keeping silent for almost two years about the trove of some 1,400 art works after the paintings were found in Gurlitt's Munich flat. Full Story | Top |
| TV journalist Barbara Walters announces retirement date Monday, Apr 07, 2014 09:35 AM PDT  Pioneering American TV journalist Barbara Walters, who was the first woman to co-anchor an evening news program, will make her final television appearance on the morning talk show "The View" next month, the network ABC said on Monday. Walters' last day as a co-host on the all-women talk show she created in 1997 will be on May 16. The network, a unit of Walt Disney Co., will also air a two-hour evening special focusing on her career and her life on the same day. "In this business there are legends, there are icons, and then there is Barbara Walters," Bob Iger, chairman and chief executive of The Walt Disney Company, said in a statement. Full Story | Top |
| Lost Fabergé Easter egg on show for first time in 112 years Monday, Apr 07, 2014 08:47 AM PDT  By Brenda Goh LONDON (Reuters) - A Fabergé Imperial Easter Egg made for Emperor Alexander III of Russia and not seen in public for more than a century will go on show in London after being saved from the melting pot by an American scrap dealer who only accidentally realized its value. The Lost Third Imperial Easter Egg was made by Peter Carl Fabergé as a gift for Empress Maria Feodorovna for Easter 1887. Unable to find a buyer, he searched the Internet and realized that he may have found Empress Maria Feodorovna's lost Easter egg. London antiques dealer Wartski, which specializes in the work of Fabergé, bought the egg for an unidentified private collector who has permitted it to go on show in its small showroom near London's luxury shopping strip Bond Street. Full Story | Top |
| Mickey Rooney, versatile actor and master showman, dies at 93 Monday, Apr 07, 2014 08:34 AM PDT  Actor Mickey Rooney, who became the United States' biggest movie star while a brash teenager in the 1930s and later a versatile character actor in a career that spanned 10 decades, died on Sunday of natural causes, Los Angeles authorities said. Rooney, who developed a reputation as a hard-partying, off-screen brat in his heyday and married eight times, died at his home in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said, citing information from the Los Angeles Police Department. There was nothing he couldn't do," said actress Margaret O'Brien, who recently worked with Rooney on a film adaption of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Actress Rose Marie, a long-time friend of Rooney, said he was one of the greatest talents show business had ever had. Actor William Shatner described him as "one of the greats," and author Anne Rice said he was not only an actor but a legend. Full Story | Top |
| BT hires new TV boss from Sky Italia Monday, Apr 07, 2014 03:23 AM PDT  BT has hired a former BSkyB executive to lead its expanding television and sport business, an area where the two companies are battling for British customers. Delia Bushell, currently chief commercial officer at Italian pay TV company Sky Italia, will join the company in July as Managing Director of BT TV and Sport, BT said on Monday. She replaces Marc Watson who is stepping down after seven years and helped to lead BT's expansion into sports rights, challenging BSkyB's long dominance of the sector. Bushell, 41, was BSkyB's director of broadband and telephony for five years from 2006. Full Story | Top |
| Timberlake, Cyrus gigs in Finland avoid U.S. sanctions snag Monday, Apr 07, 2014 01:26 AM PDT  American pop stars Miley Cyrus and Justin Timberlake can go ahead with shows in Finland despite U.S. sanctions against the Helsinki venue's Russian owners, the concerts' promoter said on Monday. The concerts were at risk last week as the Hartwall Arena venue is owned by Gennady Timchenko and Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, all of whom feature in a list of visa bans and asset freezes imposed by the United States following Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Timberlake has a sold-out Helsinki concert scheduled in May, while Cyrus is due to perform at the arena, which is Finland's biggest entertainment venue, in June. Full Story | Top |
| A Minute With: Singer/songwriter Eileen Rose on Nashville's revival Monday, Apr 07, 2014 01:14 AM PDT  By Claire Milhench LONDON (Reuters) - Boston-born Eileen Rose has a string of Americana albums under her belt, but her new record "Be Many Gone" has a more classic country feel, inspired by years of honing her craft in Nashville's honky-tonks with her side-project band, The Silver Threads. "Nashville is just screaming hot right now," Rose said, speaking to Reuters on the phone from country music's spiritual home. "Everything's booming - it's on all the top 10 lists of the hottest cities in the U.S." Nashville's profile has been raised by the TV show of the same name and country music is enjoying a revival, but Rose is careful to draw a distinction between the poppier country getting mainstream radio play and classic country music. Full Story | Top |
| Factbox: Mickey Rooney on love and marriage Sunday, Apr 06, 2014 10:18 PM PDT (Reuters) - Mickey Rooney's eight marriages cost him lots of money but they also provided him plenty of material for jokes. Here are some of his comments on marriage. That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day." * "I have so many wives and children that I don't know which house to go to first on Christmas." * "I'm the only man in the world with a marriage license made out to whom it may concern." * "When I say, 'I do,' the justice of the peace replies, 'I know, I know.'" * "Pumping gas into another man's car." - Rooney's definition of alimony. * In a more serious mood, he once said: "Nobody's proud about having eight wives ... You're supposed to marry your childhood sweetheart and go off into the sunset ... saying, 'It's forever, darling.' It doesn't work out like that and every marriage and every divorce are like a five-car crash." (Compiled by Bill Trott; Full Story | Top |
| Foxconn eyes buyout firm MBK's Taiwan cable TV unit: source Sunday, Apr 06, 2014 09:49 PM PDT  By Faith Hung and Stephen Aldred TAIPEI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Foxconn Technology Group, Apple Inc's main contract manufacturer, is in talks with Asian private equity firm MBK Partners to buy Taiwanese cable TV company China Network Systems (CNS), a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday. Foxconn could pay about T$64 billion ($2.1 billion) for MBK's 60 percent stake in Taiwan's largest cable provider, according to the Economic Daily, which first reported the talks on Monday. ... Full Story | Top |
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