Las Vegas police conclude Route 91 Harvest shooting investigation, find no motive for attack
Las Vegas police have concluded their investigation into last October's mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival. They say that despite following around 2000 leads, they are still unable to identify a motive for the attack, which left 58 dead and hundreds injured.

"What we have been able to answer are the questions of who, what, when, where and how", said Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo at a press conference on Friday. "What we have not been able to definitively answer is the 'why' [gunman] Stephen Paddock committed this act".

The police report states that 31 people were killed at the scene, with 27 pronounced dead in nearby hospitals. A further 869 were discovered to have sustained injuries related to the attack, 413 of those by bullets or shrapnel. The attack ended when Paddock took his own life.

Paddock had acted alone, said police, and had no known affiliations to terrorist or hate groups. He left nothing to suggest why he had carried out the attack, but there were indications that he had been planning it for some time.

He is thought to have begun amassing a large arsenal of weapons and ammunition in 2016, eventually spending around $95,000 on this. He also booked hotels overlooking other music festivals. He never checked into one near last year's Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park. However, he did check in to three rooms he booked overlooking the Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas last September.

Security footage shows him carrying a number of suitcases to each room during his stay there, similar to video captured prior to the Route 91 Harvest attack. Police say that it is unclear if Paddock aborted an attack on Life Is Beautiful or if he used this as preparation for the shooting that took place a month later.

One person was arrested during the investigation on charges of illegal manufacture and selling of armour-piercing ammunition. Sheriff Lombardo said that police do not expect to make further arrests.

Lombardo also denied claims that the police's radio system had failed during the attack, hindering their response. "There's no system in the world that can handle that kind of volume in a short period of time," he said. "I personally believe the communications system was sound and robust".

He added that evaluations of the performance of individual officers were not included in the new report, saying that this was something that would be handled internally and not made public.

One further document is due to be made public though. The FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit is scheduled to publish a review of Paddock's "psychopathology" by the end of the year. It is not thought that this will provide a motive either, but may give further insight into the events that lead to Paddock deciding to carry out the attack.

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US labels sue two more stream-ripping sites
The legal battle against stream-ripping continues, with the majors filing litigation against two Russia-based services called FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com.

Sites that allow people to grab permanent MP3 downloads from audio or video streams have been at the top of the music industry's piracy gripe list for a while now. The biggest, YouTube-MP3, went offline on the back of legal action by the American record industry.

Other sites have since been targeted by both UK and US labels, while the latter talked about the ongoing problem of stream-ripping in its most recent submission to the American government's Notorious Markets anti-piracy report.

Some other stream-ripping sites have called it a day when threatened with legal action, but seemingly not FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com, hence the US record industry going through with litigation against those platforms. According to Billboard, legal papers against the two sites were filed last week.

Confirming the action, the Recording Industry Association Of America stated: "These sites have no place in today's music market where fans have access to millions of songs from dozens of legitimate services that pay creators and value their work, all at the tap of a finger".

It went on: "This action should serve as an unmistakable warning to operators of similar sites that schemes to rob music creators and profit from the theft of their music will not be tolerated".

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Civil rights group says RCA refuses to act on R Kelly accusations
Sony Music's RCA label is refusing to cut its ties with R Kelly, civil rights group Color Of Change has told Pitchfork.

The major is one of a number of companies to be targeted by the #MuteRKelly campaign, which is calling on corporates to stop working with Kelly because of the numerous allegations of sexual abuse made against the musician over the years. The star's supporters point out he has only been formally charged over sexual abuse allegations once and in that case was acquitted. But critics point to the number of legal settlements Kelly has reached with other alleged victims.

Color Of Change says that it has directly spoken to RCA about its ongoing relationship with Kelly. Senior Campaign Director Brandi Collins explains that, in their conversations with the major, they pointed to reports that Sony Music decided to sever ties with the businesses of producer Dr Luke because of public pressure in relation to his ongoing legal battle with Kesha. She, of course, accuses him of rape, an allegation he strongly denies. However, Color Of Change says, attempting to use the precedent set with Luke in relation to Kelly has proven unsuccessful.

The organisation has been pressuring RCA over its relationship with Kelly for a while now. In a July 2017 letter it wrote: "We are calling on you to end your relationship with R&B singer and known sexual predator R Kelly. We believe it is a great sign of corporate responsibility and decency for RCA Records to ensure that your continued relationship with R Kelly is not interpreted as an endorsement for his depraved actions".

The following month, says Collins, Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson and MD Of Campaigns Arisha Hatch had a phone conversation with a senior executive at RCA.

"In the course of that conversation, it was pretty obvious that they weren't going to take action steps around R Kelly", Collins tells Pitchfork. "When we drew comparisons between Kesha and allegations coming out from black women, the representative said, 'Well, you have to understand it took years of [public campaigning] around Dr Luke before we took action'. Women have been sharing stories around R Kelly for decades. [RCA knows] that these allegations are going on".

She then adds that the organisation has received no further contact from RCA since that phone call, despite further attempts to continue the conversation.

One reason for the lack of action, claims Collins, is that many of the women who have made allegations against Kelly are black and from low-income backgrounds. "They don't have the platform of Kesha or of the women who came forward with Harvey Weinstein allegations", she says. "There's this cultural acceptance of allegations when they come from one type of person, and a sort of automatic side-eying that's cast if they don't have the same level of power".

Elsewhere in the Pitchfork interview, Collins also expresses disappointment that Spotify backtracked on its Hate Content & Hateful Conduct policy, which saw Kelly's music banned from its in-house playlists, in part in response to the #MuteRKelly campaign. The streaming service retracted the policy following a backlash, saying that it had been "too vague".

"We were talking to Spotify about white nationalists and hate music that was being streamed, and then also around R Kelly", says Collins. "We saw them step up and take a really important industry stand. But then we saw them kind of waffle, after black men and other prominent people defended the right to stream this music, to the detriment of these girls who remain unprotected. Again, this comes down to whose voices matter".

In the meantime, Collins says that the organisation is calling on supporters of the #MuteRKelly campaign to pressure radio stations to stop playing Kelly's music. It is hoped, she says, that this will send a significant message to RCA and other companies still involved with Kelly, saying that "it makes an important statement that it is no longer beneficial for the business to turn a blind eye".

RCA has not commented on Color Of Change's claims about their discussions or its ongoing relationship with Kelly.

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Alan McGee launches new singles label, looking for new talent
Alan McGee of being Alan McGee fame has launched a new singles label called Creation 23. Announcing the new venture, he said: "I want to put out records again. I've missed it. There's a lot of good music around and it feels like a good time to do it".

The first release is the debut single from a band called Rubber Jaw, which will be available on limited edition coloured vinyl with artwork and inserts made by the bandmembers themselves. There will also be golden tickets that get people into all the band's shows.

The new label is also on the look out for other artists to work with, and said other artists are invited to send submissions to DanDevine23@gmail.com.

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Brighton Pride criticises train company after dangerous over-crowding at the city's station
Organisers of Brighton Pride have hit out at Govia Thameslink Railway after its train service and the city's station failed to deal with the crowds of people heading back home after the Britney Spears-headlined festival that took place as part of this weekend's Pride festivities.

Both the train company and local police came in for criticism on the social networks on Saturday night over the way they managed - or not - the crowds of people outside the station after the Pride Festival. Many said that they felt the over-crowding outside was dangerous at times, while some Pride-goers said they gave up trying to get home and slept on the beach instead.

According to The Independent, a spokesperson for Brighton Pride said: "We were appalled to see that Pride-goers were standing for long periods of time, at the end of the event, while waiting to access Brighton Station, and with almost no information provided by GTR. People's safety was put in jeopardy by GTR and the station's failure to plan for adequate train services".

They went on: "We are very disappointed that GTR were unable to provide sufficient services to people returning home from a day of celebrating Pride and enjoying the hot weather in Brighton & Hove. This is particularly concerning, given the months of planning and inter-agency working that we undertake each year to make Brighton Pride a safe and happy event".

For its part, GTR said that the numbers of people attending Brighton Pride were significantly higher than expected, even by organisers, and that they had put on additional trains at the last minute to deal with the extra traffic.

It said in a statement yesterday: "When it became apparent yesterday morning that attendance at Pride was far higher than had been forecast by the organisers, we put on as many extra trains as possible through the afternoon and evening, boosting capacity by 22,500".

It went on: "We continued to encourage people to leave early to avoid crowding for the last train. We ran fifteen extra trains yesterday in addition to the plan agreed with the event organisers to cope with the unprecedented visitor numbers".

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Irish Senator opposes ticket touting laws because it might cost Viagogo jobs
A member of the upper house of the Irish parliament has criticised plans to greatly restrict the resale of tickets for profit in the country because it could negatively impact on the always controversial Viagogo, which is an employer in the city she represents.

The Irish government recently said it would back proposals by two backbench MPs to introduce new laws basically outlawing ticket touting at many venues. The department of the Minister For Business, Enterprise And Innovation said it was backing new rules that would "ban the above-face value resale of tickets for sporting and entertainment events in designated venues with a capacity of 1000 or over. It would also prohibit the use of bot software to purchase tickets in excess of the number permitted by event organisers".

However, Maria Byrne, Senator for Limerick, has confirmed her plans to oppose the new anti-touting laws. That's because Viagogo - the most controversial of all the ticket resale sites - employs about 150 people in the city, with plans to increase that to 250.

According to the Irish Independent, Byrne said: "I was alarmed to learn that ticket resale sites like the Ticketmaster company Seatwave closed down in Belgium when it introduced similar legislation" to that being backed by the Irish government.

Viagogo has, of course, been criticised by multiple government departments, consumer rights agencies and regulators in multiple countries. It is frequently accused of misleading customers so that they think the ticket touting marketplace is in fact an official ticket seller. And it is the one resale site that always ignores promoters when they request tickets not be listed on the basis that they plan to cancel all and any tickets they discover have been resold.

Noel Rock, one of the backbench MPs behind moves to restrict ticket touting in Ireland, says he is still hopeful the new rules will become law, despite the opposition of the likes of Byrne.

He told reporters last week: "The reality is that the majority of the public do not want to see politicians cave into lobbyists' demands on this one, and would prefer to see match-goers and concert-goers properly protected, rather than propping up the companies that facilitate this gouging of punters. The cabinet have accepted this, and we hope to be in a position to legislate in the months ahead".

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Scala allies with Dice
London venue Scala is the latest to announce an alliance with mobile-centric ticketing service Dice. It means tickets for all the venue's shows will be available via the Dice mobile app, which also makes it much harder to tout tickets for those shows. The Scala follows the Islington Assembly Hall and Manchester's Soup Kitchen in making Dice its key ticketing partner, and therefore making mobile ticketing the norm.

Jane Cotter at the Scala confirmed the tie up last week, saying: "Digital ticketing is the future of the music industry, and this is clearly the next big step for Scala as a big London venue. Partnering with an innovative company like Dice means we can provide fans with easy-to-use tickets and most importantly the move will ensure our tickets don't appear on the secondary ticketing market".

Meanwhile Dice MD Russ Tannen said: "There's nothing better than sitting down with the team that run one of London's most iconic venues and realising they share the same values as you. In this partnership, Scala are putting fans first and touts last by going mobile with Dice. Not only are they continuing to invest in diverse and ground-breaking programming across their gigs and club nights, but they're vastly improving the fan experience of discovering and buying tickets to the venue".

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Adam Levine apologises to MTV VMAs after Childish Gambino snub claim
Maroon 5's Adam Levine has apologised to MTV after claiming that it had snubbed Childish Gambino's 'This Is America' video in the nominations for this year's Video Music Awards. Actually - as Levine subsequently learned - Gambino was one of the most nominated artists this year, with seven nods in total, including for Video Of The Year.

On Friday, Levine posted on Instagram: "This year, Childish Gambino released one of the most impactful, thought-provoking, and intelligent videos ever made. I'm sure he doesn't care that he wasn't nominated for a VMA because he's cool as fuck and everything. But I care. Because I'm NOT that cool. And I still want MTV to mean something again. But it won't. Ever. K bye".

Quickly realising his error, he deleted the post, then tweeted: "Shit. I don't usually put my foot in my mouth. But this time, I did. 'This is America' actually was nominated for Video Of The Year. I stand corrected. Bad Intel. So I guess MTV doesn't suck quite as badly as I had originally thought".

He then deleted that message, posting a revised update, saying: "Shit. I don't usually put my foot in my mouth. But this time, I did. 'This is America' actually WAS nominated for seven VMAs. How I didn't get the right info is beyond me. I stand corrected. I'm sorry MTV. Still hate you though. But mostly, I'm sorry".

After much confusion from fans about this rapidly revised and re-revised outburst, Levine returned to Instagram yesterday to explain what had happened. Basically, he'd pretty much just guessed that Childish Gambino wasn't nominated and then got angry about it for no reason.

"I guess that it had come up that at the VMAs 'Girls Like You', which is our song, didn't get nominated - big shocker, doesn't surprise me, they always blow us off", he said. "And then, of course, I'm like, 'Childish Gambino made the best video of the year, I bet you he's not nominated'".

So what happened next? "I guess, for some reason, we Googled something and it looked like... ah, look, I fucked up", Levine continues. "There's no way around it. Basically, he was nominated, like seven times over, and I look like a moron, but I'm just gonna come out here and say I fucked up. My bad. Sorry MTV, you did good, now make sure he wins".

So, the moral of the story is, just because Maroon 5 aren't nominated for an award, it doesn't mean that something good also isn't.

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