Eric Clapton sued for $5 million over incorrectly named Unplugged song
Eric Clapton is on the receiving end of an interesting if slightly complicated new copyright lawsuit, reports of which first surfaced earlier this month and more information on which has become available this week. He is being sued by the step-grandson of the late blues artist Bo Carter, who claims Clapton incorrectly named and credited a cover on his 'MTV Unplugged' album, depriving his step-grandfather's estate of royalties.

The Clapton record's tracklisting includes the song 'Alberta', which is credited as being a specific arrangement of a traditional song by Huddle Ledbetter, aka Lead Belly. But Miles Floyd, whose mother married Carter's son Ezell Chatmon, says the song Clapton performs is actually his step-grandfather's work 'Corrine, Corrina', albeit using the name "Alberta" rather than "Corrina" in the lyrics.

According to Floyd's lawsuit, Carter registered the copyright in 'Corrine, Corrina' in 1929 and the song was subsequently covered and reworked many times. Carter himself, when performing the piece with his group Mississippi Shieks, sometimes inserted the name "Alberta" instead of "Corrina" into the lyrics, in doing so creating a second alternative version of the song, which is what - Floyd's legal papers claim - Clapton performed during his MTV Unplugged show in 1992.

Floyd then claims that, while Lead Belly did record a song called 'Alberta' in 1940, that was not musically similar to Carter's song, or that which Clapton performed unplugged five decades later. Clapton, therefore, should have credited the song he sung called 'Alberta' to Carter, and royalties should have filtered through to the blues man's estate.

Before Chatmon died in 1991 Floyd says that he promised his step-father that he would one day investigate Carter's catalogue of music and what royalties may or may not be due, and that he began doing just that following his mother's death.

Confirming the new lawsuit against Clapton, on which Warner Music and numerous other music companies are also named as defendants, Floyd's legal rep Barry Shrum told The Tennessean this week: "This is a situation where you have the estate, the rightful owners of Bo's intellectual property, just trying to get what's rightfully theirs and get credit where credit is due. Bo created this song and started, in essence, a genre in music and influenced many performers in the future, and he deserves that credit".

However, beyond assessing the facts as presented in Floyd's legal action, there are other complexities here. Law lecturer Charles Cronin, also interviewed by The Tennessean, says he investigated Carter's copyright claim over 'Corrine, Corrina' when Floyd sued Rod Stewart last year in relation to his recording of the song in 2013, a lawsuit subsequently dropped.

Cronin reckons that what Carter registered in 1929 was his version of a public domain folk song, citing documents that suggest another artist released a recording of 'Corrine, Corrina' as early as 1926. That would mean that subsequent variations of the piece could be reworks of the public domain original rather than Carter's specific version, which would hinder the copyright claim now being made by Floyd.

The academic wrote of the lawsuit against Stewart: "In short, there is no single or identifiable author for 'Corinna Corinna'. The many versions of it - including Rod Stewart's - simply represent accretions to a public domain folk song. The fact that the plaintiff may have been the first to secure and renew a copyright registration for his version of the song doesn't prevent others from using what appears to be a work in the public domain".

Neither Clapton nor any of the music firms sued by Floyd have responded as yet to the lawsuit, which was filed earlier this month and demands a credit for Carter on the 'MTV Unplugged' album and back payment of royalties, with a claim for damages that tops $5 million.

Tech firms tell music industry "technologies themselves cannot be bad actors"
The super-fun sounding Internet Infrastructure Coalition, which represents a flurry of tech firms, has hit out at the recent submissions to the US Trade Representative's 'Notorious Markets' report from the American music and movie industries.

As previously reported, in its annual submission to the Trade Representative's report on key piracy platforms and the countries that host them, the Recording Industry Association Of America had a little moan about reverse proxy services like CloudFlare which, it said, are helping piracy sites hide their actual location.

The RIAA wrote to the US government department: "[Piracy sites] are increasingly turning to Cloudflare, because routing their site through Cloudflare obfuscates the IP address of the actual hosting provider, masking the location of the site ... the use of Cloudflare's services can also act to frustrate site-blocking orders because multiple non-infringing sites may share a Cloudflare IP address with the infringing site".

While the RIAA wasn't actually taking aim at Cloudflare directly - it being a legitimate internet services company - the record industry trade group did seem to be suggesting that the providers of such technologies should do more to stop piracy set ups from utilising their services. The industry association also said that domain hopping and anonymous domain name registrations hindered its efforts against piracy websites.

The IIC has now hit out at the RIAA and its movie industry counterpart the MPAA for "vilifying" certain technologies rather than specific piracy set-ups that may use them, perhaps aware that the BitTorrent protocol and the company behind it has always had to battle an association with file-sharing simply because file-sharers use it.

The IIC writes that "technologies themselves cannot be bad actors", and that the entertainment industry shouldn't be allowed to use "the vilification of technology" in order to force "internet infrastructure companies to act as intermediaries in intellectual property disputes. This is not the answer to intellectual property infringement, and proposals to expand the use of these companies as intermediaries are misguided".

The tech industry group then says: "The internet infrastructure industry generates more than $100 billion in annual revenue and is growing at a rate of nearly 20% per year. Creating regulatory and legal hurdles to the industry's progress will not only negatively impact the architecture and viability of the global internet, it will also impact the overall economy, which is dependent on the continued growth of the internet infrastructure industry".

Of course, the music and movie industries would probably argue that the tech giants could use some of that $100 billion to ensure their technologies and platforms aren't being widely used by copyright infringers.

Though tech firms will always argue that - even if they were to try to cut off the pirates tapping their services - they need court orders to confirm who exactly the pirates are. Which is harder in the US where web-blocking proved too controversial to get underway, meaning you don't have regular judgements in the courts confirming the copyright infringing status of both the usual suspects and newer piracy players.

Twitter announces job cuts and axes Vine
Twitter's revenues and active userbase were both up last quarter, though with recent efforts to find a buyer for the social media firm unsuccessful and revenue growth overall slowing down - but with executives there still talking about going into profit sometime next year - a large axe fell at the company yesterday.

About 350 jobs - which is 9% of the firm's overall workforce - will go, while senior management are talking about putting all the focus on key products. Which means goodbye to the once-buzzy short-short-short-form video app Vine.

Twitter acquired the company behind the six-second-videos-on-a-loop app just months after it was founded in 2012, with the service officially launching in January 2013. Despite enjoying some success, and the format being adopted by some online creators, the service quickly faced competition when Facebook added video to its Instagram app.

Confirming that the Vine app would be retired "in the coming months", Twitter told users of the service yesterday: "We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You'll be able to access and download your Vines. We'll be keeping the website online because we think it's important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website".

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Video service Vessel to wind down following Verizon acquisition
US internet firm Verizon has bought streaming video start-up Vessel with bold plans to, erm, well, shut it down. Good times.

Vessel was founded by two former chiefs at American TV-on-demand service Hulu and offered short-form video with the USP that users had to pay to get access to the very latest content. The hope was that it might persuade the YouTube generation to start paying to watch online videos, and Warner and Universal were among the music companies who signed-up to experiment with the new service. But, despite a lot of hype at launch, Vessel didn't seem to maintain the momentum.

Verizon is interested in the firm's technology rather than its current service, with a blog post from Vessel explaining: "At the heart of this transaction is the Vessel technology, product and team that we have built. These three things will be married with Verizon's ambitions in online video. Though the team, and the actual tech and product, will live on at Verizon in ways that will become apparent in the months and years ahead, sadly we will be sun-setting the Vessel service at the end of this month".

Subscribers to the service will get a pro-rata refund back to the start of October, so their last month of Vesseling will be gratis. Co-founder Richard Tom will become CTO for Verizon's expanding digital entertainment operations, though the other founder, Jason Kilar, will "ensure a smooth transition through the end of this year" and then seemingly move on to another short-form adventure.

BBC Radio Scotland announces music-centric pop up, as former Xfm Scotland licence goes to all-new Rock Radio
The BBC has announced another one of those pop-up radio stations, this one in Scotland celebrating the country's "richly diverse musical landscape" in the run up to St Andrew's Day. BBC Radio Scotland Music Extra will broadcast from 23-30 Nov on DAB, online and on the iPlayer Radio app.

Across the schedule there will be time for "everything from rock and pop to country, traditional and jazz", with presenters on the temporary station including radio DJs Jenny Farish and Bryan Burnett, actor Sanjeev Kohli and Ricky Ross off of Deacon Blue. There'll also be repeats of shows from the archive and live sessions from the likes of Simple Minds and Travis.

Says Head Of Radio at BBC Scotland, Jeff Zycinski, of the eight day venture: "This is a fabulous opportunity for us to celebrate the brilliant music that is made and heard right across Scotland. You will hear the familiar, from Americana and classical to country and folk, but the station will also showcase new talent and explore the issues that impact the Scottish music industry".

The BBC exec also alluded to the fact that the temporary station was in part assessing the appetite for such a service longer term, adding that BBC Radio Scotland Music Extra would "give listeners the chance to tell us if they would welcome a station that offers an alternative to BBC Radio Scotland's successful speech schedule".

Elsewhere in Scottish radio news, media regulator OfCom has awarded the old Xfm Scotland frequency to Rock Radio. Xfm operator Global gave up the slot on the airwaves in West Central Scotland when it revamped the station as Radio X last year, because OfCom rules wouldn't let it simply air the new entirely-London-based service on the FM channel without any local programming.

A station called Rock Radio broadcast on the same frequency from 2007 to 2011, before being rebranded as Real XS and then, after Real Radio owner GMG Radio was acquired by Global, becoming the second incarnation of Xfm Scotland. The all-new Rock Radio is being led by people who worked at the previous station using that name.

Rick Parfitt announces retirement from Status Quo
Earlier this year, Status Quo announced plans to hang up their electric guitars and only play acoustic shows after one final full-scale tour. However, with the first of those finale electric shows due to take place tonight in Belfast, guitarist Rick Parfitt has said that he is actually bowing out from the group altogether with immediate effect.

Parfitt has had three heart attacks since 1997, the most recent and most serious in June this year shortly after playing a show in Turkey, leaving him clinically dead for several minutes. Despite making a recovery, his health has not returned to a point that would mean he was able to play the upcoming tour. And although it was hoped that he would return for any subsequent acoustic shows, he has now said that this will not be the case.

"I don't think I really want to", he told Classic Rock. "In my heart I'm a rocker, I've always been. If I'm going to make music it's got to rock. There would probably have been room for me if I decided I wanted to [be part of those shows], but I'm not a great fan of the whole acoustic malarkey. It doesn't float my boat. What I am disappointed in is missing the last of the band's electric shows".

On the current state of his health, he added: "As the weeks pass I'm better and better. I don't know whether I will be able to improve on that because I feel as well as I did when I fell over. So I can't complain. I've just passed my driving test - which was incredibly stressful at my age - but I'm mobile again now, so that's a big difference".

He added that it had been frontman Francis Rossi's decision to bring the band's full-on touring days to an end and switch to acoustic performances, which he had argued against prior to his latest heart attack. As for the future of the group, he said: "Francis will do what Francis will do. I shall not say anything to the contrary because I don't want any bad feeling. After 50 years of travelling the world together that's the very last thing I want".

Parfitt will be replaced by Richie Malone on the 'Last Night Of The Electrics' tour, which runs into December.

Pussy Riot release third Trump-baiting track of the week
Bloody hell, Pussy Riot aren't messing about. The group's Nadya Tolokonnikova has released her third new track of the week.

Where the two previous songs, 'Straight Outta Vagina' and 'Organs', have responded to Donald Trump's views on women, the video for 'Make America Great Again' imagines a world where he has won the upcoming presidential election, while lyrically the song suggests a better future.

All three tracks feature on an EP called 'XXX', released today. Watch the video for 'Make America Great Again' here.

BBC Music Awards happening again this year, despite everything
In honour of all the music greats that have died this year, you'd think the BBC could have killed off its entirely pointless music awards ceremony. But no, it's happening again. Oh Lord, when will it end? Will you agree to axe it if both McCartney and Jagger kick the bucket this side of Christmas?

The third annual excuse for BBC execs to hang out with super cool popstars will take place at London's ExCeL venue on 12 Dec. It'll be presented by Fearne Cotton and Claudia Winkleman, and if that weren't bad enough, there will be performances from Michael Bublé, Kaiser Chiefs, Lukas Graham, Zara Larsson, Emeli Sandé and The 1975.

"From Glastonbury to the BBC Proms, BBC Music has brought some of this year's most memorable musical moments to millions of music lovers", says BBC Music director Bob Shennan. "This year's BBC Music Awards, to be hosted by two of the UK's best loved presenters Fearne and Claudia, will shine a light on a fantastic range of incredible artists for what's sure to be a spectacular night of entertainment".

Yeah, sure. He makes it sound like the event will recognise a diverse range of artists from across BBC Radio's broad musical spectrum, when in fact it'll likely just give gongs to artists already drowning in awards. Last year, you may remember, Adele received two of the prizes, Taylor Swift got another, 'Take Me To Church' by Hozier was deemed the song of the year, and Jack Garrett was named the new artist to watch out for in 2016, like every other fucking award for artists to watch out for in 2016.

This year they're rejigging things a bit, ditching the International Artist Of The Year and BBC Live Performance Of The Year prizes. In their place will be BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge Performance Of The Year and BBC Radio 2 Album Of The Year. Which I guess could boost the musical diversity a little. Except I'm going to assume the latter is being given to Michael Bublé in order to get him to turn up, given they failed to follow the BRITs lead in booking him as host.

The remaining awards are British Artist Of The Year, Song Of The Year and BBC Music Introducing Artist Of The Year, all of which will be presented at a show broadcast live on BBC One, with some stuff also thrown up on Radio 1 and Radio 2. At the end of it all, everyone will be thoroughly confused about what exactly the point of the whole money-burning exercise was. Though to be fair, the BBC has now made that an annual pre-Christmas tradition.

Lady Leshurr, Killer Mike, Avenged Sevenfold, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• Lady Leshurr fronts a new video for the MOBO's previously reported campaign to drive more blood donations from black and Asian communities.

• Tom Delonge wasn't the only musician whose name came up in those leaked Hillary Clinton emails. Clinton staffers also discussed Killer Mike's endorsement of Bernie Sanders. You don't need to scour Wikileaks to see what was said though, as the rapper's had it printed on a t-shirt.

• Avenged Sevenfold topped off their live streamed virtual reality show yesterday by announcing the surprise release of new album 'The Stage'. Their seventh LP is their first for Universal/Capitol. You can watch the gig on Facebook until tomorrow morning here.

•  Little Mix have released new album track 'Glory Days'.

• A$AP Rocky has released a new Tyler, The Creator collaboration, 'Telephone Calls', taken from A$AP Mob's upcoming new mixtape, 'Cozy Tapes Vol 1'.

• Here's Hudson Mohawke's remix of 'Midnight In A Perfect World' by DJ Shadow.

• Q-Tip has announced that A Tribe Called Quest will release their final album on 11 Nov.

• Charli XCX has released Lil Yachty collaboration 'After The Afterparty'.

• Blood Orange has released a video for 'I Know', taken from his 'Freetown Sound' album.

• Subscribe to our weekly playlist of new music on Spotify.

CMU Beef Of The Week #329: Phil Collins v Paul McCartney
Hey, so Philip Collins is back and everyone is excited, even though I don't think my generation ever got the memo about him being cool again. Despite having promised never ever ever to sing any of his songs ever, he's planning to tour around and sing some of his songs in venues across Europe. Including in the UK, which is still, as it fucking should be, part of Europe.

Doing a few gigs isn't enough these days though, so he's also put all his records out in the futuristic format of The Kids - aka vinyl - and published an old fashioned book about his life too. It's the last of these things that's been causing problems. Because Paul McCartney don't like it. And he's a Beatle.

Speaking to The Sunday Times to promote the book, Collins recounted a story about meeting McCartney at Buckingham Palace that also features in his memoir. "I've got to preface this by saying McCartney was one of my heroes", Collins began, reminding everyone that both of them have be touted as 'the nicest man in pop' at different (or may even the same) times. "But he has this thing when he's talking to you, where he makes you feel... 'I know this must be hard for you, because I'm a Beatle. I'm Paul McCartney and it must be very hard for you to actually be holding a conversation with me'".

Oh, come on, Phil. If you're going to start throwing around accusations about Paul McCartney - a man who in his day was almost as nice as Justin Bieber - you're going to have to give some more specific examples.

With minor nudging, Collins continued: "I met him when I was working at the Buckingham Palace 'Party At The Palace' thing back in 2002. McCartney came up with Heather Mills and I had a first edition of 'The Beatles' by Hunter Davies and I said, 'Hey Paul, do you mind signing this for me?' And he said, 'Oh Heather, our little Phil's a bit of a Beatles fan'. And I thought, 'You fuck, you fuck'. Never forgot it".

That does make old McCartney sound like a bit of arse, doesn't it? Especially as Phil Collins had clearly brought a special book with him for the purpose of having it signed, even though the cool thing to do back stage at the Queen's house is clearly to march around with no books that are in need of signing.

"Oh Heather, our little Phil's a bit of a Beatles fan". There really is no situation where saying those words sound good. Not even if you weren't Paul McCartney and Phil wasn't Phil Collins and you weren't backstage at Buckingham Palace. Try saying those words to the person next to you right now. They will almost certainly reply, "You fuck, you fuck".

But, as we've learned recently, Paul McCartney is all hearing and all knowing, and Philip Collins' words quickly got back to him and made him feel sad.

"He's been in touch about it because he was upset", Collins told Billboard days later. "I'm afraid it happened, you know, and I'm afraid it affected me the way it did and I'm afraid I wrote about it. I think maybe I should just brush it under the carpet and forget about it and move on, but it did happen".

Discussing their recent exchange, Collins added: "I certainly didn't get any flowers from him; I got more of a 'let's just get on with our lives'. And I'm sorry he's upset that I kinda said something nasty about him - well, it wasn't really nasty. If people don't tell people that sometimes their attitude could be a bit better then you're not gonna get any better, y'know?"

Yeah, I know. So let's just hope all this has proven to be a valuable learning experience for Macca. Although it sounds like it wasn't. Paul, if you're reading, and I'm sure you are, you need to buck up your ideas, man. You're not Ringo Starr, you can't get away with strolling around the place being unpleasant to people.