Music stars cut links with Webster PR following sex abuse allegations
A number of artists, including Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr, have cut all ties with Nashville-based music PR agency Webster PR following the allegations of sexual assault made against its founder Kirt Webster.

As previously reported, a former country singer called Austin Rick has made a number of allegations of sexual misconduct against Webster, whose company provided PR services for the musician, who originally performed as Austin Cody.

Webster denies the allegations, though his company has come under considerable pressure since they were made. For a time it looked like the entire agency had shut down, though it then remerged under the new name of Westby Public Relations.

The firm said in a statement that "while Kirt Webster takes some time away from the business to focus on combating the egregious and untrue allegations made against him, the company's work on behalf of its clients will continue under the leadership of Jeremy Westby, Kirt's longstanding colleague".

According to The Tennessean, since Rick made his allegations a total of ten former employees of Webster PR have come forward to state that the publicity firm had a "culture of consistent workplace abuse and harassment". The ex-staff members, speaking anonymously, said that Webster "created a culture of fear and intimidation among his young staff that deterred workers from speaking out until now".

Meanwhile, high profile clients are bailing on the PR firm.

In a statement provided to the Lefsetz Letter, Kid Rock said that he had not previously been aware of any allegations of misconduct being made against his publicist, who was - among other things - involved in the musician's recent fake bid for the US Senate. But, Rock then confirmed, "we cancelled his and his companies' services upon not only hearing about these, but other rumours that are starting to swirl".

Rock added: "I hope to God this shit he is being accused of is not true, as he has been nothing but a good friend to me. But if it comes to light that it is, I will be the first to cut the head off the snake. Unfortunately, I believe sexual harassment is like cancer. We all know someone affected by it and it has to stop".

According to Variety, Webster PR - now Westby Public Relations - began removing names from its online client list as the scandal continued to gain momentum, before taking the list offline entirely. Variety also reports that the latest indications from Westby suggest that he now plans to launch a new company entirely, rather than taking over Webster PR.

It's not clear whether Dolly Parton, one of Webster's most famous clients, has also cancelled his company's services, though she has commented on Twitter, saying: "I've worked with Kirt Webster for many years and he has done a wonderful job. I am hoping that the accusations are not true".

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Google fights landmark Canadian anti-piracy ruling in US court
Earlier this year the Canadian Supreme Court ordered Google to delist a tech company's entire website worldwide as the conclusion to an intellectual property infringement dispute that began in British Columbia. Although not a music case, the music industry widely welcomed the decision, as it set a precedent that Google could be forced to delist copyright infringing websites entirely and a global basis.

Google, which had already delisted the offending site on its Canadian search engine, insisted that the court's worldwide injunction set a very dangerous precedent indeed, arguing that the Canadian Supreme Court's order might interfere with free speech rights in other countries. The judges hearing the case rejected those arguments, saying Google's concerns were at best "theoretical". So this week Google rocked up to an American court with the US constitution's First Amendment in hand to test the theory.

The British Columbia case was a dispute between two tech companies called Equustek Solutions and Datalink Technologies Gateways. The latter was accused of infringing the IP rights of the former. When the British Columbia courts started to side with Equustek, Datalink moved its operations out of the province to a location unknown. Which is why Equustek started to demand Google should stop listing its IP infringing rival, given the Canadian authorities were no longer in a position to take direct action against Datalink.

But, Equustek argued, the nature of the internet meant that Google delisting Datalink would only resolve the problems with its IP pilfering competitor if that happened on a global basis. Given that Google would only go through with any delisting at all if ordered to do so by a court, Equustek needed judicial support for such global action. And it got it.

It was that part of the ruling that record industry trade body Music Canada most liked. When the Supreme Court backed the forced global delisting of Datalink back in June, it said the ruling was "a crucial development given that the internet has largely dissolved boundaries between countries and allowed virtual wrongdoers to move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in search of the weakest enforcement setting".

However, having lost the battle in Canada, Google is still fighting the ruling in the Equustek case, this time in the US. Yesterday the web giant's legal reps argued in a Californian court that the ruling conflicted with the freedom of expression rights contained within the First Amendment, and that the Canadian Supreme Court had no right meddling with the American constitution. And - with neither Equustek nor the Canadian courts present yesterday - Google's arguments seemed to get a positive hearing.

According to Courthouse News, Google's lawyer Margaret Caruso argued: "This is about whether a trial court in a foreign country can implement a law that is violative of the core values of this country ... imagine if we got an order from North Korea that said we could not publish anything critical of Dear Leader. Imagine if Russia doesn't like what people are saying about Putin. It would be very dangerous to deny relief in this instance".

Noting that the Canadian judges had dubbed Google's free speech concerns as "theoretical", reckoning that courts in other jurisdiction would ultimately side with Equustek in its dispute with Datalink, Caruso stated yesterday: "Google now turns to this court, asking it to declare that the rights established by the First Amendment and the Communications Decency Act are not merely theoretical".

The federal judge hearing Caruso's arguments should rule on the matter imminently.

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Kim Dotcom settles with NZ police over heavy-handed house raid
MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom has one less legal battle on his mind having settled a lawsuit he pursued against the police in New Zealand over the high profile raid of his home back in 2012, when his former tech business was shut down by the authorities. He says he doesn't want to put his family through the stress of taking the litigation through to trial.

As much previously reported, the often controversial file-transfer platform MegaUpload was shut down in 2012 after much criticism by the American music and movie industries. Various executives were arrested during the shutdown, most of whom are still fighting extradition to the US where they face criminal charges for money laundering, racketeering and rampant copyright infringement.

There have been various civil lawsuits filed in addition to the criminal charges since the shutdown of MegaUpload. In some cases the defunct company and its former execs are being sued, in other cases Dotcom et al have gone legal themselves.

He sued law enforcement in his adopted country of New Zealand over the way they raided his home as part of the US-led shutdown of his business. He accused police officers of physical attacking him and holding his family at gunpoint when, he argued, they "could have easily knocked at our door at a reasonable hour and advised me of my arrest".

Dotcom also alleged that the New Zealand police had employed over the top tactics when arresting him and seizing his possessions as part of a "Hollywood-style publicity stunt tailored to appease US authorities". That was inappropriate behaviour, he argued, hence his legal action against the police.

That lawsuit has now been settled out of court, Dotcom has confirmed. He told reporters earlier today: "We sued the police because we believed their military-style raid on a family with children in a non-violent case went far beyond what a civilised community should expect from its police force".

Referencing his ex-wife, he went on: "Until recently, Mona and I wanted vindication in the High Court so that those involved would take responsibility for the raid. [But] we have taken time to consider whether a trial would be in the best interests of our family. The New Zealand government has recently changed for the better. Our children are now settled and integrated safely here into their community and they love it. We do not want to relive past events. We do not want to disrupt our children's new lives".

The terms of the settlement between Dotcom and the New Zealand police are confidential.

In other MegaUpload news, Dotcom is reportedly requesting that another NZ$1.2 million of seized funds be released to pay for his ongoing living expenses. Millions in cash and property was seized when MegaUpload was shutdown, much of which is still frozen, with the music and movie industries hoping it may be used to pay damages if their copyright infringement lawsuits against Dotcom et al ever get to court.

Dotcom has, unsurprisingly, been trying to get all that money back, and some has been released to fund legal costs and living expenses. The music and movie companies, and the US authorities, have generally opposed the release of frozen assets, though a big chunk of the money was actually seized in Hong Kong where the courts have generally been more open to the MegaUpload founder's request for funds. Hence the new ask.

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Beyonce and Childish Gambino to star in Disney's Lion King remake
Beyonce is to star in a remake of Disney's 'The Lion King', directed by Jon Favreau. Also on the cast list is Donald Glover, aka rapper Childish Gambino.

The movie is the follow-up to Favreau's semi-live action remake of 'The Jungle Book', which came out last year. If 'The Lion King' follows the same format, while not being a musical, it will feature elements of the original soundtrack - in this case penned by Elton John and Tim Rice.

Beyonce is set to voice Nala, the childhood friend of lead character Simba (voiced by Glover). Also among the cast are James Earl Jones, reprising his role as Simba's father Mufasa, British comedian John Oliver, who will voice Mufasa's confidant Zazu, and Seth Rogen as the warthog Pumbaa.

"It is a director's dream to assemble a talented team like this to bring this classic story to life", Favreau said in a statement.

The film is set to be released in June 2019.

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Shamir pulls new video following abuse allegations against director
Shamir has pulled the video for his latest single 'Straight Boy', after allegations of sexual abuse against its director surfaced.

The video explored the song's key theme, looking at the social pressures to conform to an identity, with Shamir performing the song against a plain background, being interchanged with actor and director Ryan Carpenter mimicking him.

Announcing his decision on Twitter, the musician said: "So I had to take down the 'Straight Boy' video because as it turns out, the actor and director in the video is an abuser. I know, the irony. Turns out you can't even find [a cisgender, heterosexual] guy that's not a shitty person to even play a shitty person. And above all I'm sorry to the survivors and thank y'all for letting me know".

Questioned further about his decision by Spin, Shamir said that allegations had emerged after he originally posted the video on YouTube. He approached Carpenter about the claims, but that discussion didn't clear the matter up for him.

He went on: "I found out through a disturbing comment left on the video, so I immediately just took it down. I do believe it to be true, because a while back he told me a girl accused him of abuse in college, he denied it and said it was all chalked up to just a misunderstanding. I took the info at face value because his friend from college concurred".

"I didn't know his reputation back in Florida because we met in Brooklyn and would just see each other either out there or in ​P​hilly", he continued. "So when I saw the comment my heart dropped to my stomach. Obviously I approached him about it, and he left me with little to no explanation or piece of mind, and even seemed quite nonchalant about it, so I told him I'm taking it down and did so immediately".

Yesterday afternoon, Shamir posted a new video for the song which he shot himself, featuring him performing an acoustic version. Watch that here:

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U2 announce new album details, release Kendrick Lamar collaboration
U2 have revealed more details about their upcoming new album, 'Songs Of Experience', as well as releasing their collaboration with Kendrick Lamar, 'Get Out Of Your Own Way'.

As previously reported, a companion piece to 2014's 'Songs Of Innocence', the album's release was cancelled after the 2016 US presidential election so that the band could rework it to reflect just how fucked up the world is now.

Bono's lyrics were apparently written after receiving some advice from poet Brendan Kennelly, who suggested "write as if you're dead". Although I think Bono might have misunderstood. That does sound like it might be a more poetic way of saying, "shut the fuck up, Bono".

Kendrick Lamar, who previously tested his credibility by allowing U2 to appear on his latest album 'Damn' - on a track called 'XXX' - now goes all out and delivers a few lines on the new U2 song. You can listen to 'Get Out Of Your Own Way' here.

'Songs Of Experience' is set for release on 1 Dec.

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Katie Melua covers Sting's Fields Of Gold for Children In Need
Katie Melua is to release this year's official single for the BBC Children In Need charity drive. The cover of 'Fields Of Gold' was recorded in tribute to the appeal's late frontman Terry Wogan, who counted the Sting original as one of his favourite songs.

"I am delighted to have accepted the invitation by BBC Children in Need to record and release this single to support the charity's 2017 appeal, in honour of the late Sir Terry Wogan", says Melua.

"He was a long-standing supporter of mine, and to re-record one of his favourite songs for a charity that was so dear to his heart is a privilege. I hope it goes on to make a real and lasting difference to the lives of disadvantaged children and young people across the UK".

All profits from the single, which is out today, will be donated to Children In Need. Melua will also perform the song during the Children In Need telethon on 17 Nov.

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Breakthrough nominations revealed for Artist & Manager Awards
The nominees have been announced for the breakthrough gongs at this year's Artist & Manager Awards, which take place in London later this month. It has also been confirmed that Rag N Bone Man will be named Artist Of The Year, while Giggs will get the Pioneer Award alongside his management team Michael 'Buck' Maris and Trenton Harrison-Lewis.

Confirming the Artist Of The Year winner, artist Roxanne de Bastion, who sits on the board of co-organisers the Featured Artists Coalition, said: "There is no such thing as an overnight success, and nothing beats crafting your own career by touring relentlessly and forming relationships with the people who love your music one by one. Rag N Bone Man's journey is a testament to this and to the fact that hard work, combined with the right songs and the right team, will not go unnoticed".

Meanwhile, on the Pioneer Prize, Joey Swarbrick, a director of the other co-organising body, the Music Managers Forum, said: "Giggs and his team have built an incredible fanbase and business on their terms. They have overcome more barriers than most artists face with integrity and talent, and they continue to go from strength to strength".

I seem to remember promising you some nominations, and fuck me if I'm not going to deliver on that promise like a champion. I should be getting an award. Here they are...

Breakthrough Artist Award noms: Declan McKenna, J Hus, Jorja Smith, Loyle Carner, Maya Jane Coles, Tom Misch.

Breakthrough Manager Award noms: Jazz Sherman, Rocket Music; Kilo Jalloh and Moe Bah, 2K Management; Matthew Greer, ATC Management; Rowan Brand, Tribe Management; Russell Eslamifar, James Grant Group.

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Payday Records, NERD, Five Finger Death Punch, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• Ultra Music founder Patrick Moxey is relaunching his old label Payday Records with both a UK and US base. The new label will get things going with a new release from Gang Starr member/producer DJ Premier, Moxey having previously managed the hip hop duo.

• NERD have released new single, 'Lemon', which features the rapping skills of Rihanna. Here's the video. In the unlikely event you want to hear a version without Rihanna on it, you can do that here.

• Five Finger Death Punch will release a greatest hits compilation, 'A Decade Of Destruction', 1 Dec. It'll include two new songs, including new single 'Trouble'. The band have shows in the UK next month too.

• Joan As Police Woman has announced that she will release new album, 'Damned Devotion', on 9 Feb. Here's new single 'Warning Bell'.

• Hookworms have announced that they will release a new album, 'Microshift', on 2 Feb. From it, this is 'Negative Space'. The band will also tour the UK in February and March.

• Pat Dam Smyth has released new single 'Blue Lights', taken from his second album, due out in the spring. He'll also be playing UK live shows in November and December.

• VO5 is returning as the sponsor of the NME Awards in 2018. "With music at the heart of our brand and style embedded in everything we do, we are hugely excited to again be partnering with this iconic music event", says VO5 brand manager Freya Ulbrick preposterously.

• Check out our weekly Spotify playlist of new music featured in the CMU Daily - updated every Friday.

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Beef Of The Week #379: B.o.B v History
Last time rapper B.o.B appeared in this column, a little over a month ago, we titled it 'B.o.B v Science', it covering his attempts to crowdfund a project that would prove, once and for all, that the Earth is flat. In what is worryingly starting to look like a series, he's back again, this time taking on the world's historians and wondering if slavery even happened.

I've always been of the opinion that you should question everything, but B.o.B really tests whether that is in fact such a good idea. Although, I suppose, whereas I mean that you should always check things out for yourself rather than simply blindly believing whatever you're told, B.o.B takes it to mean you should believe every single conspiracy theory video you ever watch on YouTube.

Yesterday he posted a video on Instagram, in which it's claimed that maps have been changed to confuse us. I think it's some flat Earth thing.

The video also questions how Morocco can be referenced on a map from 1904 when the country "wasn't even founded until 1952". A caption then corrects this to "1956", which is indeed be when Morocco regained independence from France and renamed itself the Kingdom Of Morocco.

The important point to note here, though, is that the new bit of the name in 1956 wasn't "Morocco", it was "Kingdom Of". Morocco has been Morocco for a fucking long time, you twats. Although not in Morocco itself, of course, because for some reason the people who live there insist on calling it by its Arabic name. I don't know why us Angleterrians always think our names for things are the ones everyone uses.

Aaaaaaaaanyway, this isn't even what we're here to talk about. Because next to this video, B.o.B placed his own observation: "They say slavery lasted 400 years. America is only 250 years old. You ever seen a slave ship? They can find a billion year old dinosaur bone but can't find any slave ships".

This is somehow related to the maps thing in a way I'm not even about to get into. The point is, B.o.B is saying that the institution of slavery apparently lasted longer than America has even existed, which doesn't add up. And if it did even happen, where are all the massive ships that supposedly brought all these slaves over from Africa to the Americas?

Well, first of all, America isn't "only 250 years old", that's the United States Of America, which is a different thing. The Declaration Of Independence was signed in 1776, but the first colony leading up to the foundation of the United States was in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. And Europeans had been going to the American continent and its surrounding islands (WHICH ALREADY EXISTED) since at least when Columbus landed there in 1492.

Secondly, the American slave trade didn't last 400 years. That is a thing "they" say, but you shouldn't listen to "them", because "they" aren't historians. They are just some people saying a thing.

Slavery officially ended in the USA in 1856, and what is thought to be the first recorded reference to it in North America was in Jamestown in 1619. So that's more like 237 years. Although I think it's important to note that slavery existed long before and plenty of time after the European settlers of America were officially at it. Indeed Europeans had been buying slaves from Africa long before 1619, so maybe that's where the "400 years" thing comes from.

Anyway, these slave ships. They were massive. Really big. Really, big, big ships that carried hundreds of slaves at a time. Some of them sank, some of them were wrecked, some of them were broken up for their wood to be reused, and some of them just rotted. After the abolition of slavery, the more unscrupulous slave traders who didn't stop the practice bought smaller, faster ships in order to outrun the Navy.

For some reason, no one thought to preserve any of these ships just in case some rapper in two hundred years' time didn't believe they existed. This is one of the many reasons that hardly any wooden ships from hundreds of years ago remain. The people of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries just didn't give a fuck about rappers.

Still, what about B.o.B's claim that "they can find a billion year old dinosaur bone but can't find any slave ships"? Well, for one thing, no one has ever found "a billion year old dinosaur bone". Not least because dinosaurs weren't around a billion years ago. The oldest dinosaur fossils found are the bones of the Nyasasaurus Parringtoni, dating back about 243 million years.

Also, this is beside the fucking point, because it's not true that slave ships haven't been found. As I said, ships no longer in use that got back to dry land were generally broken up. That leaves you with the ones that sank. It's quite hard to dredge up ships that have sunk, because they're at the bottom of the fucking sea.

Still, back in 2015, archaeologists did managed to retrieve pieces of the São José, a slave ship that sank off the South African coast in 1794, along with the 400 slaves it was carrying. The crew all managed to escape alive, which was nice for them, and thus they were able tell people about what had happened.

I don't know why I'm even telling you all of this. If you're on B.o.B's side, then presenting you with interesting if disturbing historical facts isn't going to convince you of anything. Actually, I'm not even sure B.o.B is actually disputing that slavery happened, just that slaves were brought to America by sea. And like the flat Earth theory, that begs the questions: 'why?' and 'how?' would anyone have ever claimed that slave ships existed if they had never existed.

What would be gained by spreading that lie? Why would that lie be perpetuated to this day? And how would it be perpetuated? Creating the wealth of historical records and artefacts that confirm that the sea-based slave trade was prolific would have been an industry in itself. Indeed, it would have been a lot easier to go out to sea and steal some people from their homes.

Anyway, B.o.B is still trying to raise $1 million in order to prove once and for all that the Earth is flat. So far he's got around $6500. Not quite there yet. I guess he's got a little more work to do in convincing people that his claim has scientific validity.

And assuming he's not now entirely dedicating his life to putting historians right, presumably there'll be more flat earth rambling incoming soon too. Which probably means we'll be back doing this again before long.

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