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Somehow Universal Music was able to get Microsoft to agree to pay them a fee for each new Zune music player that it sells. The amount being paid to the world’s largest music label has not been disclosed but Universal’s CEO, Doug Morris, gave his quote of the day by stating, We felt that any business that’s built on the bedrock of music we should share in. So by that logic movie studios should be entitled to fees from video equipment manufactures, television studios should be entitled to fees from TV manufactures, breweries should be entitled to fees from glass manufactures, and Al Gore should be entitled to fees from everyone online (he did, after all, invent the internet) … umm, yeah, who are they trying to fool?!

If you like The Office (US) then you’ll love this mash-up video of Michael, Dwight and the rest of the cast bringing SexyBack. It’s absoulutely hilarious.

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Kevin Federline’s Playing with Fire record gets tagged as “laughable crap” that’s “horrible, pathetic, and god awful” and is so “painful and appalling” to listen to that “aardvarks died for his sins”. Among other things…

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Kanye West unleashed an amazing outburst after failing to take home the gong for ‘Best Video’ for his ‘Touch The Sky’ promo at the EMAs.

Crashing the stage as winners Justice and Simian collected their silverwear for ‘We Are Your Friends’, the hip hop star spat, “F*ck dis! (My video) cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it, I was jumping across canyons and sh*t! If I don’t win, the awards show loses credibility. Nothing against you (J&S), but hell man.”

“I haven’t seen (the Justice and Simian video). Possibly it could have been quite good but no way better than ‘Touch The Sky’.

“That is complete bullsh*t, I paid a million. Obviously it’s not all about the money, but the response it got transcended everything, it really made great TV.

“It took a month to film; I stood on a mountain; I flew a heliocopter over Vegas. I did it to be the king of all videos and I wanted to walk home with that award.”

Justin Timberlake, who was hosting the show, responded to the outburst with, “After the show, Kanye will be in the parking lot accepting awards he did not win. Seriously though, I’ve got sexy covered, it’s good to see someone’s doing crazy.”

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When it comes to reverse engineering data formats, no-one can do it better than Jon Lech Johansen. Jon is most famous for his involvement in the DeCSS software which allows users to decode the content-scrambling system used to license DVDs. Now Jon has shifted his focus to music.

A self-proclaimed proponent against closed systems, Jon just announced that he has reverse-engineered FairPlay, the encryption technology Apple uses to make the iPod a closed system. Presently, thanks to FairPlay, music purchased from iTunes cannot be played on other MP3 players, while copy-protected material in a format other than Apple’s cannot be played on the iPod. Jon’s Doubletwist venture will change all of that.

Jon’s system will enable companies to emulate Apple’s FairPlay protection, thereby allowing them to directly sell iPod compatible, and protected, music without going through the iTunes store.

Is this a good idea? I’m not too sure, after all it was Steve Jobs who championed the $0.99 song, and it was the greedy music labels that wanted to charge more — and now they can.

Here is a Shakira mega post — 50 pictures of the sexy singing senstation arriving and performing at the MTV Latin Music Awards. Despite her 7 nominations, however, Shakira only managed to win Song of the Year, with the Best Singer award going to accordion-toting Julieta Venegas.

There are 50 pictures of Shakira after the jump, so be sure to…

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It was only last month that Universal Music Group threatened legal action against YouTube for hosting copyrighted music videos. Now we learn that they, along with Sony, Sony BMG and Warner Music each quietly negotiated to take small stakes in YouTube as part of video- and music-licensing deals they struck shortly before Google acquired YouTube. Those deals are believed to be worth as much as $50 million.

Meanwhile, Universal has filed suit this week against Bolt and Grouper, two much smaller video sharing sites, for — wait for it — copyright infringement. Become bed fellows with one and sue the other; greedy bastards.

YouTube is the new MySpace, at least that what Google is banking on as is music mogul Diddy. Check out Diddy’s very own channel here where you can watch him order up a Burger King whopper his way — cause you know, that’s cool.

And it feels so good.

The Spice Girls are getting back together, but not for the reason you might be thinking. Mel B., Scary Spice, has invited Baby, Posh, Sporty and Ginger Spice — Emma Bunton, Victoria Beckham, Mel Chisholm, and Geri Halliwell respectively — to her hen bachelorette party in Leeds. The date of the reunion is being kept secret, but it is expected to take place before Mel B. walks down the aisle with Eddie Murphy in November.

After what is being called a flawless performance by Ashlee Simpson as Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago, Jessica Simpson just had to steal the spotlight back from her little sister yet again by looking like the night of the living dead.

There are 20 more pictures of Jessica and Ashlee after the jump, so if haven’t been blinded by Jessica’s face, click the link below to…

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