ATTACKING THE PIRATES, DENYING THE CHARGES

EMI Group's music publishing arm filed a copyright infringement suit against Global Music One, an Internet service that allows cell phone users to change their phones' normal ringing sounds to popular songs. Global Music One makes the songs available for download on its Yourmobile.com Web site.

EMI alleges that Global Music copied and infringed more than 300 of EMI's songs, including such hits as "Imagine," "Strangers In The Night," Start Me Up," the "James Bond" theme and "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The complaint alleges that "when caught red-handed, [chairman] Ralph Simon and Global Music engaged in deception and outright fraud, feigning to be taking steps to end their piracy while continuing to infringe upon EMI's rights."

Coincidentally, Simon served as head of business affairs under Gary Gersh at Capitol Records, which is a division of EMI. "This is not Napster," Simon said. "We only like to work with formal proper licensing agreements… because of our background in publishing and being steeped in the notion of copyright."

In other EMI news, the label pledged to fight claims that it fixed prices of compact discs in the U.S.

Back in May, EMI and the other big five record companies agreed to put an end to "minimum advertised pricing," or MAP, which allowed the record companies to subsidize costs of advertising provided CDs were not sold below a minimum price. EMI insists its pricing policy is legal, despite allegations that tens of millions of consumers have been overcharged.

A total of 29 states have now joined in class-action suits being filed against Warner Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, BMG and EMI (with retailers Tower, Trans World and Musicland thrown in as a bonus) for alleged "price fixing."