There is, of course, due process. There is, of course, innocent until proven guilty. There are safeguards, which should work for both sides in a case.

But how does Sony Records find itself in a courtroom, arguing that a woman who claims to have been raped and abused should be forced to remain working for her alleged rapist? How does anyone from Sony suck a thoughtful tooth and go "well, we've only got her word that she's been raped by him, so we should probably keep her to her contract. Even if we have to take this to court"?

Even if you were part of Sony, and didn't believe Kesha; even if you were part of Sony, and believed Kesha but didn't really care. Even then. How would you think that marching into court to try and force her to work with Dr Luke would be the right thing to do?

Buzzfeed's Mary Georgantopoulos was following the case for Buzzfeed. How she was able to tweet with her head in her hands is a minor miracle in itself.

When Kesha's lawyers argued that Sony's offer to keep her in the contract to Dr Luke's vanity label but not work with Luke was meaningless because Sony would just bury any of her work:

Judge: You’re asking me to presume an entity like Sony, who is in competitive position ... will not want to make money on their investment.

— Mary Georgantopoulos (@marygeorgant) February 19, 2016

Oh, Judge. You've not been round the music industry, or indeed corporations, long, have you? Here in Milton Keynes, there's a supermarket which stands empty while Sainsburys pay rent of a million quid a year on it. They're paying the rent to stop anyone else making money in the unit. That's how corporations work. The suggestion that Sony might spite-lock an artist isn't really so outlandish, is it?

Here's a strange little nugget: Torrentfreak has seen documents which show Sony was planning to buy BitTorrent in 2006.

There was a solid business idea behind the scheme (more solid than the botched attempts to turn Napster into a legitimate business) - Sony was going to use BitTorrent to provide a link between their film content and their physical products.

A little creepy, though, to admire a company's software but attempt to destroy the company through lawsuits before making an offer to buy it, isn't it?

Sony is trying again to make 'paying to stream music through Playstations' a thing, killing off its long-running, long-stalled partnership with Omnifone (Music Unlimited, as you've probably forgotten) and is instead going to bake Spotify into the PSN.

The key difference - besides being a service that people have actually heard of - is that Spotify Free will be part of the deal, too; theoretically, Playstation users might get used to using their devices for streaming music via the free tier and decide it's a good enough experience to shell out to kill the adverts.

In addition, Spotify accounts created elsewhere will be accessible through Playstations.

It's an offering that could well see a shift in where people listen; it's not clear yet that it's going to mean a massive payday for Sony.

So if I were to say to you that Snapchat was thinking about getting into the music business, you'd probably do what I did.

Nod your head, and think of something akin to its photo product, where the photo "disappears" after you've shared it. (Of course, it doesn't, because nothing digital leaves no trace, but in theory, anyway.) And you could picture that appealing to record labels, with their constant fear of pirates, pirates everywhere and limited understanding of the digital world.

But you'd be wrong. I was wrong. Snapchat's ambitions are more Empire-building than a mere app:

Mobile messaging service Snapchat could be formulating plans to launch its own music label, according to information in leaked Sony emails.

Reported correspondence between Sony's president of global digital business, Dennis Kooker, reveal that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has dreams of being a curator.

While a music service isn't on the cards, a record label "so [Spiegal] could focus on the artists that he wants to use the platform to promote," could well be.

Yeah. Snapchat don't want to launch a service, they want to launch a label.

What a terrible idea. But perhaps, at last, Spiegel has found a way to create something digital that will vanish almost instantly, leaving no trace at all.

Were you surprised at the recent release of the two-disc Essential N'Sync collection?

You weren't the only one:

Sony released the two-disc album on Tuesday, July 29. Member Lance Bass, however, tweeted his frustration at the label for not informing him and his bandmates.

Bass wrote: "I love when the record label doesn't even tell you they are releasing a new 'NSYNC album tomorrow !"

"Guess the label didn't expect all our amazing fans to still be there for us," he added later on.

I'm not quite sure how Bass thinks that would work - presumably Sony thinks there's still a bunch of middle-aged people desperate to cling to their youth by repurchasing tracks they have already got at least twice already ("still a massive fanbase") otherwise they wouldn't have released the record at all.

Death Grips decided that their album was information which wanted to free, and so slapped the music up on line. Unfortunately, they'd forgotten they'd signed to Epic, and thus had no longer actual ownership of their own art.

Epic failed them, and got cross:

Epic Records’ Head of Business & Legal Affairs Heath Kudler wrote in the email, dated 1 Oct – the same day as the leak: “Epic is extremely upset and disappointed that the artist decided to release an album without Epic’s knowledge or involvement. As you know, the artist has not only blatantly breached a number of provisions in the applicable recording agreement, it also has wilfully infringed Epic’s copyright rights with respect to these masters. Equally important, without provocation, the artist has made false and disparaging statements on various websites about Epic. All this, despite the fact that Epic has done nothing except wholeheartedly supported the band, even though the band has made certain decisions that have financially damaged Epic”.

Upset and disappointed. I suppose at least when they're telling off the people who made the music the RIAA companies pretend to have emotions - if it had been an ordinary person who had put up an album, they'd have actually just been got a drone strike.

Now, though Epic are going to drop the band - thereby totally alienating them from the product of their labours.

Alan McGee is, reckons Louder Than War, thinking of bringing back Creation:

Rumours have increased in the last hour though as Gun Club Cemetery (who we featured as a New Band of the Day yesterday, interviewing Alex Lowe) tweeting they have signed to Creation.

It’s rumour at the moment with the only signs the legendary label, once home to Oasis, Super Furry Animals and others, is back in business coming from the band and their manager.

A revival of Creation? Wasn't that what we were all praying for? Admittedly, we were praying for it at the time it was still going and mostly just churning out Oasis records and hanging out with Tony Blair, not recently.

There is a pressing problem, though: if you look at the back of any Creation re-release, it states clearly that Creation is wholly-owned by Sony.

Admittedly, they don't really care for it overmuch - never mind that the Creation Soup albums are out of print, Amazon have lazily lobbed all the Ride re-releases into the store under the impression that each record is called, erm, The Catalogue:

But own it they do - McGee got, apparently, £30million for the bit Sony didn't own when things were wound up, and although the soundtrack to Creation biopic Upside Down was supposedly released on a revival of Creation last year, it was really just Sony being adorable and pretending, like when Kelloggs put a 1950s version of Snap, Crackle and Pop on the cereal packet to frighten kids.

Is McGee going to, then, buy back Creation? At the time Sony bought it it was apparently worth £60million - clearly the value would have sunk since then, and he could buy it back without the catalogue, but even so that seems like a lot of investment just to allow Gun Club Cemetery to put out a record with a word that meant something to their fathers' generation in the middle.

I imagine McGee could turn up at Sony's offices and resurrect the label from within its failing empire. But 'wholly owned subsidiary of an electronics manufacturer' wouldn't really be the Creation myth that anyone would expect to be played into, would it?

McGee could follow both Branson and Tony Wilson and, with his baby off working for the conglomerates, he could create a Creation form of V2 or Factory Too. This sort of thing always ends in disappointment, though.

Like the time Harry Corrbett had sold Sooty to his son, decided he didn't like retirement and started doing the odd show. Matthew sued his own dad's ass.

Because Matthew knew, once you've flogged your dream to the highest bidder, it's been flogged.

So there's ways Creation could come back. But the real question would have to be: why would you bother?

On the other hand: if he revived Elevation, that would be audacious.

The Next Web announces Sony's launch of Music Unlimited in its home market:

Sony has announced the introduction of its Music Unlimited service in Japan, bringing more than 10 million songs which can be listened to across a range of devices through the cloud-based service.

Blimey. Wonder if they'll ever bring that to the UK?

With today’s unveiling, Japan becomes the seventeenth market were Music Unlimited is live, and it marks the end of a long wait for Sony fans in the company’s native country. The Spotify-rivalling service first launched in the UK and Ireland in December 2010, some 18 months ago.

Really? You'd have to say that there's a service that could benefit from a bit more promotion.

It might be a little late in the day, but Sony seems to have decided to try taking digital music seriously.

It had owned 51% of the incorrectly named IODA - "Independent" Online Distribution Alliance - and now it's going to buy up the rest, in order to be able to merge it with the other significant American digital distributor, The Orchard. Sony will then own about half of the new company, which will be called The Orchard.

Keeping it? This is a fairly dull post, but probably quite significant: as a label, Sony is as clueless as its competitors about how to make money online; as a distributor, it might well be getting its act together.

Yesterday's Sunday Times had a story about Michael Jackson's entire recorded history being lifted from Sony's secure systems. In a spirit of puckish wit, today the NME has liberated the story from behind News International's secure paywall:

A source told the paper: "Everything Sony purchased from the Michael Jackson estate was compromised. It caused them to check their systems and they found the breach. There was a degree of sophistication. Sony identified the weakness and plugged the gap."

Ah, yes, they plugged the gap that created a weakness which - with a degree of sophistication - allowed compromising of the system.

I don't know who the "source" was, but I suspect he or she came from Sony's movie division, where they generally write scripts featuring hackers and big screens flasging "ACCESS DENIED".

It's obviously that Sony was unwittingly involved in making these files available to the internet - they didn't realise when they put them on their system that other people could download them. But when individuals used that line as a filesharing defence - they didn't realise other people could access the files on their hard drive - Sony and the RIAA weren't impressed. I hope Sony do the right thing, and pursue themselves to the fullest extent of the law.

Monday's MediaGuardian had a nice interview with Nick Gatfield, Dexy's saxophonist turned chief executive of Sony Music UK. He talked a good talk about the music being important, comparing his position now with his previous experience at EMI during the Guy Hands years:

"Your 'product' is human beings who have opinions," Gatfield says, leaning forward on the sofa in his spacious corner office at the west London HQ of Sony UK, the company which appointed him chief executive in July. He gives an example. "I remember someone at Terra Firma asking why the [release date for the] Gorillaz album had slipped. I said 'well, you know, Damon [Albarn]'s not ready,' and he said 'But it's on the release schedule'". The art of managing talent, Gatfield says, is to "reduce that slippage" as far as possible, but it's impossible to treat artists as commodities and reduce the art of making music to a box-ticking exercise. "Terra Firma didn't like the dark arts of A&R," he says. "A lot of it is done by gut instinct."

So, then, his label is one where A&R and chasing guts is at the heart of things, right?

Not so much. Oddly, Gatfield clams up when asked how far Sony is being propped up by Cowell Says Op Knocks:

What proportion of sales are generated by [X Factor] talent? "I don't know the figure off the top of my head," Gatfield says, "and I don't really want to share it with you."

It could be that Gatfield is genuine in his desire to bring forward proper new talent, and will use a warchest built on the backs of the Cardles and Little Mixes to fund that. But his reluctance to be honest about how far the company relies on what s showing the frst signs of beng a delcining franchise doesn't really inspire confidence.

After decades of swimming through the sea swallowing smaller labels, EMI has now, definitively, been swallowed itself. BBC News reports:

UK music firm EMI has said it will sell its recorded music unit for £1.2bn ($1.9bn) to Universal Music.

Reports have suggested that the other half of EMI's business - the lucrative music publishing unit - will go to a Sony-led consortium for more than $2bn.

Universal buying EMI is a bit like a bloke with lung disease buying an organ from a heavy smoker with a bad cough, and should probably be viewed as a nice rationalisation to make it easier for whoever ends up buying Universal.

Some artists, at least, welcome their new corporate overlords:

"I particularly welcome the fact that EMI will once again be owned by people who really do have music in their blood," said Rolling Stones singer Sir Mick Jagger.

The manager of Coldplay also welcomed Universal.

"They have assembled the most talented group of executives in the industry today and their success speaks for itself," Dave Holmes said.

This should not be seen as fawning over the new bosses in a desperate bid to keep in with them as there becomes less competition to sign clapped-out behemoths to record labels.

Sony has had yet another security breach of its Playstation and Qriocity network.

Who's looking after security at Sony? Did they hire the guy who used to try and keep Jim Sweeney and Steve Steen out the studios at the start of CB TV?

Shortly after the Sony Warehouse went up in flames, I said it seemed unlike the other riot-related incidents, being away from the High Streets and a well-defended space.

This morning, the Telegraph reports that, indeed, it wasn't a rioter target; rather, a professional raid making using of the riots as a distraction:

[E]vidence has now emerged suggesting that the well-guarded Sony DADC distribution centre was deliberately targeted by a professional gang, in a carefully planned raid, using the riots as a distraction.

Sources in the security industry disclosed that intruders first arrived wielding specialist cutting equipment and spent up to two hours dismantling a high security fence before breaking in.

It is claimed that they then summoned a fleet of vans and drove inside the premises, which are set back from the main focus of rioting in the area, before beginning to load up stock.

According to one source, security guards on site were effectively overwhelmed and unable to fend
off the intruders, knowing that police were already stretched as anarchy gripped the capital.
After loading up with stolen goods, the robbers are then said to have invited other gangs in to continue the looting in an attempt to cover their tracks.

Now, that sounds much more plausible than the idea of marauding kids making a detour onto an industrial estate.

I've been poking round the Guardian's map of all verified incidents and the Sony Distribution Warehouse fire looks to be unique.

All the other incidents recorded seem to be on High Streets, and attacks on retail units. This seems to be the only time rioting looters took the time to go to a suburban business park and target a business.

Now, maybe the Sony logo made people think this was the place where PlayStations come from, and thus worth a detour.

But given that the focus of the lootathon was on retail units with low-level protection, the targeting of a massive, secure unit away from the High Street seems to be something other.

Missed this a couple of weeks back: Sony have killed the MiniDisc walkman.

I do have, somewhere, my entire minidisc collection - which was the covermount that Q magazine gave away back when the format first launched. I don't think there was anything on it - I seem to recall that there was a Wonka-style golden ticket thing going on whereby you were supposed to take the disc to a shop that sold the players, pop it in, and you might win a player of your own. And, on the plus side, you'd already have a blank Minidisc to record the Top 40 onto. I really must get down to a minidisc player shop some day.

The format will continue to be supported for professionals and hifi separates, so it's not quite the end. And it has outlasted Digital Compact Cassettes by fifteen years already, so it's not all bad news.

Reuters suggesting no end of likely suitors for EMI, including Sony and Universal. If either of them take over the company, we'd be one step closer to the inevitable single-major world. It'd be a sad day, but at least it'd make things easier for the RIAA.

However, there are other organisations kicking the wheels:

Citigroup is keeping its options open as to EMI. The auction could include separate offers for EMI's music publishing and music recording businesses, or an offer for the entire company, three of the sources said.

The interested parties have signed confidentiality agreements to get access to EMI's financial information so that they can decide whether to put in bids for the company, which are expected in August, the sources said.

Potential buyers including Access, MacAndrews & Forbes, Sony and Platinum Equity have talked to investment banks about financing an EMI buyout, these people said.

Banks including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and UBS AG have expressed willingness to finance a potential deal, two of the sources said. All the banks declined to comment for this story.

Suggestions that the winner will get to ride Damon Albarn like a pony could not be confirmed at time of publication.

Doctor Conrad Murray - whose office bears the sign "716 day with no dead international megastars on my watch" - is currently trying to prove his prescription services had nothing to do with the death of Michael Jackson.

As part of this process, he's trying to get all the footage of Jackson's rehearsals for those Greenwich gigs released. TMZ have seen the paperwork. Murray is convinced it'll show that Jacko was so ill at the time, a good puff of wind or a poorly made Pot Noodle could have killed him, and so take the heat off the Propofol script.

Sony, though, are reluctant. They start by murmuring that it'd cost a lot of money to transcribe all the tapes, and then start to have hives about the security:

Sony lawyers say, "When they were transported to the Sony lot in Culver City, the transport in an unmarked truck was accompanied by armed guards in the dead of the night."

When the tapes were in an editing bay, security guards were posted outside the door and no Internet access was allowed in the room.

I love the idea that they stipulate it was an unmarked truck, rather than something from the fleet of trucks with the "Sony transporting Michael Jackson rehearsal footage" livery you'd have been expecting.

Then, some chilling words:

And a Sony honcho also submitted a declaration which says the videos "have a high monetary value inherent in their potential for future uses. Those uses include one or more 'anniversary editions.'"

One or more. One or more.

Sony have a point, though: why the hell should an investigation into the death of a man, or another man's attempts to prove his innocence in that death, be in any way allowed to interfere with their attempts to squeeze a few more dollars from the corpse.

After this morning's anonymous claims that Britain's Got Talent is fixed comes the denial:

However, a spokesperson for Cowell made a statement which denied the rumours, which said: "There is no truth in this story whatsoever. Ronan first came to Syco/Sony's attention when he entered this year’s competition.

"Syco/Sony Music will not hesitate to take whatever legal action is appropriate to prevent further publication of these unfounded allegations.”

Sony are trying to link Anonymous - the loose internet affiliation, not Joe Klein - for the lifting of thousand upon thousand of pieces of personal information.

It doesn't seem to have said sorry for its weak security, mind you.

Although trying to suggest a link between the security breach and an apparent Anonymous Denial Of Service attack, Sony mumbles that it might have been a coincidence:

The attack that stole the personal data of millions of Sony customers was launched separately, while the company was distracted protecting itself against the denial of service campaign, Sony said.

Sony said it was not sure whether the organizers of the two attacks were working together.

What's really interesting is the complete lack of haste that Sony brought to the loss of all this information:

The company noticed unauthorized activity on its network on April 19, and discovered that data had been transferred off the network the next day.

"Hey... you know all that unauthorized activity yesterday? D'you reckon that we should check to see what happened?"
"oh, yes. How about 3pm tomorrow?"
"I've got a meeting with Frank then. Can we make it half four?"

Still, once they realised there had been personal details taken, they swung into action, right?

The company also said it waited two days after discovering data was stolen from its PlayStation video game network before contacting law enforcement and did not meet with FBI officials until five days later.

It's funny: if Sony get a hint of someone putting a unlicensed song on YouTube, it's takedown machine swings into action straight away. Someone walks off with people's personal data, and it's nearly a full week before the FBI are brought in.

Perhaps you should ask Sony to hide your credit card details in a Kings Of Leon single. It looks like they'd get better protection then.