UNIVERSAL MUSIC - WARNER MUSIC CHIEF SAYS HIS KIDS MAY HAVE PIRATED MUSIC

WARNER MUSIC CHIEF SAYS HIS KIDS MAY HAVE PIRATED MUSIC

Billionaire media tycoon and sometime songwriter Edgar Bronfman, who, with other investors bought Warner Music Group for $2.6 billion in 2003, has told the Reuters Media and Marketing Summit in New York that he was "fairly certain" that some of his children had illegally downloaded music from the Internet. "I explained to them what I believe is right, that the principle is that stealing music is stealing music," the Warner Music Group CEO told the conference. "I can assure you they no longer do that." In 2000, Bronfman, who then controlled Universal Pictures and Universal Music, declared that intellectual property must be protected "across the board, in every case, with no exceptions and no sophistry about a changing world." He vowed to track down all of those who "demonstrate contempt for law and copyright ... [in] every territory, in every court in every venue, wherever our fundamental rights are being assaulted and attacked." Meanwhile, police on Tuesday reported the latest arrests for online piracy, saying that John Acas and Sheryl Demesa stole screeners intended for a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and posted them on the Internet.

06/12/2006