The Latest: TPB, Square, VinylChic, Fandalism, Musexpo, Covify, Stagecoach, NARAS, Apple…

on May1

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The Latest: TPB, Square, VinylChic, Fandalism, Musexpo, Covify, Stagecoach, NARAS, Apple...

Another hammer just dropped on The Pirate Bay. The British High Court has just ruled that ISPs including Sky, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must block access to the BitTorrent tracker - to the extent that it's possible. BP has requested extra time to deal with an earlier complaint, but is expected to join the class in due time.

Square has changed the game for lots of touring artists, but this goes way beyond music. According to Bloomberg, the mobile-based payment platform is processing at a rate of $5 billion in transactions annually, a bump of 25 percent since March.

Kate Hudson inspects the grooves on her vinyl, do you? (seriously, it's an ad for Almay...)

And check out Fandalism (fandalism.com): it's a social network for musicians created by Phillip Kaplan (AdBrite, Blippy, F'd Company). The site has 425,000 profiles, with a few notables popping up.

And, Musexpo kicked off in earnest in Hollywood on Monday. Coca-Cola, Activision, Warner Bros., BBC, Agency Group, BMG Chrysalis, Sony, NBC Universal, and Chugg were just some of the companies in attendance. Coverage ahead...

Also worth checking out: Covify, a beta-stage app that scans physical album covers and ads the streaming albums to Spotify. A full-blown iOS app is apparently on the way (covify.com/beta).

It happened, again. Indio Police are now chasing leads on a brutal rape at Stagecoach, the second sexual attack at the festival. A young woman was allegedly assaulted by three males in a porta-potty; looser alcohol restrictions could be to blame.

Less categories, and it's legal. The New York Supreme Court has just tossed a lawsuit related to NARAS' Grammy category shrinkage. The suit was filed by well-respected Latin jazz musician Bobby Sanabria and several others.

Sounds perfectly juicy. Apple lawyers are now moving aggressively to protect deposition papers involving Steve Jobs and iTunes executive Eddy Cue, particularly as they relate to digital music negotiations with Universal Music Group. A class action that includes the Estate of Rick James is pursuing the papers, part of a broader push to secure documents and evidence from a successful royalty case brought by F.B.T. Productions against UMG.