Hilton
sex tape director none other than Paris?
Perhaps Paris the heiress
Hilton was not the innocent victim she claimed to be when her sex tape
surfaced on the internet last year. Yesterday Marvad Corp., a Seattle
company that posted clips of the video on the web site sexbrat.com, asked
a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Rick Salomon, Hilton’s
ex-boyfriend and the man in the tape. Salomon sued Marvad for violating
his copyright, but Marvad claimed yesterday that Hilton held rights to the
tape as well and that she directed and in fact helped shoot the video.
Marvad says that because Salomon failed to include Hilton as co-author on
the copyright registration application, the document is void. While the
tape that showed up on the net last November was only a few minutes long,
Salomon has begun selling a non-edited, 38-minute version on his site,
www.trustfundgirls.com, for $50. Salomon claims in the suit that
his former roommate, Don Thrasher, stole the tape and sold it to Marvad.
Hilton and her famous family have not commented on the latest motion.
Cheaper
high-speed boosts Bells in Q4
It looks like the Bell
companies’ massive price slashes are finally starting to help them catch
up to cable in the tussle for high-speed internet customers. U.S. cable
operators recorded slower fourth quarter growth among new broadband
customers, while the top telephone companies sped up to nearly equal the
numbers seen by cable in 2002. SBC Communications and Verizon both offered
massive price slashes in the second half of 2003 to encourage new
customers to sign up. Cable accounts for 64 percent, or about 16 million
total customers, of the high-speed market, but analysts predicted that
number will shrink this year. SBC boasted 378,000 new customers in the
fourth quarter, a 4 percent bump over the third, to bring its total to 3.5
million. Verizon increased by 10 percent to 203,000 new subscriptions.
Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Charter all reported lower fourth quarter
subscriber additions than in third quarter.
Report:
E-commerce hits biggest share ever
Internet sales surged to their greatest share of total
retail sales ever during fourth quarter 2003, buoyed by a record holiday
buying binge, the Commerce Department said yesterday. Online sales
accounted for 1.9 percent of total retail sales and were up 29.7 percent
over third quarter to $17.23 billion. It was the third straight quarterly
bump in e-commerce sales, although it came just short of fourth quarter
2002’s 31.6 percent increase. The 1.9 percent rose by .4 percentage
points over its third quarter 2003 share.
Spice
things up with half-naked Mel B. pic
Find Maxim spreads too
impersonal and music videos too fleeting? Last week Spice Girls fanatics
got a chance to bid on a more lasting relic. The ex-husband of former Girl
Mel B, aka Scary Spice, put a half-naked portrait of the couple up for
auction on eBay two weeks ago. The picture shows Jimmy Gulzar pulling up
Mel’s dress as they pose in front of a burning black heart. It used to
hang in the couple’s bedroom. Alas, the red, yellow and black picture
didn’t inspire a Spice Girls renaissance. Gulzar’s solicitor set the
opening bid at $1,885, and the auction expired Friday without a bid
despite getting more than 12,000 hits.
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