In a 2006 interview with cream magazine, Madonna said: “Movies, music, art exhibits, books – I have an insatiable hunger and curiosity to find out about new things that are going on. Inevitably those things find their way into my work, and I think that’s what we all do as artists and creative people – we all plagiarise each other.”

It seems one artist in Dulwich Hill, Sydney, refuses to embrace the sentiment.

RJ Williams is claiming that Madonna has infringed on his copyright with the ‘TM’ logo of her new perfume Truth Or Dare (the ‘T’ presumably for ‘Truth’, the ‘M’ for ‘Madonna’, naturally, and yes, indeed she has trademarked her own logo as irony would have it).

Williams insists that the international pop icon’s logo bears too much resemblance to his squatter combination of the same two letters and that he is entitled to all profits made so far from sales of the perfume (better get a lawyer, son).

Now, if cream had a dollar for every time we’ve seen our logo bastardised on the masthead of copycat publications – let alone items that bare absolutely no relativity to our product – we’d be rolling in it.

What next, the Catholic Church sues the both of them for adopting what appears to be a crucifix in their logos?

Good luck taking on one of the world’s richest entertainers and most intelligent artists, Mr Williams. And well done for probably putting a sour taste in her mouth just months before her visit to our shores.

In around 1986, Madonna recited to Molly Meldrum on Countdown, “Imitation is the highest form flattery.” Food for thought for a seemingly hungry artist. Hungry, at least, for the publicity and fame this game of six-degrees-of-separation is sure to generate.

Pictured, a Truth Or Dare fragrance advertisement.

In a bout of bad timing, record label TufAmerica filed a lawsuit against the Beastie Boys  last Thursday, just one day prior to the death of band member Adam Yauch, aka: MCA.

The label has accused the hip-hop trio of plagiarising music from one of their own artists, Trouble Funk. Apparently MCA and company sampled music from a 1982 track Drop The Bomb for use in two Beastie Boys songs, The New Style and Hold It Now Hit It. Both tracks appeared on the band’s debut album Licensed To Ill.

TufAmerica also claim the Beastie Boys sampled the same Trouble Funk track on Car Thief from their sophomore LP, Paul’s Boutique.

With media focus still on the tragic news of Yauch’s passing last week, after his three-year battle with cancer, the case is coming across as one of rather bad taste.

The founder of the Beastie Boys, Adam Yauch, died yesterday at age 47 after a three-year battle with cancer. Otherwise known to fans as MCA. The news was broken by the Beastie Boys’ publicity firm, Nasty Little Man.

Yauch was responsible for the more gravel-style rapping in Beastie songs, lending a sense of street toughness to the other two members’ more lighthearted approach to rap. He was also responsible for directing many Beastie music videos, although would go under the pseudonym of Nathanial Hörnblowér when doing so.

On the side, and despite his heavy rapping, Yauch was actually a Buddhist and helped start the Milarepa Fund, a not-for-profit organisation promoting Tibetan freedom.

His legacy will continue in popular songs such as Fight For Your Right To Party, Body Movin, Intergalactic, and perennial favourite, Hey Ladies.

Adam Youch, pictured above, left in an early Beastie Boys’ publicity photograph.

We love Google’s special doodle for the day – a tribute to street-come-pop artist Keith Haring who was born on this date in 1958.

Haring was also a social activist whose work was ubiquitous on the streets of New York before being picked up by major galleries and becoming internationally renowned. The most popular figures in his paintings are the ‘crawling baby’, ‘dancing man’ and ‘dancing dog’, the latter two shown above in various guise to spell out the word ‘Google’.

Keith Haring died in 1990 from Aids complications at the age of 31, but his legacy continues.

Happy Birthday, Keith. Rest in peace.

They probably don’t look too familiar without the hoodies and shaved brows, but the trio pictured are actually three members of early 90s ‘hip-hop’ outfit East 17. The British lads are cashing in on the current wave of Nineties bands reuniting and touring, and will be heading to Aussie shores in June. This scary factoid just discovered: East 17 enjoyed 18 top 20 singles in the UK and sold over 20 million albums. And yet, we hardly recognised them…

More information and fullAustralian dates for the East 17 tour available at www.oztix.com.au.

Recent studies by security adviser, AVG, reveal that Australian parents are ‘spying’ on their 14-17 year-old teenagers’ internet use, with almost half of parents concerned with their child’s use of the net.

The studies found that the three most prominent areas of concern are that kids are geo-tagging with their mobiles, ‘sexting’, and downloading illegal music.

AVG (Avalanche Technology Group) has a mission to secure and simplify the internet experience whilst providing peace of mind and control to users.

With the extreme popularity of social networks, parents are provided with a medium that can be used to monitor their teenagers without being too ‘heavy handed’.

On a related subject, according to AVG, 57% of Australian parents are ‘friending’ their teenagers on Facebook which leads to question whether this is a new form of parental relationship or simply ‘spying’.

For more information visit www.avgdigitaldiaries.com. 

Top consumer technology brand, ASUS, has released a must-have computer, the All-In-One PC ET2700 Series. This unique PC for function for the office or all-round entertainment in the home includes exclusive features such as 10-finger-multi-touch support and delivers outstanding performance. It’s sleek, stylish and comes in a smart, space-saving design.

Other features include an integrated Blu-ray combo drive, built-in hybrid digital/analog TV tuner, instrument suite software and an external subwoofer. With high definition quality, watching television, browsing the internet, listening to music, responding to emails, exploring recipes online and composing tunes is a rich, enhanced experience. Access to information and entertainment is made easy and only a few touches away.

The ASUS All-In-One PC ET2700 Series is available at Harvey Norman.

For more information visit www.asus.com.

Today there are numerous amounts of services available to cut costs on holiday phone bills whilst in roaming areas, yet almost half of Australian’s are being charged excessive fees – and mobile operators are getting away with it. Says John Assiter from gosim.com, an international SIM card provider saving Australians on their mobile costs, we don’t need to be paying so much when making calls and sending texts from overseas.

Assiter comments, “It’s absurd that operators still get away with charging anything between $15 and $20 per MB for using data abroad, and in some countries making voice calls can even exceed $5 per minute.” He claims that more needs to be done to protect consumers although this protection will not come from operators, such as Telstra, where roaming could account for up to 10% of revenues.

The EU has introduced legislation, making European operators dramatically reduce their roaming costs. If this is the case in Europe, why aren’t these changes being made in Australia by the TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman) to help protect paying consumers?

Anyway, gosim.com suggests it can save Australian consumers up to 98% on their mobile phone costs when travelling. What are you waiting for, then? Go to www.gosim.com for more info. 

Is there anything more delicious on television than Revenge? The show is like a cross between the family rivalry of Dynasty and the material fixations of Gossip Girl, and is getting more and more viewers hooked by the week. Currently, an average of two million Australians tune into Revenge each week, which airs on Channel Seven, and that’s a big chunk of television audience. The great news for fans is that the show’s main stars Emily VanCamp (who plays Emily/Amanda) and Josh Bowman (her beau, Daniel Grayson) will be visiting Australia at the end of this month for a publicity tour. Not that they need the publicity, really. The show’s going great guns on its own. Well, thanks to that good old-fashioned method of promotion: word-of-mouth.

‘Revenge’ screens 8.30pm Mondays on Seven.

Superstar Prince has been confirmed by Chugg Entertainment to tour Australia in May, and will be playing live on a 360-degree stage. He will only be visiting Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for gigs. More music news this morning with Antonino Tati at 9am (WST) on www.boomradio.com.au.