shadenights

LOS ANGELES: Britney Spears' music label filed a copyright infringement suit, accusing the popular Internet gossip site PerezHilton.com of posting unauthorised recordings from her forthcoming album.

The lawsuit came a day after Jive Records, part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment's Zomba Label Group, announced that it would release “Blackout” two weeks earlier than originally planned because some tracks had been leaked online.

“Blackout,” Spears' first album of new material in four years, is now slated to reach stores October 30 in the United States and a day earlier internationally.

The suit, filed in US District Court in Los Angeles, accuses PerezHilton.com and its proprietor, Mario Lavandeira, of illegally obtaining and posting at least 10 complete songs and unfinished demos during the past three months.

The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages and a court order barring further infringement by the site.

Peter Anderson, a lawyer for Zomba, said that some of the material in question was removed from the site by its Internet service provider in early September when the label first raised the issue, but some disputed content remained posted.

A lawyer for Lavandeira, Bryan Freedman, declined comment on the suit without seeing it but questioned why PerezHilton.com was being targeted when numerous websites were reported to be posting Spears' music.

“It seems to me that when you single out PerezHilton and put out a press release, that maybe what you're looking for is publicity,” Freedman said, adding that Lavandeira “will be vigorously defended in any action that is filed against him.” Spears, 25, is not a party to the lawsuit, Zomba said.

The legal action comes as Spears sparred again in court with her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, over custody of their two young children. Spears lost custody of the boys, Sean Preston, two, and Jayden James, one, to Federline last week.

On Thursday, she won permission from a Los Angeles judge to spend one night a week with her sons under the supervision of a court monitor. The judge agreed to modify his previous order after the pop singer showed up in court to make a personal plea to be allowed overnight visits with her sons.

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