Formed in 1997, The Dillinger Escape Plan progressed quickly to the forefront of the US hardcore scene with their debut album, 'Calculating Infinity', in 1999, soon getting a reputation for particularly intense live shows.

In 2001, vocalist Dimitri Minakakis left the group, to be later replaced by Greg Puciato, though the band recorded an EP, 'Irony Is A Dead Scene', with Faith No More frontman Mike Patton on vocals between albums.

The band really made their mark with second album 'Miss Machine', which saw the band's sound develop to an even more distinct style, and the follow-up, 'Ire Works', which garnered high critical acclaim.

Next week, the band release their fourth album, 'Option Paralysis', the first to be put out via their own label Party Smasher, in conjunction with French indie Season Of Mist. To celebrate, we asked bassist Liam Wilson to compile his top ten tracks for us. After you've listened to it, see if you can spot the influence of any of these artists in the DEP's own music. It'll be fun.

You can check out Liam's Powers Of Ten playlist here.

For a weekly Powers Of Ten playlist from a different artist, DJ or music expert direct to your email each Friday, sign up to the CMU Weekly here

Oh, those pesky popstars. They put out records and everyone says how brilliant they are and then it turns out they stole the whole thing off someone else. Allegedly.

Of course, there are many ways this can happen. Florence Welch recently claimed that she and her machine had sampled Gang Gang Dance for the intro of 'Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)' because they were one of her favourite bands. Unfortunately, she then forgot to credit them.

Or there's poor old Elastica, who were successfully sued by The Stranglers for stealing the guitar riff of 'No More Heroes' for their single, 'Connection', despite songwriter Justine Frischmann insisting that she'd never even heard the song she was supposed to have copied. It was decided that they had committed "subconscious infringement", meaning she'd unknowingly heard the original song at some point, and then her brain had spat it out at a later date and pretended it had come up with something new.

Alternatively, as in the case of 'Party All The Time' by The Black Eyed Peas (very possibly), some people just take someone else's instrumental track, sing over it and hope no one notices - and then settle out of court when the person who actually wrote it inevitably sues them.Who knows which of these different possibilities is the reason Eddy Grant got all up in the face of Damon Albarn this week. Grant claims that the new Gorillaz single, 'Stylo', is a near copy of his 1977 track, 'Time Warp'. Something a number of reviewers noted, too.

In a statement earlier this week, Grant said: "I am outraged that the Gorillaz have infringed the copyright of my song 'Time Warp' [while] claiming their song 'Stylo' to be an original composition. My song sits almost note to note with their release [which] is a blatant rip off. 'Time Warp' is a very popular song and has been a staple of the DJ scene for many years and I feel total disrespect from Gorilliaz and their management company, especially as they are an established act".

He also pointed out that, giving their songs are both looked after by the same publishing company, EMI Publishing, it's surprising that someone didn't notice sooner. EMI Publishing, meanwhile, told the BBC that the claim was "a private matter between Eddy Grant and Gorillaz".

If I was Damon, I would try the defence of: "It was the cartoons what done it".

Here the two tracks back to back here

Or both together

Eddy's track will also be available via all good download stores from Monday, not that Mr Grant is using the Gorillaz's alleged infringement to cash in or anything.

So, a portion of the music business headed to Austin, Texas for SxSW this week (though is it just me, or were a lot less UK music biz types going this year?). But while keynotes and debates were delivered and had at the uber-convention, most of the key developments in the industry this week took place away from Texas. Here's the five biggest stories of the week:

01: The Lords passed the Digital Economy Bill, despite there being no real resolution on the controversial Amendment 120a, an attempt by the BPI and Lib Dems to ensure measures to tackle forms of online piracy other than P2P file-sharing are included. Opposition to that clause from the web sector led to last minute attempts by the Lib Dems to reword their own amendment, but the government opted to speed the Bill through unamended, promising to give the non-P2P provision more consideration as the legislation is discussed in the House Of Commons. Meanwhile a Europe-wide report claimed ever rising piracy, if not challenged by DEB-style provisions, could result in 1.2 million lost jobs in the creative industries by 2012. But those who oppose the legislation picked holes in the report, and continued to call on their supporters to bug their MPs to oppose the Bill. CMU coverage|Pirate Party critique of pan-Europe report

02: It was speculated Warner and KKR might make a joint bid for EMI. Despite EMI's newly appointed Executive Chairman Charles Allen insisting in Music Week he hadn't been brought in simply to oversee a firesale of the struggling music company, chatter continued regarding the possibility of EMI's owners Terra Firma, or their bankers Citigroup, forcing a sale within the year. The most speculated about proposal this week was that Warner Music and equity firm KKR might stage a joint acquisition of EMI, the former taking recordings and the latter publishing. The two parties reportedly discussed such a collaborative deal last weekend. If it did happen, it's not clear if KKR would merge EMI Music Publishing with BMG Rights Management, in which the equity people already have a stake. CMU coverage|Wall Street Journal coverage

03: PRS announced its revenues were up. The publishing sector's collecting society reported its revenues for the last year were up 2.6% to £623 million, despite the continued decline in record sales, the publisher's share of which were once a key revenue stream. Increased digital revenues, from both download stores and streaming services, helped with the increase, with the collecting society reporting that the growth of digital in 2009 compensated for the accompanying decline in physical sales for the first time. That said, the increase in royalty revenue from overseas, the result of PRS being more proactive in collecting these royalties, also played a key role in the overall revenues boost. CMU coverage|PRS official release

04: A report said mobile apps could be worth $17.5 billion a year by 2012. The report, albeit one commissioned by an independent apps store, predicted that consumer appetite for iPhone and smart-phone apps will continue to boom in the next two years, and that the trade in paid-for apps will grow significantly. For record companies, getting a slice of that growing market probably means gimmicky artist-based apps in which sound recordings are bundled. For digital music service providers apps that make their online services mobile seem to be a way to persuade consumers to sign up to premium subscriptions. In the US, Real's Rhapsody this week started pre-promoting its upcoming iPhone app, while streaming music newcomer MOG was showing off its app at SxSW in Austin. CMU coverage|PCWorld.com critique of report

05: We got some interesting insights into the ongoing YouTube/Viacom litigation, when court documents relating to the case were released. MTV owners Viacom reckon YouTube should be liable for letting unlicensed content appear on their site, even though the video service eventually takes that content down once they are made aware of it. The court papers also show that Viacom claim to have evidence that, prior to Google's acquisition of the video site in 2006, YouTube's management actively encouraged copyright infringement to boost their traffic. YouTube's submissions argue that Viacom actively used the video site as a promotional tool prior to 2006, and also allege that the TV firm's lawsuit was instigated by sour grapes, because they had hoped to buy the video site before Google did so. A judge should rule on the case later this year. CMU coverage|Guardian report

And so that's the business stuff done. Don't forget, for a handy digest of all this week's artist news, subscribe to the CMU Weekly, which will be delivered to your email this afternoon.

Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU

Universal Music in the US have revealed plans to reinvigorate the CD market by testing a new pricing structure which will cut the price of a physical album to below ten dollars. Single CD albums will be provided with a recommended retail price of between $6 and $10, with an expected retailer mark up of 25%, so that said CDs will be sold wholesale at between $4 and $7.50.

The move is designed to bring about a little boost in the flagging CD market, and keep the physical album alive as a viable product for a few more years than it may perhaps otherwise manage. A resulting sales boost will be required to help compensate for the reduced profit margin on each CD sold; though, of course, we all know that the profit margin on CDs was always higher than originally intended (because unit prices were never cut once the format went mainstream and production costs fell), hence the record industry boom of the 1990s.

Billboard surveyed key players at Universal's rivals in the US record industry, and execs at some of America's main retailers, about the proposed unit-price cut. There was a mixed response at the other majors, with some saying there was no research to suggest consumers were demanding a cut in unit price, nor that the cut would result in more CDs being shifted. They seem worried that if Universal's move forced them to follow suit, everyone will see their profit margins cut without the assurance of an increase in numbers of units sold.

However, in the retail sector, while there was some concern as to what sort of hit on profit margin the retailers will have to take, there was generally a positive reception to the plans, with retail chiefs saying consumers were increasingly frustrated with the cost of a CD, especially when digital albums are often on sale at considerably lower prices. Though it would be interesting to know how smaller independent retailers feel about the plan, given they will probably be less able to take a short term hit on profit margins in the hope that the venture may reinvigorate the CD market in the long term.

It is not clear how much of Universal's catalogue will be switched to the new pricing structure as part of the pilot project, or whether the scheme will be rolled out in other territories if it works. We do know the scheme won't affect digital, and also that special edition versions of albums will still retail at higher prices, and, indeed, one result of the price cut on generic album releases is likely to be an increase in the number of special edition products released.

A study in France has shown that plans to introduce a three-strikes system to combat online piracy there have, so far, had little affect on file-sharing levels in the country. The report also says that French file-sharers are starting to access illegal sources of music using methods other that P2P networks, piracy which France's three-strikes system is arguably not equipped to tackle.

As much previously reported, the French parliament passed a three-strikes system into law last year, and a new government agency called Hadopi is currently setting it all up, though the system is not yet active, so it's perhaps not surprising that it has yet to have any real impact on file-sharing levels in France.

Though researchers at Rennes University wondered if the high profile media coverage of three-strikes becoming law might have, in itself, had an impact. But only 15% of the 2000 people they interviewed said they had made any change to the way they access music online since the three-strikes system - which in France could result in all out disconnection of net access - had been passed by the country's political types.

The research also shows that there has been an increase in the number of people accessing music illegally via online services other than traditional P2P file-sharing networks. This includes using unlicensed streaming services (there's one popular one called Allostreaming.com), or searching for MP3 files that have been illegally uploaded to legitimate file-exchange websites like Rapidshare or Megaupload. Of the 15% of people who have changed the way they access music online, two thirds had moved from traditional P2P networks to these other methods.

The file-sharing tracking systems used by record companies, which initiate any three-strikes action, currently only track P2P activity. Meanwhile the liabilities for infringement of individuals who access unlicensed streaming services are much less well defined in copyright law. These shifts to other forms of online piracy, therefore, arguably make three-strikes ineffective.

Of course it is with this in mind that UK record label trade body the BPI has been so keen to ensure there is a clause in the copyright section of the Digital Economy Bill which makes it easier to shut down illegal streaming services, or to force the likes of Rapidshare to monitor files uploaded to its system for possible infringement. Those attempts, though, have proven even more controversial than the original three-strikes proposals.

A stack of court papers relating to the much previously reported YouTube/Viacom litigation have been released.

As previously reported, MTV-owners Viacom are suing YouTube over allegations they infringe copyright by allowing people to upload unlicensed content - including MTV content - to their website. YouTube and their owners Google argue that, because they take down unlicensed content whenever they are made aware of it, they are not liable for infringement under US copyright law. They also add that they have been busy developing filtering technology that automatically stops unlicensed content from ever appearing on the YouTube platform in the first place.

But Viacom aren't impressed with those arguments. There seem to be two elements to the MTV owner's legal case.

Firstly, they aren't convinced the video service's take-down system is enough to avoid liability for the infringement that occurs in the time between a video being uploaded and taken down (though other similar cases in the US have suggested it is).

Secondly, even if YouTube are operating within the law now, they weren't when they first launched, and, Viacom argue, the service's founders - Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim - deliberately encouraged infringement to occur on their website so to build traffic; traffic which enabled the $1.65 billion sale of the service to Google in 2006.

The legal squabble is ongoing. The previously confidential papers released this week don't tell us much about the case, or give us any real indication as to what way the courts will go on this one, but there is some interesting stuff in the evidence presented by the two sides.

Viacom's evidence includes various documents that aim to show YouTube's founders knowingly allowed infringement to occur in order to build their business. One filing quotes an email from Chen which says the company should "concentrate all our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil", while other evidence seems to show Karim himself uploaded infringing content to better YouTube's content offering.

Google officially deny that YouTube's original team sanctioned or took part in rampant copyright infringement in the early days to build traffic, though it is true that large quantities of unlicensed content did appear on the video site at that time, and it took a while for said content to be taken down, even though it was obvious copyrights were being infringed.

However, YouTube argue memos and emails presented by Viacom as evidence take comments made by the company's original management team out of context. They add that they have their own evidence that Viacom's channels actually ignored a lot of the early copyright infringement because they recognised the promotional value of having videos on YouTube (and, indeed, they say MTV staffers even uploaded some of the infringing content). They also argue Viacom's whole case against YouTube is based on sour grapes, because they have evidence the media firm was hoping to buy the video site just before Google swooped in with its mega-bucks takeover deal in 2006.

According to Billboard, YouTube's legal reps have a slide from an internal Viacom presentation from before Google's acquisition which says "we believe YouTube would make a transformative acquisition for MTV Networks/Viacom that would immediately make us the leading deliverer of video online, globally".

As I say, all interesting stuff, though none of this really gives us any indication as to how judge Louis Stanton is likely to rule on this case when it reaches its resolution later this year.

So, we got an interesting ruling in Germany this week regarding the licensing of mastertones and ringtones, the result of a legal squabble between EMI Music Publishing and T-Mobile.

EMI took legal action against T-Mobile because, although the phone firm had a licence from collecting society GEMA to cover the publishing rights (lyrics and notes) in the music used for ringtones and the like, they hadn't got permission from the publisher itself to use their songs. The phone firm argued that their use of songs owned by EMI was covered by blanket licences, so providing they were paying GEMA they didn't need permission from the publisher directly.

But EMI argued that, under German copyright law, because the ringtone is a 45 second segment of a 3-4 minute track, and because of the way the song is transmitted, that constitutes enough of an alteration of the original song that the publisher retains a right of veto over whether or not a work can be used. To this end, GEMA runs a 'two-step licensing system' for ringtones, providing the publisher with their veto, but T-Mo have never had much time for that system, so ignored the veto step. Hence EMI's litigation.

This week the German courts sided with EMI, confirming the veto right, and therefore declaring the 'two-step' system legal. EMI's legal rep Jens Schippmann told reporters: "The Federal High Court finally secured legal certainty and clearly denied the [claim] of the provider that the two-step licensing model is not admissible. For ringtones and mastertones the original musical work is shortened to 45 seconds, whereas the original work is three to four minutes. Furthermore, the musical work is reduced to a signal and so the original intention of the musical work to entertain the listener does not exist any more. The mastertone and ringtone interrupt the mobile phone owner and so the musical work is used for something different than it was intended in the first place".

T-Mo are yet to respond to the ruling.

Oh this old scenario, producer helps aspiring artist to write some songs and make some early recordings, and helps promote said artist to record companies and the like, a record deal comes in, worldwide fame arrives, said producer is cut out of the equation pronto, said producer sues for his cut of the action. It's the classic pop courts in action.

The artist facing the latest disgruntled producer lawsuit is Lady Gaga. Rob Fusari is suing for a mere $35 million amid claims he helped the Gaga-meister launch her career, wrote some of her early songs, came up with her stage name, and put her in front of record companies. The producer says he and the Lady were a couple at the time, meaning she dumped him in both the commercial and personal sense of the phrase once the world foolishly agreed to allow the shock-popster into their collective consciousness.

Fusari, who has songwriter credits on Will Smith and Destiny's Child hits, says that, although he originally dismissed the Gaga, he realised her potential after hearing her play at his New Jersey studio. He then spent several months working with her, and, he argues, "radically reshaped her approach" in the process, taking her sound from the rock domain into the more lucrative pop genre.

He says that he and Gaga set up a company to control her outputs, in which he had a 20% stake. When she was signed up to Universal's Interscope Records that deal should have been done with the company, ensuring him his cut of the loot. But, while he gets a producer credit on Gaga's debut album 'The Fame' and has received some royalties (over $600,000 apparently), he says that is nowhere near the cut he is due. 

The Gaga cabal are yet to respond to the litigation.

Oh, for the days when fighting piracy simply meant taking on shady operators who were running CD bootlegging facilities out of their garages, or were providing pubs in the North East with unlicensed jukeboxes, small groups of small-time criminals who could be easily targeted, arrested by the police, and locked up in dark damp cells to rot for eternity (well, given a sizable fine and six months community service). Targeting these pirates was so much easier, and a lot less politically sensitive.

Of course, such pirates still exist, and record label trade body the BPI and recording rights society PPL have just scored a result in their efforts to shut down one such shoddy operation, an unlicensed jukebox company operating from the Newcastle area called Access All Areas. The three men behind the operation, Malcolm Wylie, his son Peter Wylie (not The Might Wah frontman) and William Ross, were arrested in 2008 and found guilty of copyright crimes this week.

A joint investigation by Gateshead Trading Standards, BPI and PPL found evidence to suggest the three men had made profits of hundreds of thousands of pounds during the seven years they ran the unlicensed jukebox operation. The defendant's corporate literature claimed they were licensed by both PPL and the relevant bit of PRS, but no such licences had ever been obtained.

Welcoming the conviction of the three men this week, PPL's Richard Stewart told CMU: "This is the first joint PPL/BPI prosecution and I am very pleased to see it come to a successful conclusion with the conviction of all three defendants. The defendants supplied illegal audio/video jukeboxes to the leisure industry since 2001 and in this period had a turnover of over £3 million. It was quite apparent from the prosecution evidence that they traded through a series of phoenix companies defrauding not only our members of many hundreds of thousands of pounds of revenue but also deceiving scores of companies across the UK including hundreds of licensees who in good faith paid substantial sums to the fraudsters for what they were led to believe was a fully licensed system".

The three men will be sentenced in early July.

Classic rock DVD experts Eagle Rock Entertainment have announced a deal with the Rolling Stones, which will see them release two DVDs with the band later this year.

The first will be a documentary called 'Stones In Exile' which will document the making of the 1972 Stones album 'Exile On Main Street', and which will be released alongside a BBC airing of a version of the doc and a re-release of the album. The second is 'Ladies And Gentlemen... The Rolling Stones', the band's concert movie also originally from 1972, which has now been fully restored from the original film.

Eagle Rock's Geoff Kempin told CMU: "We are delighted to add a band of such unparalleled calibre as the Rolling Stones to our catalogue and are delighted to be bring our customers a pair of such important and high quality titles".

We've had The Priests and The Soldiers, you've probably already joked: "What next, the bloody Fishermen?!" Well, yes. A group of ten fishermen from Cornwall, who call themselves The Fisherman's Friends, have signed a deal with Universal and will be releasing their debut album next month.

The group were apparently spotted singing in a Cornish pub by producer Rupert Christie, who swiftly whisked them away to Abbey Road to record the album, which is due for release on 26 Apr.

What next, the bloody Farmers?! (Major label execs, please forget I wrote that).

Yeah, with a headline like that it's always going to be 50/50. Which Minogue will it be? Will it be Kylie? Or will it be Dannii? Which sister is currently hard at work writing down all the exciting and amazing things that have happened in her life? Which would you prefer? Would you prefer to hear about Kylie's rise from soap star to pop royalty. Or would you... oh, bollocks, I can't keep this up. It's Dannii, okay? Dannii Minogue is writing a book.

Having started out, like her sister, acting in Australian soaps as a child, Dannii also made a less successful go of being a pop singer and more recently worked as a judge on 'X-Factor' and 'Australia's Got Talent'. She's currently expecting her first child.

Minogue (Dannii), says: "'I feel as though a whole life chapter is closing, and a new exciting one is unfolding. It feels like the right time to put pen to paper to account my first 38 years. It's important to me that the book contains all the ups and downs of my life so far, with many stories untold".

Swedish experimental ambient piano outfit Library Tapes will play a London show at The Enterprise in Camden on 15 Apr, with support from Woodchucker.

Tickets are on sale now from WeGotTickets. Have a listen here: www.myspace.com/librarytapes

A twelve week cultural festival will take place in the run up to the 2012 London Olympics, involving the BBC and various promoters from across the music business, it has been confirmed.

The festival, currently dubbed Festival 2012, will feature gigs in cities across the UK, as well as fashion and theatre related activities. There will also be four major events to mark the start and end of both the main Olympic Games and the Paralympics, plus there'll be a River Of Music staged on barges on the Thames from 21-22 Jun.

Sounds expensive. Sorry, I mean, sounds exciting.

Time is nearly up to buy earlybird tickets for this year's Great Escape. Until midnight tonight, weekend festival tickets, which get you in to see all the bands plus give you access to outdoor gigs, afternoon shows, club nights, after parties and lots more, will cost you just £45. Bargain.

Get along to www.escapegreat.com as swiftly as you can to book.

Muse have confirmed the previously reported rumour that they will perform a low-key show at this week's SxSW festival. The band will play a MySpace Music-sponsored show at Stubb's Bar-B-Que in Austin, Texas this Sunday (11 Mar), with support from Metric.

For those of you either not in Texas or unable to get into the 1800 capacity show, the band are, as previously announced, one of this year's Glastonbury headliners and will play two shows at Wembley Stadium in September.

GLASTONBURY, Worthy Farm, Somerset, 23-27 Jun: Glastonbury have announced the return of the 'pop and politics' tent known as Leftfield, which is set to be curated by Billy Bragg. www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk

LIVE AT LEEDS, various venues, Leeds, 30 Apr-2 May: Wild Beasts and The Cheek head up the latest bunch of acts announced for Live At Leeds. Other new additions include Eliza Doolittle, Kill It Kid, Sound Of Guns, Blood Red Shoes, The Boy Who Trapped The Sun and We Have Band. www.liveatleeds.com

SOLFEST FESTIVAL, Tarnside Farm, Silloth, West Cumbria, 27-29 Aug: The Magic Numbers, Alabama 3 and The Wailers are amongst the latest acts announced to play the main stage at Solfest. Other acts confirmed for the main stage line-up include From The Jam, New Young Pony Club, The Mummers, The Destroyers and Goldheart Assembly. www.solwayfestival.co.uk

ITV's top online man Ben McOwen Wilson has told the Guardian's Changing Media Summit that the broadcaster has no plans to make its content available to video-on-demand services like Hulu, YouTube, SeeSaw or the new online-telly set up launched by Microsoft's MSN division last week. The struggling commercial broadcaster would rather build an audience for their own ITV Player.

Yeah, they just don't get it, do they? It seems the company who bought Friends Reunited three years after everyone had stopped using it still don't understand the internet. Last year's sale of the early-to-market but limited-interest social networking enterprise to Scottish media firm DC Thomson has just been OKed by the UK competition regulator, ITV will get £25 million for a website it bought for £120 million.

ITV's continued refusal to engage with the likes of YouTube and SeeSaw, unlike pretty much all their TV industry rivals, and instead insisting that their online future will be exclusively based around their woefully inferior ITV Player, tells you all you need to know about the third channel broadcaster - it's still horribly out of its depth in the digital world. One can only hope new boss Adam Crozier can kick some arse (and issue some senior-level P45s) and bring ITV into the 21st century.

According to the Guardian, McOwen Wilson told their media conference in London this week: "We have no plans at present to do any deals with YouTube. We are following an ITV Player-led solution because we want to push our own platform as hard as we can. We enjoyed 180% growth in terms of usership of ITV Player last year. Hulu is a major success in the US but the UK TV market is a different place".

German entertainment magazine NEON has issued an apology after it published a fabricated interview with Beyonce Knowles earlier this year. Apparently they didn't initially think it was odd that the singer, who is famously tight-lipped about details of her marriage to Jay-Z, would suddenly admit to having a pre-nuptial agreement, reveal she is keeping her desire to have children secret from her husband, and claim that he's a bit of a misogynist.

In a statement, the magazine said: "We do have serious doubts in the truth of many statements of the interview of Ms Beyonce Knowles published in NEON, issue January 2010The article was written by the freelancer Ingo Mecek. The editors-in-chief have confronted Ingo Mocek with these doubts. Ingo Mocek was not able to verify certain statements, particularly the statements regarding a marriage contract of Ms Knowles. Therefore, we assume that the interview did not take place as claimed by Ingo Mocek".

It continued: "NEON dissociates itself from the content of the interview with Ms Knowles. NEON subscribes to a high level standard of truthful journalism. Since Ingo Mocek has violated these standards severely, NEON has terminated all relationships with him with immediate effect.We sincerely apologize to Ms Knowles and her management for all personal inconvenience that may have arisen due to the publication of this interview".

When BBC boss Mark 'Tommo' Thompson recently announced he was axing his company's most credible music service 6music, he promised that some of the digital station's more interesting programmes would be moved to other BBC stations. We assumed that meant 6 shows would be dropped into graveyard slots on Radio 2, not the untouchable 'Archers' slot on BBC Radio 4. But that very idea was put to the test this week when three minutes of the music station was aired in place of Radio 4's daily soap opera.

Of course, this was more BBC cock-up than BBC strategy, though it can be hard to tell the two apart at times. Yes, a technical error meant that 6music's output crashed over Radio 4's early evening news bulletin and the first part of that night's 'Archers' episode. There was speculation on Twitter that pro-6 campaigners on the inside of the Beeb had taken part in some sort of sabotage, but BBC bosses denied that was so, and it does seem to have been, instead, a timely technical error.

A BBC spokesman said: ''Owing to a technical error, Radio 4 transmission was lost for approximately three minutes this evening shortly after 7pm. We are very sorry to listeners for loss of service. Transmission was interrupted for just under two and a half minutes at 19.01. An announcement was made on-air that 'The Archers' programme can be heard again at 2pm Friday 19 Mar and is available on iPlayer for the next seven days".

You can hear the glorious cock-up on the Radio Fail website.