An older offtopic story, but very transmedia and therefore cutting-edge.
S.B.A. Music Publishing (rus), the Russian arm of the EMI Group, filed a lawsuit against Sergei Minaev, author of the bestselling Duhless (Spiritless) book about the plight of Russia's middle management, for alleged "playback and distribution of the Group's compositions". By playback they mean three printed quotes from Lou Reed's "Perfect Day", and The Smiths' "How Soon is Now" and "There is a Light That Never Goes Out." The music label seeks about $20K in damages. Here's the author's post in LiveJournal (rus, July 06).
Update [Nov 22 '06] Here's a write-up in English.
Speaking of books, the Cars blog complains about some very annoying product placement of Mercedes in James Patterson's Cross.
