Dick of the Week Alert! EMI Records.

Is there anyone left on the planet that the major-label music industry hasn't pissed off yet? Latest victims: sports fans. From ABC Sports...

Giant music publishing company EMI has threatened legal action against Australian sporting fans group The Fanatics.

EMI says The Fanatics' Ashes songbook breached copyright because it included altered lyrics to songs such as Go West by the Village People and Daydream Believer by The Monkees.

I mean, really, can you even apply copyright to 'altered lyrics'? Especially ones as good as these (sing to the tune of Daydream Believer)...

Cheer up Michael Vaughan,
How bad must it be,
To a be a poor pommie whinger,
And you're watching on TV?

Brilliant.

Fanatics founder Warren Livingstone was equally baffled by EMI's actions, and said the group had removed the songs from its website and was considering what to do with 100,000 booklets that have already printed.

We need to work out whether we have to shred these or whether we can in fact hand them out outside the ground. We're giving them out for free so it's a little bit astounding actually. We're just a supporter group, we're just trying to have a little bit of fun and so to have this action from EMI seems pretty heavy-handed.

Too right. What next, suing Liverpool supporters for singing "Ferry Cross the Mersey"? EMI - Dicks of the Week? Stong contenders so far.

UPDATE: EMI are still dicks, but at least they're backing down in this instance. The Fanatics songbook apparently isn't in breach of copyright (as we suspected), and is now available for download from the Fanatics website. Nice one.