In a sign that Stop Murder Music's campaign is spreading beyond it's UK origins, iTunes Canada recently announced that it has removed several violent anti-gay dancehall reggae tracks from it's online store.

Tracks by Elephant Man, Buju Banton, and TOK are no longer available on the site, nor are the albums that included the tracks. Other albums from the artists are still included though.

Akim Larcher, founder of Stop Murder Music, praised the action and pre-empted arguments that iTunes was censoring artistic expression. He was quoted stating that "iTunes is exercising its corporate responsibility by pulling this murder music and raising the bar for other retailers and distributors to do the same."

Other sources planned to pressure HMV, Amazon, and other music retailers to follow suit.

National Public Radio presents more information from SMM on their podcast at http://www.wnyc.org/news/arti cles/ 96897 . The podcast includes a broad discussion of the topic, including Jamaican's conservative culture and Rastafarian spirituality's connectsion to the Old Testament.

In other recent events, Red Stripe beer pulled it's sponsorship of Reggae Sumfest and Sting (2 of the leading international reggae festivals) and Reggae Carifest in New York City lost it's radio sponsors due to homophobic performers. In what looks like a response to their issues, Carifest is planning an AIDS Awareness concert in July.