Update: Major label layoffs

Cuts at Island Def Jam are underway. Among the casualties: Sarah "Ultragrrl" Lewittin’s vanity label, Stolen Transmission, and A&R execs Paul Pontius and Rob Stevenson, who were responsible for signing some of the label’s most successful rock acts, including Fall Out Boy and The Killers. A dozen or so people, representing approximately 6 percent of the label’s staff, were let go, including "anyone in A & R that doesn’t have an urban act," said one insider.  As for Geffen’s future? We originally reported that staff cuts could be as dramatic at 80 percent, but we’re now told that number was exaggerated. Geffen, it seems, will remain a stand-alone imprint, but much of its creative staff may be siphoned off to other areas of the Interscope empire. (Jimmy Iovine’s got his work cut out for him, that’s for sure.) At Columbia, layoffs may go down this Friday.