Friday’s Endnotes – 12/07/18

By , December 07, 2018.

U.S. Instrument of Accession to the Berne Convention – An Untold Story — In one sense, the U.S. joins a treaty when the President signs it and the Senate concurs. But in a strictly formal sense, joining a treaty requires depositing the accession instrument with the treaty body—in the case of the Berne Convention, the oldest and most widely adopted copyright treaty, that meant physically taking a signed document on a plane to Switzerland. Michael Remington, who carried the actual document, recounts the previously untold story.

Four Executives of the Year Will Be Honored at Billboard’s Women in Music Event — Billboard honored Danielle Aguirre, executive vp/general counsel for the National Music Publishers Association; Dina LaPolt, founder/owner of LaPolt Law, who serves as legal counsel to the Songwriters of North America; Jacqueline Charlesworth, of counsel, Covington & Burling; and Susan Genco, co-president, Azoff MSG Entertainment. All four were instrumental in creating and passing the Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act.

Quality digital content can’t break through sea of online garbage — Axios‘ Sara Fischer reports on how “Tech platforms have littered the media universe with crap — stolen ideas, pirated video, plagiarized text, manipulated content, and fake news.” Who knew there was a downside to watering down copyright protections?

The fight to save music online — UK Music, a music industry association, has published a handy guide to understanding Article 13 of the proposed EU Copyright Directive. Article 13 clarifies the copyright liability of user-uploaded content platforms, like YouTube, and it has attracted significant attention.

New Documents Show that Facebook has Never Deserved Your Trust — The EFF examines the documents, which allege troubling instances of the social media platform undermining user privacy and playing hardball with competitors. According to CNN, the documents were obtained and published by a UK parliamentary committee, one of those pesky “Governments of the Industrial World.”

Friday’s Endnotes – 04/01/11

By , April 01, 2011.

I suspect that by the time this post appears, there will be many April Fool’s jokes fluttering around the Internet, but rest assured, all the following links are to actual stories.

Game on! Viacom, YouTube briefs on file in 2nd Circuit — The popular video site submitted its appellate brief yesterday. Shades of Gray has links to the document, as well as Viacom’s opening brief and the numerous amici briefs filed in the case.

There is no two without three: Bill C-32 is Dead — Late last week, the Canadian government dissolved, along with the latest attempt at reforming the country’s copyright law. IP Osgoode takes a look at the decade-plus effort to modernize the Copyright Act and implement changes needed under WIPO treaties, as well as what the future will hold after elections.

The Value of the Village — The Copyright Alliance blog discusses self-publishing superstar Amanda Hocking’s recent move to traditional publishing. “Having a variety of options as an emerging artist is great. But just as Ms. Hocking discovered, there is more to being a successful novelist than just the writing.”

Music Recommendation Engines Not Satisfying Fans — A new survey shows that music recommendation still has a long way to go before it’s ready for prime time. That much hasn’t changed since 2009, when researcher Paul Lamere gave his excellent talk on why music recommendation systems aren’t working, Help! My iPod thinks I’m emo. Meanwhile, MIT’s Technology Review reports on Myna, the music recommendation engine currently in development by the commissioners of the survey. I thought this part was particularly funny: “Music discovery, after all, is littered with media that aggregate the opinions of insufferable young people.”

The P2P Rebellion: Are Copyrights the Vietnam of Today’s Youth — The always entertaining Moses Avalon compares the P2P crusade against “Big Content” to the 60’s youth opposition to the Vietnam War. One notable difference between the two: “At the heart of the anti-war movement was the hope to stop bloodshed. Hippies rebelled against something serious– the draft. What is today’s P2P “sharing” movement about? Free tunes? Cheaper flicks?”

$100k appraisal for single page of original art from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight comic book — Heritage Auctions estimates the iconic image from one of comicdom’s most esteemed series will bring over six figures at auction. The full image of the page is quite amazing to see if, like me, you consider yourself a fan of comics. I especially like the inkwork of Klaus Janson and found this interesting interview of him for Comic Foundry magazine from 2005, in which he expounds on art, storytelling, and the comics industry over the past several decades.

Billboard’s Twitter 140 — Finally, for all of you on Twitter, Billboard.biz shares its list of some of the most influential and informative Tweeters in the music industry.

If you have any stories, articles, blog posts, upcoming events, or anything else you think would interest Copyhype readers, drop me a line on the contact page. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!