Friday’s Endnotes – 06/14/13

June 14, 2013 · · 1 comment

Time and Cost of Making an Album Case Study: NIRVANA — Justin Colletti offers an interesting look at how long and for how much it took to make three of Nirvana’s albums, and what that translates into in today’s dollars. Great for music fans, and informative for aspiring musicians looking to budget for their own recordings.

The Problem with False Creative Commons Licenses — “The issue is that for a person to put a work under a CC license, or any license, they have to be the owner of the copyright in that work. The problem is that more and more work is passed around online by people other than the copyright holder, often without permission and they often place the works they post under a CC license, regardless of whether or not they have the right to do so.”

Google in spotlight again for links to criminal websites — Ellen Seidler reports that the tech giant has come under scrutiny from Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood for failing to address the advertisement of illegal pharmacies through the site, less than two years after Google forfeited $500 million to the feds for similar conduct.

Copyright: Empowering Innovation and Creativity — MPAA CEO Chris Dodd lays out five “fundamental tenets that create the foundation of sound copyright policy” to keep in mind as Congress reviews the Copyright Act. Dodd notes, “Today, the copyright debate has grown extremely polarized. But the founders of our republic considered copyright so important to unlocking the creative and economic potential of this country that they explicitly called for its protection and promotion in our Constitution.”

NMPA: David Israelite, RIAA’s Cary Sherman Work to Mend Fences Between Publishers, Labels — Billboard’s Ed Christman reports on what could be the dawn of a new era in cooperation between record labels and publishers. During the annual meeting of the National Music Publisher’s Association this week, the heads of both the NMPA and RIAA highlighted how the two are increasingly working together to address the challenges of licensing and opportunities of new digital platforms.

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Friday’s Endnotes – 05/31/13

May 31, 2013 · · Write a comment

People Still Pirated Arrested Development Because People Pirate — It’s a common refrain. “People only turn to unauthorized sources of entertainment when authorized sources are unavailable.” But as Gizmodo points out, Netflix, which unveiled exclusive new episodes of cult phenomenon Arrested Development this weekend, was available in 4 of the top 5 countries in terms of Arrested Development piracy.

National Federation of the Blind, MPAA join forces to back book treaty — Despite efforts by copyright skeptics to derail an international treaty focused on making works more accessible to the visually impaired in order to erode copyright protections, the MPAA and the National Federation of the Blind announced yesterday that they are working together to make sure the treaty moves forward.

Google cashes in on hate videos: Internet giant puts ads alongside thousands of terror rants on YouTube — The Daily Mail reports, “Google is profiting from adverts which appear alongside vile terror videos on YouTube, it emerged last night. The Mail has found adverts for reputable companies on videos of Al Qaeda fanatics calling for jihad.”

Exclusive: Pandora Paywall Pays Off, Research Shows — Internet radio service Pandora capped the number of hours available to its free subscribers and the number of paying subscribers… increased? Good news for Pandora, though the result might cut into its argument that it needs Congress to cut the government-set license rates it pays to sound recording owners in order to remain profitable.

Did Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow Even Read the IP Commission Report? — Cory Doctorow is the worst thing to happen to Boing Boing.

Why 3D Printing Is Overhyped (I Should Know, I Do It For a Living) — For some reason, hyping 3D printing (and its projected effects on intellectual property law) has become something of a cottage industry online. Nick Allen, founder of 3D printing company 3D Print UK, says don’t believe the hype.

Yes, Silicon Valley, You Are as Exactly as Vain as They Say — “Tech’s greed is a generally thoughtless one, the greed of children who don’t realize that by hoarding toys, the rest of the class gets less—the greed that sees itself as progress, as a thrill, never as greed at all.”

Live: Google, David Lowery and the BPI talk ad-funded piracy — Musically reports on a recent panel discussion featuring David Lowery, Theo Bertrand (UK policy manager at Google), Alexandra Scott (public policy manager at the Internet Advertising Bureau in the UK), and James Barton (artist manager at The Blue Team) on the subject of brand sponsored piracy. Some provocative remarks from Google’s Betrand, including this one: “It does seem to me to be an entirely sensible way to tackle piracy… most people doing piracy are not some guy in his bedroom altruistically sharing music with his friends. It’s people making money out of piracy, and it’s big business: some of these sites have 2m visitors regularly, and they’re not doing a bad business from advertising.”

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge on Copyright Royalty Board — Two weeks ago, I noted that SCOTUSBlog had named Intercollegiate Broadcasting System v. Copyright Royalty Board, a case involving the appointment of Copyright Royalty Judges in charge of setting royalty rates for a number of compulsory licenses, including webcasting licenses, as its petition of the day. But this week, the Court denied the cert petition, leaving the DC Circuit Court’s decision to stand.

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Friday’s Endnotes – 05/03/13

May 03, 2013 · · 1 comment

Giving a Wide Berth to Artists of Cable TV — David Carr takes a look at Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution a new book by Brett Martin coming out in July. The book details the recent shift in television storytelling toward darker and highly creative dramas, embodied by such shows as the Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. It is an innovation driven not by algorithms and data centers, but by “men who typed for a living.”

MusicTank to focus on piracy site advertisers — Later this month, rock star David Lowery and Google’s UK Policy Manager Theo Bertram will discuss ad-sponsored piracy at a MusicTank Think Tank event in London. Should be very interesting.

Dear Congress: Please Consider These Points for Your Massive Copyright Overhaul… — Paul Resnikoff of Digital Music News presents what he considers are important points worthy of Congress’s attention. Though I may not necessarily agree with all of them, it is certainly a thoughtful and thought-provoking set of points.

Nigeria: Create Sound IP Policies in Nigeria, Microsoft Tells Govt — The software company chaired a discussion in Lagos last week as part of World IP Day. The article notes this remark from popular Nigerian artist Lanre Dabiri on one of the panels: “Piracy suppresses innovation! A lot goes into nurturing an idea or product to fruition. When this idea gets stolen, it means you cannot recoup the resources that went into putting your thoughts together and this is unfair to the artist or property owner.”

Second Circuit Rules Most Appropriation Art is Fair Use: Cariou v. Prince — Paul Fakler of Title 17 has a great write up on the recent appropriation art decision from the Second Circuit. Fakler does an especially good job pointing out some of the procedural corners cut by the court, a point that is concerning regardless of how you feel about the court’s ultimate outcome on the legal issues.

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Friday’s Endnotes – 04/12/13

April 12, 2013 · · 2 comments

The Purpose of Copyright? Examining the Retracted Republican Study Committee Brief — From the Bolt, an online offshoot of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, comes a look at Derek Khanna’s infamous copyright memo, and my response to it here last November.

Fair Use is Fair Game: MPAA Files Amicus Brief in NFL Intellectual Property Case — Earlier this week, the MPAA filed a brief in support of a filmmaker’s fair use of a Baltimore Ravens logo appearing on screen. That the MPAA would defend fair use in court surprised only those who have become convinced of their own caricature of the organization as being “copyright maximalists.”

MPAA and Fair Use: A Quick History — Ben Sheffner at the MPAA responds to “the suggestion in some of the commentary about our brief that the MPAA and its members somehow “oppose” fair use, or that our embrace of it in the Baltimore Ravens brief represents a  shift in our position. That’s simply false, a notion that doesn’t survive even a casual encounter with the facts. Our members rely on the fair use doctrine every day when producing their movies and television shows – especially those that involve parody and news and documentary programs. And it’s routine for our members to raise fair use – successfully – in court.”

WNET v. Aereo: Split Appellate Panel Rules That “Remote-Storage DVR” Decision Insulates Provider of Internet Streaming from Liability — Eleanor Lackman examines the recent Second Circuit decision involving internet TV rebroadcaster Aereo. Great analysis and timely, as a similar case with a different outcome (Aereokiller) is set to appear in front of the Ninth Circuit.

Mossoff on Copyright & Innovation in Scholarly Publishing — The Legal Theory Blog highlights Adam Mossoff’s latest, must-read article that details the investment and innovation that scholarly publishers provide to help disseminate academic works.

Jurassic Park is Frightening in the Dark — The best dinosaur movie ever is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a theatrical release in 3D. While the film incorporated stunning advances in computer generated imagery, it also featured equally groundbreaking “real-life” props by Stan Winston Studios. Here is a collection of videos showing a behind the scenes look at how some of these props were built.

Google’s Design Defect of Moral Hazard — “Just like the iconic exploding gas tank, it is clear that Google’s current product creates an unsafe environment for consumers.  From illegal drugs, to human trafficking to copyright infringement, Google is the leading source of criminals making their wares available to unsuspecting consumers. Not only does Google’s advertising of legitimate brands on illegal sites create the veneer of respectability, Google holds itself out to the public as a reliable source of information.”

 — Copyright infringement? Or just an incredibly inefficient way to print articles from the web?

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Friday’s Endnotes – 02/22/13

February 22, 2013 · · Comments Off

 But ultimately, it just seemed like having a potentially infinite universe of every album ever released cheapened the inherent value of any single album.

— What Happened to Diverse (and Other Questions Answered)?

Hollywood and Censorship in China — The New Yorker revisits MPAA CEO Chris Dodd’s remarks last week at the National Press Club regarding the explosive growth of US films in China, and the at-times contradictory relationship filmmakers have with Chinese censors.

I’m an Indie Music Publisher. Please Don’t Let Them Put Me Out of Business… — Monica Corton of indie music publisher Next Decade Entertainment responds to the article by the Consumer Electronics Association’s Gary Shapiro a few weeks back where he complained about how tech companies like Google are outgunned by songwriters in Congress.

Google’s Move to Demote Pirate Sites – Is It Really Working? — Nope.

Congress Launches Creative Rights Caucus — A very promising move from Reps. Chu (D-CA) and Coble (R-NC). “The launch of this Caucus comes at a critical time for songwriters and composers. Businesses that want to use copyrighted works without paying rightsholders fair compensation have waged a clever, well-funded campaign to delegitimize copyright protection in the public’s eyes. The Creative Rights Caucus could help bring much needed balance to the copyright debate by educating the public, and Congress, that copyright protection serves to protect the human rights, First Amendment rights, and property rights of individual creators, like songwriters and composers.”

How Your Harlem Shake Videos Make Money for the Original Artist — By now, you may have seen the latest internet fad, the Harlem Shake video, which is either really popular right now or so over, depending on how hip you are. Time reports on how recording artist Baauer and record label Mad Decent have been able to profit off the thousands of user-generated videos on YouTube featuring the song because of Google’s Content ID program.

The Vine Should Suffer, Not the Artist — David Newhoff takes on the popular conceit that good artists should suffer, as well as the role of copyright as incentive. “Opponents of copyright like to say that art existed before copyright, and this is technically true and functionally irrelevant. Copyright is not the reason the artist creates, and it by no means guarantees him a career any more than the right to pursue happiness guarantees happiness. But we could say that happiness existed before 1776. So, why is the right to seek this state of being that has no universal definition codified into American law and culture?  Whatever your individual answer may be, you would be on the road to understanding the relationship between the artist and money as well as the role of copyright as incentive.”

Honoring Our Founders, Remembering Our Principles — Former U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack pens this great Presidents’ Day piece on the importance of securing the rights of artists and creators. “Like private property rights, intellectual property preserves an individual’s right to the fruits of their intellectual labor. Our founding fathers considered intellectual property to be a fundamental component of property rights – so much so that they specifically protected intellectual property in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, empowering Congress ‘to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.’”

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Friday’s Endnotes – 01/11/13

January 11, 2013 · · 2 comments

Paying Attention to the Echo Chamber at CES Copyright Panel Discussion — David Newhoff dissects the incredibly one-sided copyright panel held this past week during CES, paying particular attention to EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow’s remark that “The Pirate Bay is speech.”

Guess who’ll grab Facebook Sponsored Stories payout? (Hint: Not the victims) — Andrew Orlowski looks at the latest example of the current trend of tech companies paying out class-action settlement awards to the organizations that they fund anyway. This time, it’s Facebook, in connection with litigation over its “Sponsored Stories”, and the beneficiaries include the usual suspects, as well as, says Orlowski, “WiredSafety.org (whose founder serves on Facebook’s Cybersafety Advisory Board).”

Youtube Allows Pirate “Partners” to Profit From Illegal Movie Uploads — Since YouTube lifted its 20 minute limit on videos that could be uploaded, it has been easier to find full-length films on the site… and, as Ellen Seidler notes here, easier for people without rights to full-length films to upload and monetize them. Seidler floats the suggestion of some sort of verification process for videos over 20 minutes in length.

RapidShare: Traffic and Piracy Dipped After New Business Model Kicked In — Last year, filelocker RapidShare unveiled a set of changes to reduce copyright infringement through its service, along with an “anti-piracy manifesto” calling on similar services to join it. Fastforward to today and, according to Torrentfreak, the service has experienced both a drop in traffic and infringement. I found the following remark from the article particularly interesting: “The flipside in the short-term is that RapidShare could lose a bit more traffic, at least until it manages it balance the loss of traditional file-sharing traffic with its new image as an antipiracy-motivated Dropbox-style cloud-hosting business.” Kudos to Torrentfreak for admitting there is a distinction between legitimate cloud storage providers like Dropbox and those cyberlockers that are set up primarily to profit off infringement.

Levi’s Was First. Now, Several Major Brands Want to Pull Their Pirate Site Advertising… — Digital Music News reports that since the USC Annenberg Innovation Labs released its report on ad-funded piracy, “numerous brands” have contacted the report’s authors seeking advice on preventing their brands from showing up on sites with widescale infringement.

Reading Between The Lines Google Tells The Truth On Ad Supported Piracy, Now Let Markets Do Their Work — Speaking of the USC ad report, the Trichordist does an excellent job dissecting Google’s “elegant non-denial” made in response to the report’s conclusion that Google ads provide a major source of revenue for online piracy.

Hotfile, Megaupload, and the Future of Copyright on the Internet: What can Cyberlockers Tell Us About DMCA Reform? — Finally, have a look at third-year law student Ross Drath’s recent paper on secondary liability and cyberlockers. Drath examines issues that are currently facing courts in two major cyberlocker cases and then offers some recommendations for increasing both certainty and effectiveness in protecting copyrighted works online. Says Drath, “It would be naïve to expect that Internet piracy could somehow be completely eradicated. Like alcohol and drug abuse, these practices will surely continue regardless of the level at which they are regulated. But we can still do better than we are doing right now.”

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Copyhype: A look ahead to 2013

January 02, 2013 · · Comments Off

Welcome back! I hope all my readers have had a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year. Now that the holidays are over, Copyhype is back to its regularly scheduled programming. I wanted to start things off with a quick look back at 2012 and a quick look forward at 2013.

The following were the most read Copyhype stories during 2012:

Hey, what happened to Wikipedia? (An intro to SOPA)

Was Hollywood built on piracy?

7 mythbusting copyright law articles

Though not the most popular, I personally enjoyed writing the following posts in 2012 and don’t mind highlighting them once more:

The genius of the Hunger Games

Myths from the birth of US copyright part 1 and part 2

Finally, a special shout out to my guest contributors, and some of their wonderful posts, including:

Devlin Hartline’s Nimmer changes his tune: ‘Making available’ is distribution

And Chris Ruen’s The Net Fail Part 1 and Part 2.

A Preview of 2013

The next year already promises plenty of legal and legislative developments in copyright law, a few of which I want to highlight.

The Supreme Court will release its opinion in first sale case Kirtsaeng v John Wiley. I’ve written about Kirtsaeng before, see also More on Kirtsaeng v John Wiley, What Kirtsaeng Won’t Answer, The United States “Odd” Kirtsaeng Argument, and Overturn Quality King? The Court is likely to release its opinion sometime between February and June.

The popular SCOTUSBlog does not include any other copyright-related petitions on its petitions to watch list (the list has a strong track record of selecting which petitions are granted by the Court), but there are several copyright petitions I’ll be keeping an eye on, including the one in Jammie Thomas-Rasset v Capitol Records, dealing with due process review of statutory damages, and Library of Congress v Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, which involved an Appointments Clause challenge to Copyright Royalty Judges (though a cert petition there has not been filed yet). Check out my most recent posts on these lawsuits: End of the Road for Jammie Thomas-Rasset? and Copyright Royalty Board Unconstitutional.

In the lower courts, a group of cases involving broadcast television retransmission and the impact of the Second Circuit’s 2008 Cablevision decision are wending their way through the judicial system. Leading the pack is Aereo, where oral arguments were heard in front of the Second Circuit late last November for an appeal of the district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction, meaning a decision could come later this year. See Aereo takes its tiny antennas to Opposite Town. And just last week, on the west coast, a federal district court came to the opposite conclusion and granted a preliminary injunction against FilmOn, a similar service.

Meanwhile, a set of cases against Dish Networks relating to its Autohop service are in their early stages. The furthest along involves Fox, which a few weeks ago appealed the denial of a preliminary injunction by a New York district court. I wrote a background on these cases at Skipping commercials isn’t infringement, but copying is.

A lawsuit against YouTube for widespread infringement during its early days is back at the district court level, after the Second Circuit ruled on a number of DMCA issues this past April. Most recently, YouTube moved for summary judgment against the various plaintiffs.

Little has been said about Hotfile so far, but developments should be expected this year in the lawsuit filed by major motion picture studios against the filelocker. A ruling on dispositive motions is currently pending in a Florida district court, and a trial date is tentatively scheduled for March. See Copyright Liability for Filelockers: Disney v Hotfile.

On the criminal side, expect slow movement on the US case against Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. An extradition hearing has recently been pushed back to no earlier than August 2013. My last post on this topic came last July in a Megaupload Megaupdate. Be sure to check out TorrentFreak for breaking coverage of every single thing Dotcom tweets.

In Congress, it would appear that the major issue this next year will be royalty rates for webcasting. The next ratesetting proceeding at the Copyright Royalty Board, to set rates for 2015-2020, is fast approaching. Last fall, Pandora backed the Internet Radio Fairness Act, which, among other things, would have changed the standard used by the Board to set rates. At a hearing in November, the House Judiciary Committee appeared skeptical of the bill’s approach, but also expressed a desire to take a broader look at the issue of digital performance of sound recording royalties, seemingly frustrated that the compulsory licensing scheme has required so much legislative attention over the past decade. Some members of the Committee also hinted that the issue of a broader public performance right for sound recording owners was on the table, something that has eluded such copyright owners for decades. See A Brief History of Webcaster Royalties for more background.

What else can we expect from Congress? There have been rumblings of a renewed push for orphan works legislation, and recent events from several conservative-leaning institutions hint at increased attention toward general copyright reform — aided by current European Commission efforts to modernize copyright law.

Much more is obviously in store for the upcoming year. Don’t forget that you can subscribe to Copyhype’s RSS Feed, sign up for email updates, follow me on Twitter, or Like me on Facebook. Here’s to 2013!

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Friday’s Endnotes – 12/21/12

December 21, 2012 · · 3 comments

I want to thank all my readers for another great year of Copyhype and wish everyone the best of the holiday season! I will likely not be blogging over the holidays, but I’ll be back afterward. That is, unless the archaeologists who misinterpreted Mayan writings were correct that the world will end today.

2012 Music Memoriam — Paul Lamere has compiled a list of all the musicians the world has lost in 2012. They will be missed.

The Right Decision: A Treaty Spurned — In international news, last week the US withdrew from a proposed global telecommunications treaty being drafted at the UN. Here is a brief statement from the RIAA supporting that move. “Vesting authority in the ITU, however, is not the solution, particularly given the overt interest of some countries to regulate the Internet in order to censor political speech or to otherwise limit the legitimate expression of views.”

Down by Law: The Year Downloading Took a Dive — SPIN Magazine notes that 2012 continued the recent declining trend of unauthorized downloading, due to a combination of more effective legal enforcement and the development of legitimate online outlets. The article does note, however, that authorized downloading seems to be in decline as well, as streaming sites grow increasingly popular.

Fox Appeals Dish Network Decision; Asks for Restraining Order Against AutoHop Service — As expected, Fox has appealed a California court’s decision to deny a preliminary injunction against Dish Network for its AutoHop service, one which Fox argues infringes on its copyright. The Hollywood Reporter has the full story, as well as a copy of Fox’s opening brief on appeal.

IP and Instagram–a Teaching Moment Perhaps? — The internet was abuzz earlier this week when popular photo sharing site Instagram implemented changes in its terms of service that raised concerns about what it would be able to do with users’ photos. Instagram has since backed off in response to the outcry, but the reaction has led Ellen Seidler to wonder if this would lead to increased recognition of the importance of copyright. Seidler notes that one comment, saying “My photos will not sell without my knowledge and compensation.  I spend time on my pictures” is “essentially what content creators have been saying for a long time in rebuttal to claims that online piracy is OK.”

High Volume Of Google’s Copyright Removal Requests Reveals Magnitude Of Piracy Problem, Onerous Burden On Creators — CreativeAmerica on Google’s latest stats, showing it removes over 2.5 million links to infringing content a week: “Google clearly recognizes how onerous the processing of removal requests is for them, but what about the content creators and owners who now spend significant resources and countless hours monitoring Google search results for illegal links to their stolen creative works – only to have another one pop up again? What about independent or up-and-coming filmmakers who don’t have the means to make sure stolen copies of their work are promptly removed?”

It’s Time for Artists to Fight Piracy as Vigorously as They’ve Challenged Pandora — “This is why it’s time for artists to band together to set the story straight. Don’t leave it to the few brave enough to speak strongly on the matter. There needs to be a large, coordinated effort by bands big and small to tell their story–to sign a letter to fans explaining how devastating piracy is to their ability to make music for a living (or at all).”

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Friday’s Endnotes – 11/30/12

November 30, 2012 · · 1 comment

Music Licensing Takes Center Stage at Congressional Hearing — On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on music licensing and the Internet Radio Fairness Act. At the risk of shameless self-promotion, I have a recap of the hearing over at the Copyright Alliance’s Idea/Expression blog.

Copyright Policy and Economic Doctrines— Robert D. Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation offers this fascinating paper looking at the influence of differing economic doctrines on copyright discussions. “Views on copyright policy are shaped in large part by the economic doctrine held by the advocate, scholar or policymaker. These differences in doctrine cause partisans to view facts differently and to focus on small segments of complex debates, leading to a breakdown of constructive dialog and much ‘talking past each other.’”

Why Are Cable Companies Forcing People to Turn to Piracy? — “Hint: they’re not. Also, they’re probably better at running their business than their many, many freelance marketing consultants among the digerati.”

Everything, Everywhere, All the Time — The Cynical Musician, responding to Rep. Chaffetz’s challenge during Wednesday’s IRFA hearings to name another successful internet radio service besides Pandora, describes why the internet only wants one of everything. “Once we have someone in this position, there’s very little other businesses can do to compete. They can’t sell something that the established power player isn’t selling, ‘coz he is. They can’t go for geographic advantage because there’s no issue of distance on the internet. They cannot hope to sell when the big guy’s closed, ‘coz he’s always open. Their only hope is either to compete on price, which is a race to the bottom (and one could argue that online everyone’s living in silt as it is) or on purchasing experience, which only becomes a factor if they can match the established player’s prices – tricky if you ain’t got the scale to make it up on.”

Deconstructing: Pandora, Spotify, Piracy, And Getting Artists Paid — Chris Ruen provides a detailed, in-depth look at IRFA and hot it fits into the context of the larger discussion of copyright’s vitality in a digital age. “The digital revolution has brought about a great many things. However, the obvious exploitation of artists — in knowing denial of their basic rights — remaining at such an industrial scale in 2012 is an embarrassment to that revolution; it is the cancer at the core of its lofty talk of “openness”; it is what child labor was to the Industrial Revolution.”

Congressional Research Service Memo on Constitutionality of IRFA Section 5— The Trichordist raised First Amendment concerns a few weeks ago about one of the lesser-known provisions of IRFA a few weeks ago, one that would create anti-trust liability for copyright owners who “impede” direct licensing efforts by internet radio services. The concerns stem from a recent lawsuit by SiriusXM against SoundExchange and A2IM that alleged just that, premised on blog posts the organizations had made explaining to artists some of the details of recent direct license offers. After an exchange with David Lowery at the Future of Music Coalition’s annual summit earlier this month, bill sponsor Senator Wyden passed along the concerns to the Congressional Research Service, which recently completed its analysis.

Music startups aren’t dead — they’re just changing — Former Last.fm exec Matthew Hawn responds to recent criticisms from Peter Kafka and David Pakman concerning the difficulties of finding sustainable business models for digital music startups. “Start-ups create the most value when they carve out new business models and transform the way we used to do things. They are less valuable (and thus less viable) when they just wringing the last drop of money out of old models. The truly great ones transform industries and build new opportunities, growing the market for everyone.”

Fair (?) dealing in Canada’s colleges — John Degen posts troubling video of members of the Writers’ Union of Canada being blocked from attending a series of seminars from the Association of Canadian Community Colleges about new “fair dealing” policies. “On November 12th, 2012, freedom meant writers were free to be removed by security, and access meant writers were allowed access only to the airport parking lot (for a fee).”

Myths and Facts about Copyright — More criticism about Derek Khanna’s recent policy brief published briefly on the Republican Study Committee’s website, this time from James DeLong at The National Review.

How Are Google’s Anti-Piracy Search Policies Working? — The answer, according to Vox Indie’s Ellen Seidler, is “not too well.”

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Friday’s Endnotes – 11/16/12

November 16, 2012 · · 1 comment

The record label is dead: long live the record label — Despite over a decade of predictions of its imminent demise, the record label still plays a vital role. As Francis Moore of the IFPI points out, from the group’s latest study, record labels worldwide invested $4.5 billion last year developing and promoting recording artists, and over 70% of unsigned musicians want to be signed to a label.

With new channel investments, YouTube becomes even more like TV — Last year, YouTube invested $100 million toward original content for its site. This week, it announced it will only continue to fund 30-40% of those channels, according to GigaOm, making its renewal rate strikingly close to that of broadcast TV.

The Real McCoy: Should Intellectual Property Rights be the New Civil Rights in America? — That’s the question Raymond Millien asks in this must-read article from IP Watchdog. Also check out part 2.

The Education of Senator Wyden: Don’t break the artists…You can’t get away with the old RIAA Booga Booga Booga or that you’ll make it up on volume — Oregon Senator Ron Wyden gave the keynote address at this week’s Future of Music Coalition Summit. As Chris Castle puts it here, “Senator Wyden’s speech writers wrote a speech for him to give in 1999. It does not play in 2012.”

Radio-active: Internet Broadcasting and Artist Compensation [VIDEO] — Also from the FOMC Summit, video of the panel discussion on the Internet Radio Fairness Act, featuring Kurt Hanson of AccuRadio.com, David Lowery of University of Georgia/Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven, Michael Petricone of the Consumer Electronics Association, Patricia Polach of the American Federation of Musicians, and Colin Rushing of SoundExchange.

A Musician’s Perspective on Pandora [PDF] — The ad appearing in Billboard Magazine this weekend, signed by 125 artists. The range of artists represented on the list is notable; many different genres and a mix of newer and more established musicians. Says the ad, “Let’s work this out as partners and continue to bring fans the great musical experience they rightly expect.”

How to avoid accidental dealings with pirates — David Hahn, writing at iMediaConnection, provides three suggestions for helping brands avoid providing revenue to illicit sites. Hahn notes, “As RTB continues to grow and scale, it’s increasingly difficult to appeal to a brand’s goodwill alone to stop appearing on torrent sites. It’s more than likely that these brand marketers have no idea their ads are supporting these sites, and they’re probably horrified when they learn of the placements.”

Why Doesn’t MTV Play Music Videos Anymore? [VIDEO] — From sketch comedy duo Brian and Maria comes this (slightly NSFW because of language) funny video explaining the lack of music on MTV.

Google’s Serial Obfuscation: Music Canada, BPI, Billboard Question Whether Google Has Really Lowered Pirate Sites Search Rankings — The Trichordist sees little evidence that search rankings for illegitimate sites have dropped since Google announced in August tweaks to its algorithm to lower the rank of sites receiving large numbers of takedown notices.

Copyright and Technology 2012 Conference — December 5th in New York City is the annual Copyright and Technology Conference. Featuring a keynote speech by Rob Levine and panel discussions on both technology and law and policy. Registration is currently open. Be sure to also check out David Newhoff’s podcast interview with conference chair Bill Rosenblatt.

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