Spotify US Premium Service Hands-On — Have you guys heard about this thing called Spotify? Apparently it’s this service where you can listen to music, and it just became available in the US yesterday. I’m having a difficult time finding any news about it though… I kid, I kid. I’d love to hear thoughts from anyone who has tried it out so far.
Putting Online Piracy in Dry Dock — The LA Times offers this editorial on the recently announced Copyright Alert System, calling it a “good step and worthy of further efforts.” “It won’t convert every illegal downloader into a paying customer, but it’s a start.”
America’s Artists Are the Ultimate Entrepreneurs: Let’s Give Them a Hand — Arts+Labs co-chairman Mark McKinnon calls independent creators the “ultimate start-ups.” He takes a look at several examples of those working on new business models online. Says McKinnon, the least we can do is work to safeguard their intellectual property to help them succeed.
“Do we come to bury copyright — or to praise it?” Debate report — Notes from The Copyright Debate, organized by the 1709 Blog and IPKat, held this past Tuesday in London. It appears that Team Copyright won.
Criminal Use is not Fair Use — “Copyright law is a tapestry of rights and exceptions, and its effective nurturing and implementation relies just as heavily on appropriate evaluation of defenses (such as fair use) as it does on strong enforcement against harmful infringements. No one in the creative community denies that, and artists and creators would be the first to suffer if the fair use doctrine were rolled back.”
A Royal Flush: The Poker Prof and his Full House React to the Protect IP Act–Part 1 — Chris Castle responds to the letter written by a number of law professors opposing the Protect IP Act. Also check out part 2, “Mommy, Mommy, Johnny is Breaking the Internet!”: The Poker Prof and his Full House React to the Protect IP Act
PROTECT IP Act Now Counts A Quarter of the Senate as Cosponsors — The MPAA notes that 25 members of the Senate from both parties are currently signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. They represent states from New England to the southwest, both large and small. Creators should feel heartened knowing so many in government recognize the importance of protecting their rights.
Setting the Record Straight on PROTECT IP — Many critiques of the Protect IP Act mischaracterize the provisions of the bill, either inadvertently or deliberately. Sandra Aistars takes a look at one such critique, addressing the false assertions that it makes.
What’s next for copyright reform in Canada? — That’s the question Barry Sookman answers. Remarks made at the first annual general meeting of Music Canada shed some light on the direction the next attempt at reforming Canada’s copyright law might take. MP Dean Del Mastro predicts a new bill will be in force as early as December.
Google’s Anti-Piracy Filter Is Quite Effective — TorrentFreak is surprised to learn that, contrary to its predictions, Google’s simple act of removing certain piracy-related terms from its Autocomplete feature has resulted in a dramatic drop in searches for pirated content.
Why the Sale of Hulu Is (Really) Good News for Content Businesses — Ad Age Digital’s Reed Phillips is optimistic that the pending sale of Hulu will be good for both TV producers and viewers. He says, “despite the fuzzy outlook on Hulu’s special access to new broadcast content, several buyers must be licking their chops because Hulu has high-quality content and has yet to unlock its full potential. Hulu is just now approaching 1 million paid customers. With the wider distribution that a new owner such as Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook or Microsoft could bring, Hulu’s customer base could be many times larger.”
UltraViolet Moves Ahead For Fall Launch, Adds Blockbuster And Vudu — Ultraviolet is a cloud-based service that seeks to make it far easier for consumers to watch digital video they purchase on different platforms. The consortium already includes over 70 movie studios, distribution platforms, and tech companies, and continues to add more as it plans for a fall roll-out.
Being a Gentleman in the Age of the Internet: 6 Ways to Bring Civility Online — Finally, the Art of Manliness (“a blog dedicated to uncovering the lost art of being a man”) looks at ways to cultivate civility online. Copyright debates are far from immune to ugly rhetoric, name-calling, and worse.
I signed up for the premium Spotify account yesterday. While I understand that there have been similar services here in the US for a while, I have to say that I am blown away by the all-encompassing nature of what I am using here.
It’s impossible to not think I am living in the future at the moment. It connects with everything. It has any piece of music I can think of. It’s as easy to use as it could possibly be. And it looks great. What a wonderful time we live in.
“It appears that Team Copyright won.”
He he! =))
Remind me what the contest was again?
It was a debate. At the conclusion many fence-sitters had been swayed toward ‘praising’ copyright.
Frankly, I’m not surprised. Copyright abolition is pretty scary, and publishing corporations’ offers of help and support to poor struggling artists sure sound nice.
What equivalent proportion of the 18 million french pirates do you think were represented in the audience at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (2nd largest law firm in the world)?
Those interested in copyright tend to be about 100:1 for it vs against it in my experience.
It’s not the ‘abstainers->praisers’ that copyright supporters should congratulate themselves for (they’re easy), but ‘buriers->praisers’ and preventing any ‘abstainers->buriers’. Note that the audience was not asked a show of hands of those who had swung from ‘abstention/praise->bury’.
That more people learn to support copyright every day can mask the increasing numbers of former supporters who become disillusioned.
So, Terry, do you want to hype and praise copyright, or do you want to understand its injustice and the reasons for its inexorable demise?
I contemplate the reasons for the inexorable demise of Crosbie Fitch’s inane blather on this blog.
I read the account of Crosbie Fitch’s contributions to the debate. Curiously, he seems to have learned absolutely nothing from the history lessons I have given him in this column.