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.
The CC article is interesting. If someone licenses someone else’s work which they didn’t have the copyright for and you use it in good faith, are you liable for copyright infringement? It seems like it would be hard to conclusively determine who is the true copyright holder in many cases, especially since copyright doesn’t require registration.