Music News Bulletin - 30/01/09

Worldwide Independent Network (WIN) appoints Chairman and Vice Chairs
"The Board meeting of the international independent music association WIN at Midem this year marked the completion of AlisonWenham’s two-years of inaugural Presidency, which has seen this grouping extend its membership to labels and independent music trade associations in 25 countries across all continents, while providing collective impetus for the formation of Merlin (www.merlinnetwork.org) to work with the independent sector in commercial exploitation of their copyrights.

The WIN Board unanimously requested Wenham to continue to lead the organisation for the next two years. In line with firmer constitutional proposals relating to structure and funding of WIN, which were also agreed, the organisation reserved the Presidency as a titular position for a possible future appointment and Wenham was voted Chairman. The widening business and geographical focus of WIN was recognised with the appointment of four Vice Chairmen: David Vodicka, Chairman of Australian Independent Records (AIR); Mark Chung, Chairman of German independents trade body VUT; Portia Sabin, representing the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM); and Duncan McKie, President and CEO Canadian Independent Record Production Association (CIRPA)." [RecordOfTheDay]

BPI not impressed with IP Minister’s comments
"Needless to say really, record label trade body the BPI wasn't thrilled by those previously reported comments made by the UK's Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy and printed in The Times. As previously reported, Lammy told the paper that he didn't think the government could introduce laws to force ISPs to cut off persistent file sharers - as some have suggested should happen - because such measures would be wrapped up in legal problems.

But perhaps more worryingly for those who advocate new laws to force net firms to take a more proactive role in policing online piracy, he implied he wasn't completely convinced about the need for legislation to combat filesharing, telling the paper: "We can't have a system where we're talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms. People can rent a room in an hotel and leave with a bar of soap - there's a big difference between leaving with a bar of soap and leaving with the television"." [CMUDaily]

WIN reappoint Wenham to top job
"Elsewhere in trade body news, the globally focused body for the indie label sector, the World Independent Network, has confirmed that Alison Wenham, boss of the UK's Association Of Independent Music, will continue to head up the worldwide indie body too. She was re-elected into the top job at a meeting at MIDEM, though her job title will change from President to Chairman because of plans to appoint a titular President to act as a spokesperson for the body." [CMUDaily]

Meeting in the Commons to discuss copyright term
"A meeting organised by the all important Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group and recording royalty body PPL next Monday will discuss all things copyright extension. The meeting will take place in the House Of Commons, though will centre more on the progress of legislation at a European level regarding increasing the European recordings copyright term from the current fifty years to something nearer the 95 year term enjoyed by record labels in the US." [CMUDaily]

More from the Tenenbaum Case - The last big P2P lawsuit squabble
"The Recording Industry Association Of America is appealing the judge's ruling regarding the webcasting of that previously reported P2P court case against Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum. As previously reported, the Havard law professor advising Tenenbaum, Charles Nesson, requested that the court case - what could be one of the last RIAA P2P lawsuits against an individual file sharer given the trade body's recent change of strategy - be webcast on the internet, arguing that the case was of great interest to the net community and it should be made public in a way they are comfortable with. Somewhat surprisingly, Judge Nancy Gertner agreed.

The RIAA don't want the case to be webcast to the world, possibly because, while US copyright law is generally on their side when it comes to illegal file sharing, all sorts of tricky and, for the record industry, tedious technicalities can come up when cases go to court. Such technicalities being aired over the web could look bad for the record industry." [CMUDaily]

Music News Bulletin - 23/01/09

Sharkey talks though at MIDEM
"More MIDEM, and the boss of cross-industry trade body UK Music, Feargal Sharkey, often the consolatory voice in the room when the music industry feels it is being abused by government or the internet industry, delivered some fighting talk in his speech.

First the UK government. Despite Culture Secretary Andy Burnham putting pressure on the ISPs to take a more proactive role in combating online piracy, and more recently saying that the government were no longer completely against the idea of extending the sound recording copyright, Sharkey said British ministers should do more to help the music business.

Welcoming the French approach to online piracy (putting obligations on the ISPs to act - and to cut off file sharers - into law), and noting that the UK industry often relied on European legislation to protect label and artists' interests, he said: "Whether it's ensuring that a private copying exception is met with some sort of compensation mechanism, or term extension for sound recordings or simply protection of a creator's moral rights, why is it that UK creators are constantly having to seek support from Brussels and not on our own doorstep?." [CMUDaily]

Industry may start pushing for legislation on net-piracy policing as ISP negotiations falter
Whether it's led by UK Music or the BPI or another trade body, someone may need to step up their lobbying activity regarding making internet service providers take more responsibility for tackling online piracy.

As much previously reported, record label trade body the BPI and six ISPs last year signed a memorandum of understanding which saw the net firms commit send out warning letters to suspected file sharers as a way of preparing the ground for more detailed discussions on how the record companies and net firms could work together to combat piracy and collaborate on new digital music services that could be bundled into ISP's monthly subscriptions." [CMUDaily]

Illegal downloads don’t equate to lost sales, says U.S. judge
"A sort of interesting ruling in the US courts now which may have an impact on how content owners calculate their losses in online piracy cases.
The ruling comes from a criminal copyright action against Daniel Dove, who ran the Elite Torrents message board in 2004 and 2005, providing access to illegal sources of both music and movies. He's already been jailed for 18 months for his involvement in the infringing torrent group, and was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine.

However, two parties, the Recording Industry Association Of America and movie makers Lionsgate Entertainment, have also made claims for 'restitution'; basically they want to be compensated for the losses they claim they suffered as a result of Dove's torrent service (legally speaking, restitution is subtly different to compensation, but that's in essence what they want)." [CMUDaily]

Rough Trade distribution has MBO
"More indie distribution news for you, and Netherlands-based Rough Trade Distribution, linked back in the day to the London based record shop and label but long since a separate entity, has been bought out by its management." [CMUDaily]

Survey Finds ISPs Number One Choice Of Music Provider
"An international survey of more than 1300 music fans has found that the music industry is offering them the wrong kind of new music services. In the research conducted by The Leading Question and Music Ally in the UK, US and France, music fans overwhelmingly backed Internet Service Providers as their favoured music supplier when asked to choose amongst a variety of possible providers.

46% of the survey chose ISPs as their number one music service provider, compared to 10% preferring cable/satellite TV providers, 5% opting for mobile operators while a meagre 3% considered handset manufacturers best placed to deliver music to them. ISPs were also rated top choice provider for ‘unlimited’ music services, this despite mobile operators and handset manufacturers currently offering more of these services." [MusicAlly]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 16/01/09

MA judge OKs streaming of music-swapping hearing
"A federal judge on Wednesday authorized the first online streaming of oral arguments in a U.S. District Court in Massachusetts in a copyright infringement lawsuit that pits a Boston University graduate student against the music recording industry.

U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner restricted the live streaming to a Jan. 22 hearing, saying she will decide later whether to make other proceedings in the case, set for March 30 trial, available online.
The lawsuit is one of a series filed by the Recording Industry Association of America since 2003 against about 35,000 people who allegedly swapped songs online. Most of those sued are college students, and many have defaulted or settled for amounts between $3,000 and $10,000, often without legal counsel." [Google]

DtecNet, the anti-piracy outfit replacing MediaSentry as the RIAA’s chief evidence collector, also operates in several other countries. The Danish company is working for the BPI in Britain in support of its drive to force a “3 strikes” regime, and helping in Australian investigations against alleged pirates. We take a closer look.
"Earlier this month it was confirmed that the RIAA was dumping its anti-piracy partner, MediaSentry. After five years of legal action and mass lawsuits it decided its relationship with the notorious tracking company should come to an end. Some commentators believed that this signaled the end of the RIAA’s legal action against file-sharers, but that is definitely not the case.

The RIAA will now be working with DtecNet, a Danish anti-piracy tracking company which employs largely the same techniques as MediaSentry, but the aims will be slightly different in the majority of cases. The new tactic for the IFPI-headed music industry is to target ISPs instead, lobbying governments to implement the dreaded “3 strikes” or “graduated response” scheme reported so often in recent months." [TorrentFreak]

Universal digital chief on iTunes, DRM, and Android
"Rio Caraeff didn't come up in the music business scouring nightclubs and honkey tonks for talented new acts. Caraeff, executive vice president of Universal Music Group's eLabs, has a background in mobile technology and software. Nonetheless, he just might be the prototype for the label exec of the future.

Unlike more traditional industry suits, Caraeff doesn't believe litigation is the answer to piracy. He doesn't believe in copy-protection software. He doesn't believe that the music industry needs to find a strong competitor to Apple to flourish. What he does believe in nurturing new revenue streams and pruning 10-click online music shopping to one. He believes in the power of mobile devices to sell music (he says Google's cell phone, Android, is proving to be a powerful music-buying tool)." [CNet]

Longer copyrights for songs would deal a blow to our cultural heritage
"If Charlie McCreevy, the European commissioner for the internal market, has his way, the copyright on music will be extended from 50 to 95 years, making the Beatles' ‘Yesterday' and their other early hits ‘free' not in around six years' time but 50 or more years from now.

McCreevy's proposed directive, on which the European Parliament's legal affairs committee will vote in February, pleases the recording industry, which has long lobbied for it, but it has provoked fierce criticism from economists and lawyers. Their criticism is not surprising, for the industry's arguments are flimsy. The Commission has nonetheless been persuaded, aided probably by the idea of a ‘musicians' fund', which would receive 20% of the revenue from selling old recordings.
But most economists argue that a ten-year term should be enough to ‘incentivise' the creative muse. And, for those interested in Europe's culture, the downside of long protection would be that a large part of our heritage would be consigned to a commercial vacuum, with numerous works orphaned because their authors cannot readily be located.

The European Commission acknowledges the problem in the directive's ‘use it or lose it' clause. But this is so poorly drafted it would have little practical effect." [EuropeanVoice]

US Public Affairs - 16/01/09

10myths

"These writings originally appeared in a five-part series on the Copyright Alliance blog, blog.copyrightalliance.org, and cover topics ranging from the impact of copyright on innovation to whether content companies are embracing new business models. Proponents of these arguments will naturally find fault with my criticisms. Some will ignore my evidence that appear indisputable and instead seize on a phrase I may not have clearly articulated and present a counter-argument based on that misinterpretation. But some will make counter-arguments that are well-thought out and may be in some cases hard to rebut. I believe firmly that on the whole my themes here are sound but there could always be examples that I would have to consider at minimum exceptions to my theses. I don’t pretend to have all the answers.” [CopyrightAlliance]

The RIAA Ends Music Download War

"Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) fired MediaSentry, the Recording company it used to help it gather evidence for mass lawsuits it filed against people it claimed were illegally uploading copyrighted music. It would seem that the RIAA is finally coming to its senses and realizing that the way forward is not to use scare tactics or sue, but perhaps to accept the new technologies and maybe even embrace them." [IPWatchdog]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 09/01/09

Keeping the coins in a jar by the door; Musicians, including a player on 'Eleanor Rigby,' are trying to extend European royalty payments. January 5, 2009
“Patrick Halling is fighting to keep the few cents he earns every time the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" airs on the radio.

The Beatles song was released in 1966 and under European Union law will enter the public domain in 2016, meaning Halling's violin-led string background on the song will lose its copyright protection and the royalties will end.” [ContentAgenda]

Change? Obama Brings RIAA Attorney Into Administration
“Barack Obama is furiously assembling his administration, part of an urgent, pre-inaugural preparation. Obama has been praised for quick team-building, though critics have accused the change-candidate of drawing heavily from former Clinton staffers. That includes the most recent group of Justice Department picks, a group that includes former RIAA counsel Tom Perrelli.

Perrelli, co-chair of the entertainment and new media division at Jenner & Block, is being named to an associate attorney general post at Justice. The Perrelli background was highlighted Wednesday by Declan McCullagh of C|Net, who contrasted the Perrelli pick to the ideologies of Obama supporters like Lawrence Lessig and Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. Perrelli was involved in a range of RIAA suits, including those aimed at prying subscriber information from ISPs like Verizon and Charter Communications.” [DigitalMusicNews]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 09/01/09

Debates on creativity
"Throughout EYIC2009 six debates on key topics around Creativity and Innovation will be held in cooperation with the European Policy Centre (EPC), special partner of the Year. The debates are designed to provide a platform for reflection and exchange of ideas which can contribute to policy discussion on Creativity and Innovation.

In each debate, high level speakers will introduce their views and experience in Creativity and Innovation. The debates will take place in Brussels and will cover the following issues:
* Cultural diversity as basis for Creativity and Innovation
Debate organised to explore Europe’s potential for C&I through multiculturalism.
* Creativity and Innovation in the public sector
Debate focused on innovation in the public sector through integration of technologies and innovation of processes, in particular in the fields of health, education and social services.
* Education for creativity and innovation
Debate on the importance of education for developing creative, innovative and entrepreneurial societies.
* Creativity and Innovation and the knowledge society
Debate on how the free movement of knowledge can both inspire creativity and innovation in Europe and contribute to an important modernisation of Europe in light of economic and social challenges.
* Creativity and Innovation and sustainable development
Debate on eco-innovation with particular attention to climate change, security of energy supply and the issue of innovation and job-creation.
* Creative arts and Industries
Debate about the role of creative arts in industrial design and development." [Create]

Creativity versus crisis: European Year of Creativity and Innovation
"Encouraging people to be as creative and innovative as possible in education, employment and cultural activities are three main aims of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation launched Wednesday. The aim is to innovate in areas such as the economy but also social and individual well-being.

Other objectives for this year include creativity and innovation in transport policy, the environment, research and the information society. There will be promotion campaigns, events and initiatives at European, national, regional and local levels. Supporters are hoping it will help the so called "Lisbon Agenda" launched in 2001 which aims to make the EU "the most competitive knowledge-based economy" in the world by 2010." [Europa]

HARDtalk interview broadcast
Stephen Sackur speaks to the CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, John Kennedy. These are tough times for the traditional record companies.
Sales of CDs are falling, the battle against online piracy shows no signs of abating and established artists are working more independently.

John Kennedy is the CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Is the new digital era good for artists, fans and the music industry, or is it a disaster in the making? He represents the international recording industry worldwide and is fighting for its survival. [BBC]

Cable operators first ISPs to respond
"After a decade of RIAA-bashing by very vocal advocates who essentially believe that music should be shared freely over the Internet – or, at least, that music copyright holders should not enforce rights in court – it comes as no real surprise that U.S. Internet services providers that agreed recently to help stem peer-to-peer piracy want their names and the terms held in confidence. Lips of the parties -- and possible parties -- to the ‘graduated response’ deals involving illegal file sharers, brokered by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, are tighter than usual.

While it would seem logical that telecoms such as Verizon and AT&T, which benefit from their legitimate music offerings, would be leading the way in the initiative, such is not the case.

A Music Confidential investigation indicates that cable operators were the first of the “several leading ISPs” to seal the deals. The cable operators’ trade group, the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. (NCTA), was right in the midst of it all. And Cuomo doesn’t intend to limit his appeal to those ISPs within New York." [MusicConfidential]

Pay backs for ringbacks
"After several years of uncertainty in Germany over who controls the right to license compositions for ringtones, the highest court in the country issued a ruling just before Christmas. The result is raising even more questions as ringtone providers, publishers and German collecting society GEMA try to figure out who is entitled to the millions of Euros at stake. Aside from the legal and monetary implications, the case serves as an alert to rights holders reminding them of the importance of reading society membership agreements closely, especially as they relate to ‘new ‘ technologies.

Germany is the only country where courts have recognized that a ringtone is an ‘adaptation’ of a recorded composition under copyright law. This triggers the right of writers and publishers to collect fees from users for engaging in three activities: the reproduction (aka the mechanical reproduction), the performance and the adaptation. GEMA had been licensing the mechanical and performance rights for ringtones, while many publishers were licensing separately – and directly to providers – the adaptation right. As a result, ringtone providers were obtaining a license from GEMA and licenses from many individual publishers – and paying both."[MusicConfidential]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 31/12/08

RIAA graduated response plan: Q&A with Cary Sherman December 21, 2008
"On Friday, major news broke: the RIAA would (largely) abandon its widespread lawsuit campaign against individuals in favor of a "graduated response" partnership with ISPs. The outlines are clear enough—the RIAA will identify infringers, pass that information on to ISPs, who will notify (and eventually sanction) users without turning personal information over to the music industry.

But details, in some cases hugely important details, remained unclear. Chief among these was the lack of any talk about an oversight or appeals process for users who want to contest the RIAA's claims in some way. We checked in with EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann, one of the leading non-industry voices on these issues; he suggested five potential "gotchas" that need to be scrutinized as the plan goes forward." [ArsTechnica]

No more lawsuits: ISPs to work with RIAA, cut off P2P users December 19, 2008
"In a stunning turn of events, the US music industry has ceased its long-time litigation strategy of suing individual P2P file-swappers. Instead, with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo acting as a broker, the RIAA has signed voluntary "graduated response" agreements with major Internet service providers. Those currently on the receiving end of an RIAA lawsuit, though, will have to see it through to the (very) bitter end.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription) broke the story, and Ars has confirmed all details given in the piece." [ArsTechnica]

ISP to RIAA: Pay up or do your own dirty work December 22nd, 2008
"I love stories of the little guy going head-to-head with the big guys, especially when the big guy looks like a fool in the end.

CNET’s Greg Sandoval tells the story of a small Internet Service Provider in Louisiana whose owner has refused to play ball with the Recording Industry Association of America - at least on the RIAA’s terms. Last week, the RIAA announced that it was going to shift strategies to fight piracy. Instead of filing mass lawsuits, the RIAA said it is partnering with ISPs to identify, serve notice and potentially disconnect file-sharers." [ZDNet]

RIAA drops mass lawsuits, recruits ISPs to crack the whip December 19th, 2008
"The headlines across the blogosphere make it sound like the Recording Industry Association of America has thrown in the towel and decided to stop going after music pirates on the Internet. That’s not exactly the case.

Instead, the RIAA is teaming up with Internet Service Providers to identify and, potentially, blacklist offenders from obtaining an Internet connection in the future. That keeps the RIAA from having to subpoena the ISPs for user information and instead puts the ISP into the hot seat to crack the whip on the customer. OK, maybe blacklisting would be an extreme, last resort after repeated warnings - but I could see it headed that way." [ZDNet]

Update on Capitol Records v. Thomas: Motion to Certify an Appeal Denied; Petition for an Extraordinary Writ May Follow 12.31.2008
"Earlier this fall, the Court adjudicating Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas, vacated a $222,000 jury verdict because the Court found it had erred by instructing the jury that U.S. law provides a "making-available right." I have discussed the profound and numerous flaws in that ruling here (http://pff.org/issues-pubs/pops/2008/pop15.16thomasmaright.pdf). I discussed the downright disturbing flaws in Section K of that ruling, (which contains the Court's associated advisory opinion on copyright reform), here (http://pff.org/issues-pubs/pops/2008/pop15.18thomasreform.pdf).

After the ruling, the Thomas Plaintiffs did just what they should have: They filed a motion to certify the Court's making-available-right ruling for an interlocutory appeal. Thomas is an ideal case for an interlocutory appeal: the recent self-reversal in Thomas would require the parties to re-try the entire case because the Court used internally inconsistent reasoning to adopt a minority position on a pure question of law that admittedly causes the United States to violate nine international agreements. Stronger grounds for an interlocutory appeal are scarcely conceivable." [IPCentral]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 19/12/08

RIAA to end its “Sue The World” policy
“In a week dominated by the Leonard Cohen classic, can I just say "hallelujah". A year that began with the news all four majors had ended their kamikaze love affair with digital rights management, is ending with the news that the Recording Industry Association Of America is axing its other self-defeating, unhelpful, surely-record-company-execs-cant-be-this-dumb policy of suing individual music fans over their use of P2P file sharing technology to acquire or share unlicensed music.

From the word go the RIAA has been at the forefront of the litigious approach to tackling the piracy threat of the internet, which was good news for lawyers, but bad news for pretty much everyone else, not least the record companies who had to foot the bill for the legal campaign that was destined to fail from the word go, and which destroyed the already sagging reputation of the record industry at a time when it needed public and consumer support, partly because the labels were clearly going to have to develop direct customer relationships moving forward, and partly because it needed enough goodwill to fight for a re-evaluation of copyright systems.
The original strategy was to sue any company making P2P networking possible. But it soon became clear that suing Napster, Grokster, Kazaa et al was not effective because, even when the US courts eventually started to find in the labels' favour, the kids had always transferred their loyalties to newer P2P systems by the time older ones had been sued out of business.” [CMUDaily]

Culture announced an imminent "unpopular" measure against piracy
“Molina says that EU ministers have in their agenda actions against practices "illegitimate"

Today, Cesar Antonio Molina, the Spanish Culture Minister, announced that "not too late" there will be legislation, "which is likely to be unpopular" to regulate Internet piracy, a practice that has branded as "illegitimate" during the ‘Breakfast Briefing Europe Press’ and that, in his view, affects the whole culture.

Asked about the possibility of blinding access to Internet pirates repeat, Molina has stated that they are "exploring ways" and that "not too late there will be a regulation" this whole issue. Probably it’ll be a regulation that will be very unpopular, but what is unpopular, dilapidated and a disaster is that thousands of jobs that gives the culture will disappear by this illegal action. That can’t be allowed, he said.

Also, Molinas says that from the Ministry of Culture is struggling and acting very well" against piracy since "many fronts" and that at European ministers meetings is a "reiterative theme”, with the development of new laws and new forms of organization, to prevent piracy, "a termite that is destroying entire network of industry, to acquire such extreme shades."” [UFI]

Copyright cop wedding crashers fined by Spanish court
“The next time you have a wedding, make sure your videographer isn't a secret spy for the RIAA or similar copyright group. This real-life scenario happened to a couple in Spain thanks to the efforts of the Spanish General Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE), a rights group for musicians and artists. But although the group managed to bust the reception venue for copyright violations, SGAE itself has been fined for violating the privacy of the newlyweds.

The incident originally took place back in 2005, when SGAE snuck a private detective into the wedding reception acting as a cameraman. The group had suspected the venue—La Doma restaurant near Seville, Spain—for using music without paying royalties. Predictably, this series of events have horrified privacy advocates who argue that the couple's privacy was breached. As noted by The Sunday Times, however, the issue has come to light recently because SGAE has increased its efforts to catch venues that are avoiding royalty payments, and another, similar case is about to go to court.” [ArsTechnica]

Music News Bulletin - 08/12/08

Terry McBride Explains How Nettwerk Puts Fans In Control
"Mark Glaser has an absolute must-read interview with music label Nettwerk's CEO Terry McBride. Nettwerk, of course, has been one of a few record labels that really understands how the market has been changing, and has moved aggressively to take advantage of that. The label, which represents some top artists like Coldplay, Barenaked Ladies, K-OS and Avril Lavigne, got a lot of press a couple years back when it agreed to pay for the defense of some folks who were sued by the RIAA for file sharing. But, much more interesting was how it was actively embracing the changing market while other record labels were trying to hold back the tide. I don't agree with everything McBride has to say, but he's a lot closer to understanding where the music market is heading than pretty much everyone else we've seen in the recording industry.

You should really read the entire interview, but a few highlights are things like where he points out that musicians and record labels should be selling the overall brand, not the music." [TechDirt]

This Kraken fights for good December 4, 2008
"If you're up on your pirate lore, or perhaps have your Pirates of the Caribbean plot flow-chart handy, you'll know that sea-faring criminals are no friends of Johnny Depp-devouring monsters. As it goes on the high CGI seas, so follow the stormy waters of the Firefox add-on world. Yesterday's Pirates of the Amazon plug-in, which adds torrent links to songs and movies in the Amazon.com store, is met today by The Kraken, a plug-in that adds Amazon.com links to torrent Web sites.

The Kraken is extremely simple and there's no configuration required. When you visit popular torrent Web sites The Pirate Bay or MiniNova and search, Kraken will insert its own results box at the top of the site's search engine results that links back to Amazon.com. Kraken did not work with ISOHunt, Torrentz, or TorrentReactor when I checked them." [Download]

Three Major Record Labels Join the 'Choruss' December 08, 2008
"U.S. universities are getting a glimpse at a plan that would build a small music-royalty fee into the tuition payments they receive from students. If successful, the model — proposed by digital music strategist Jim Griffin on behalf of Warner Music Group — could be expanded to make ISPs the collector of such micropayments, eliminating some of the most irksome and contentious issues dividing the music industry and its customers.

An industry source told Wired.com that the independent nonprofit organization that would collect funds from universities and ISPs and disburse them to copyright holders will be called Choruss and that three of the four major labels have signed on, with Universal the remaining holdout. A simple whois lookup revealed that Griffin's OneHouse Digital registered the Choruss.com domain in August." [Wired]

'We Didn't Want to See the Future': Q&A With Ex-Sony Lawyer Steve Gordon 12/03/08
"Steve Gordon was in the room the day Sony executives learned about Napster. He also took part in some of the decisions on how to deal with the advent of digital music. Now, he's written a book on how to succeed in the new digital age. Blake Glenn interviews him.

In 1999 at a Sony (NYSE: SNE) Latest News about Sony Music corporate meeting, the room was filled with Sony executives and attorneys from across the globe. At one point, one of the Sony attorneys gave a presentation on two music services. One was the Sony music service and the other was a tiny, fledgling service." [TechWorldNews]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 20/11/08

How to destroy the music business 20th November 2008
"Put yourself in these hypothetical shoes for a moment. My goal is to make as much money as possible by doing as little work as possible. I have no creative talent except for generating and recycling marketing buzzwords. I have no technical knowledge or ability - but I can get my head around a Twitter feed. It doesn't sound promising, but you'll want in, I promise.

Now let's imagine a business that can achieve our goals. The natural place to start this business is on the internet - where one can harness the labour of millions of people and pay them sod all for their work. Under the smokescreen of "collective intelligence" or harnessing "the wisdom of the crowd", we can keep our supply costs at zero. And if we can keep reminding these rubes that "power lies at the edge of the network" or "in the Long Tail", they'll produce lots of stuff for us for nothing, without complaining." [TheRegister]

TechDirt's Backfiring Defense of the Thomas Decision--and the "Effective Freedom" of Totalitarian Terror (Part II) 11.21.2008
"Having dealt with Mr. Masnick's self-immolating attack on my analysis of Thomas, I must now even more emphatically reject Mr. Masnick's absurd claim that he "proved" that my paper on Free Culture mischaracterized the views that Professor Lawrence Lessig expressed in Code, a deplorable book advocating government control of the Internet and lawsuits against programmers. Frankly, mischaracterizing Lessig is pointless: quoting him suffices. Nevertheless, Mr. Masnick claimed, "The worst was when a variety of others pointed out Sydnor's out of context comments [sic] and put them back into context--and Sydnor still stood by the paper, refusing to admit he took a single comment out of content."

Nonsense: I stand by my paper because Mr. Masnick and "others" failed to quibble successfully even about details wholly tangential to its main argument. As Mr. Masnick's post indicates, his quibbles claimed that I had unfairly portrayed Lessig as a "communist sympathizer."" [IPCentral]

Asinine lawsuit from French music interests targets Sourceforge Nov 15th 2008
"Torrent Freak reported yesterday that the SPFF -- think of it as the French RIAA -- filed lawsuits against the developers of P2P clients Vuze, Limewire, and Morpheus. There is also a fourth target, and I'll get to that particular bit of insanity later.

The SPFF's beef is with the fact that these programs don't provide a system to block copyright protected materials from being shared. Because the programs don't prevent files from being shared, the SPFF argues that the programs are complicit in the act itself." [DownloadSquad]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 18/11/08

Tennessee anti-P2P law to cost colleges over $13 million November 18, 2008
With the RIAA's long-running legal war against file-sharing not having the desired effects, the music industry has turned its sights on legislation aimed at getting others to do the dirty work of copyright enforcement. Last week, they scored a victory when the state of Tennessee passed a law that would require colleges and universities to work to prevent copyright infringement over campus networks. It's great news for the RIAA, but bad news for Tennessee students and taxpayers who will have to foot the $13 million bill.

SB 3974 was introduced this past February into the state legislature. Championed by the RIAA, who pointed to the University of Tennessee's no. 4 position on the list of top music piracy schools, and the MPAA, which noted the school's no. 19 spot on its infringement list, the law will force both public and private schools in the state to implement policies to prevent and prohibit copyright infringement on campus computers and networks." [ArsTechnica]

Antipiracy group pushes 10 years jail time for UK infringers November 19, 2008
"Those guilty of online copyright infringement deserve criminal sentencings that are just as harsh as those who've been busted for commercial physical piracy, according to a UK-based antipiracy group. The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) is pushing the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to adopt modifications to current copyright law that would punish online infringers with 10 years of imprisonment, "to bring parity with commercial dealing in pirated works."

The IPO is currently in the process of considering changes to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 based on the independently-conducted Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. The Gowers report, wrapped up in 2007, concluded that, "the intention and impact of physical and online infringement are the same. Crimes committed on the online and physical world should not be subject to different sentences. Increasing the penalties for online infringement will therefore make the law coherent." As a result, Gowers wrote that punishment for online infringers should be increased to 10 years in jail, suggestion that's now known as Recommendation 36." [ArsTechnica]

What’s wrong with ISP Music Licensing Fall 2008
"The decline of revenues in the music industry has led the industry to take a closer look at the responsibilities of Internet service providers “ISPs” and alternative compensation schemes both in the United States and in Europe. Many schemes have been considered to compensate the creative community for these losses, including the ida that ISPs could charge all or some of their users a small fee on a monthly basis that each ISP would pay to the creative community as compensation in return for the user’s ability to trade content files without fear of litigation or prosecution. It is worth noting that with very few exceptions, ISPs themselves are not leading the charge to undertake this burden, and it is only within the very recent past hat ISPs have entered into industry wide agreements to support anti-piracy efforts on their networks. Anti-piracy efforts are a long way from ISP licensing…." [ChristianCastle]

How Canada Fought Bad Copyright Law: Showing Why Copyright Law Matters
"You may recall, just about a year ago, there was suddenly a bunch of news over the possibility of Canada introducing its own version of the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). To the surprise of both the entertainment industry (who helped craft the law) and the politicians who were pushing it, the opposition to this law was incredibly successful in getting its message out. Starting with calls on various blogs and Facebook groups, kicked off by law professor Michael Geist, the issue became a big one throughout the media. The politicians who promised the entertainment industry that they would pass this law tried to delay the introduction, assuming that the opposition, while loud, was thin and would fade away. They were wrong. The issue continued to get attention, and when the law was finally introduced, the opposition, across the board, was widespread and strong. It wasn't just a fringe issue among "internet activists." It was something that people from all over the economy saw as a fundamental issue worth fighting for." [TechDirt]

China Says: If You Must Infringe On Copyrights, Use Baidu
"Many people have noted over the years that with all of the effort that China has put into its Great Firewall, the country hasn't done much of anything to crack down on unauthorized file sharing. In fact, at times, it's almost seemed to encourage it. So some people were a bit surprised to find out that China's censors tried blocking traffic to various well known BitTorrent sites, such as Mininova, isoHunt and The Pirate Bay. However, what may be most interesting is that rather than blocking them outright, it appears that the system just redirects all that traffic to popular Chinese search engine Baidu.

This would be the same Baidu that first became really popular when China shifted all Google traffic to its site, and also the site that stayed popular because it made it easy to download unauthorized music. This would be the same Baidu that was also recently exposed to be fairly complicit in the music downloads it offers, potentially hosting the content itself through a revolving series of ever-changing domains. So, this hardly seems like an attempt by the Chinese government to crack down on unauthorized file sharing -- but an attempt to drive it all to a local company. It looks like the redirects only lasted for a few days, and are no longer in place -- but if the past is any indication, those redirects may come back at any time." [TechDirt]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 17/11/08

France votes for 'three strikes' filesharing law 04/11/08
"The French senate has voted overwhelmingly in favour of Nicolas Sarkozy's anti-piracy legislation that offers illegal filesharers two warnings before cutting off their internet access

This week, as ever, it's one step forward and two steps back for the recording industry's anti-piracy legislation. Even as France seems poised to pass a new "three strikes" law against filesharers, lobbyists in Denmark have given up on the chance of passing similar legislation." [Guardian]

Dance Music Classics Get Aboard The Pirate Ship 12/11/08
"Recently, the techno-oriented site Resident Advisor ran a detailed, well-reported piece by UK writer Richard Brophy on the state of the bootleg 12-inch in dance music. To be clear, since "bootleg" has a few different musical connotations, Brophy isn't talking about mash-up pop Frankensteins or unauthorized recordings of live shows, but about pirated versions of actual releases—small-edition replicas of classic, long-out-of-print house and techno 12-inches. These are, he suggests, far more legion in the dance world than we might think, an open secret that few retailers try to do anything about even if they know what they're selling is technically illegal." [Idolator]

Prof Enters RIAA Lawsuit Controversy Nov 17, 2008
"A Harvard Law School professor representing a Boston University student accused of copyright infringement is attacking the constitutionality of lawsuits launched by the RIAA against individuals.

Professor Charles Nesson claims the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it lets a private group, in this case the Recording Industry Association of America, carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law." [PollStar]

Pay-For Content Set To Grow Faster Than Free, With Music Leading The Way, Forecast Says 11 Nov 2008
"Maybe there are legs after all to that hypothesis on the return of pay-for content - the one Economist publisher Paul Rossi suggested at our Future Of Business Media conference last month. Just 12 percent of European web users paid for online content last year, but that’s due to rise to 19 percent by 2013, a new Jupiterresearch report says: “While free content will continue to dominate, as overall online audiences for all content categories continue to grow, so the number of European users willing to pay for content online will grow at an even greater rate.”" [PaidContent]

Music News Bulletin - 17/10/08

Giving your music away October 17th, 2008
"I’ve been thinking some more about my post last week, debating how much you actually earn from selling your music online these days. Coupled with the news that’s been finally weaned from Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ Album and the fact that the more forthcoming Trent Reznor’s figures on Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Ghosts I-IV’ album, I thought I’d blog further on the topic of what you can earn by giving your music away.

Regarding ‘In Rainbows’,”More than three million people acquired the album,” points out Warner Chappell Music senior vice president of International Legal & Business Affairs Jane Dyball, who admits “I had doubts there was money to be made online”. That figure includes downloads sold across various retailers, and physical packages sold online and through brick-n-mortar stores, and Dyball noted that 1.75 million copies of the physical, full-priced release were shifted. The band may have decided to not give out any specific figures on sales, but that hasn’t stopped people from estimating revenue ($10m in the first week?) and average price paid per album ($5? $8?). Other companies are saying that these figures don’t allow for those who paid $0 for the album (ComScore.com), and Radiohead’s representatives then reply that those figures are inaccurate but don’t give us anything solid to go on. Despite the option of a ‘$0’ price on the official website, between October 10 and November 3 2007, ‘In Rainbows’ was still downloaded from Torrent websites to the tune of 2.3m downloads. So just about no-one can figure it all out once the Torrent numbers are thrown into the mix." [UKMusicJobs]

Royalty rate stays same for iTunes, other download services October 02, 2008
"The Copyright Royalty Board has handed Apple and other online music store operators a big victory, as it has decided to keep the royalty rate the same for physical media and "permanent" (nonsubscription) music downloads. The decision, which was handed down Thursday afternoon, defines the mechanical rate terms for songwriters and publishers as 9.1¢ for physical products (like CDs), as well as music downloads, mitigating fears that significantly raised rates might force the closure of popular online music stores.

In addition to keeping the mechanical royalty rates the same for downloads, the CRB also established a rate for ringtone purchases for the first time—24¢. Music publishers may also now seek a 1.5 percent late fee per month from distributors that don't pay up on time." [ArsTechnica]

Universal Music CEO Still Doesn't Believe In The Promotional Value Of Music 14/10/08
A year ago, we were fairly shocked at an interview with Universal Music CEO Doug Morris. The guy gleefully explained how clueless he was about technology, and said that he didn't even know enough to hire people who could properly guide him to understanding how technology was impacting the music industry. Furthermore, he displayed an ignorance of basic economics and basic finance at the same time by insisting that any sort of promotion that might pay back tenfold at a later date was bad business because it meant someone was "taking advantage of you." Yes, apparently, the idea of spending a dollar today to make back ten next year makes no sense to the CEO of a large company. We wondered how Universal's shareholders could possibly let someone so gleefully clueless continue to run the company.

Apparently, he's still at it, and still not afraid to open his mouth and expose his ignorance. In Morris' latest interview he insists that the company doesn't believe in promotions, but wants to get paid for every single use of its music." [TechDirt]

Slate: Dump MySpace Music, Bring Back Muxtape 03/10/08
"As we had suspected, the early reviews of MySpace Music make it sound like a dud. It sounds, not surprisingly, like the focus was on appeasing the big record labels, rather than actually making a service that's fun and easy to use. Farhad Manjoo, over at Slate, makes the argument clear, contrasting MySpace Music to Muxtape, the small indie site that the RIAA shut down when it couldn't own a big chunk of it. As Manjoo notes, Muxtape was fun, it worked well, and people liked it. MySpace Music, on the other hand, is just not that compelling. He notes that it doesn't offer anything other sites haven't offered for a while, and on top of it, makes the whole interface cluttered and confusing, while limiting what you can actually do. Once again, we see the RIAA shut down a useful service and put up a dreadful competitor." [TechDirt]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 24/09/08

The PRO-IP Act: A game-changing law and its implications
"September 2008. In the waning weeks of what was a long and arduous presidential election campaign, people seemed so intensely focused on the campaign itself, they had probably forgotten George W. Bush would still be President the day after the election. And while the nation’s attention on the weekend of September 26 was focused on a bailout to fix the exploding economic crisis, most failed to notice that Congress passed a law whose impact remains at best unseen for musicians and the music industry. The Prioritizing Resources and Organization of Intellectual Property Act of 2007, also known as the PRO-IP Act, was passed with unanimous consent in the Senate and with an overwhelming majority in the House (renegade Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul was one of the few who voted against it, as well as the original draft of the Act in May).

The law itself is not much of a change from previous acts of similar nature (raising fines and punishments against people caught with pirated music and such), except for one major point: The law creates a new office in the White House whose purpose is dedicated to copyright infringement matters and whose head official would dictate copyright policy. This so-called “IP czar,” a term used by both the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the digital rights’ advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, would direct the Department of Justice and Attorne2y General as to how to handle piracy cases and the increased rate of piracy through P2P sharing." [TinyMixTapes]

Internet Radio is (almost) saved? Sep 24th 2008
"Remember how last year there was a big to do about the future of internet radio? The US Copyright Royalty Board imposed new, higher fees for online broadcasters, and web radio services like Pandora and Last.fm complained that the new fees would effectively put them out of business. A bill was introduced in Congress to work things out, but that never really went anywhere. But now, a year and a half later, the Digital Media Association, which represents a number of online music distributors, announced an agreement with copyright holders. It just doesn't exactly cover internet radio.

Here's the deal. If you're a company that provides limited music downloads or interactive streaming audio, you have to pay 10.5% of your revenue in royalties, less any amount owed for performance royalties. That covers subscription based services like Rhapsody which let you download music to your PC, so long as the music becomes useless when you stop paying up. It also covers interactive sites like Last.fm which let you select the songs you want to play." [DownloadSquad]

Agreement Reached on Internet Royalties September 23, 2008
"The contentious issue of digital royalty rates has reached a tentative conclusion, at least as far as putting agreements on paper is concerned. In an announcement made today, the warring parties entered what is termed a "historic" agreement. Whether this new agreement will challenge the Magna Carta in 800 years remains to be seen. However, in the meantime it appears the feud has been settled for interactive music services and limited download services, but the Internet radio debate remains unresolved.

Whenever an Internet radio station plays a song, it has to pay a royalty. That royalty rate remained firm at $0.000768 from 1995 until all hell broke loose in 2007. In early 2007, the US Copyright Royalty Board (a bizarre sect of the Legislative branch) increased the rates substantially. And not by a few hundred thousandths of a dollar - we're talking somewhere on the order of 300%-1200%, enough to make Internet broadcast giants such as Pandora contemplate ceasing operations. Oh, and for added kicks the rate would be retroactive to January 2006." [Slyck]

Music News Bulletin - 23/09/08

New royalty agreement leaves Internet radio out in the cold September 23, 2008
"This afternoon, the Digital Media Association announced a new agreement with organizations that represent musicians and songwriters that will provide a streamlined licensing procedure for many models of digital music distribution. The new agreement doesn't apply to "download to own" music, but will apply to streaming services, including subscription and ad-supported music (think Last.fm and SpiralFrog). The agreement has been submitted to the Copyright Royalty Judges for approval.

For the purposes of this agreement, musicians and songwriters were represented by he National Music Publishers' Association, the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and the Songwriters Guild of America. They negotiated the deal with the RIAA and the Digital Media Association, which includes industry heavy-hitters like Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. But the DiMA also includes a variety of companies that are doing less well under the current system, such as the recently-purchased Napster, and Internet radio services like Live365 and Pandora, which are buckling under the current royalty system." [ArsTechnica]

EU Public Affairs Monitor - 24/06/08

Play it again ... 22 June 2008
"Via the IPKat's friend Miri Frankel comes this feature on Wired regarding the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and its litigation against file sharers (so far more than 20,000 copyright infringement actions have apparently been launched). This story involves a New York family accused of copyright infringement.

The RIAA initially identified the mother, Joan Cassin, as being the operative copyright infringer, but later dropped its action at the point at which which the judge was pondering a motion to dismiss the case based on the "making available" theory (see here, here and here). Two weeks later, the RIAA re-filed more or less identical allegations in a fresh action that was sent to another judge because the RIAA did not "relate" the cases. Discovery was immediately sought in order to find out whose KazaA file share folder was being used -- a share folder on the same Verizon internet account as was used at the Cassin household. Curiously the second lawsuit was filed as a John Doe case, without naming a defendant." [IPKitten]

A Performance Right for Recording Artists: Sound Policy at Home and Abroad
"The recent introduction of H.R. 4789 and S. 2500, both titled the “Performance June 2008 Rights Act,”1 means that broadcasters, recording artists, and record labels may resume a recurring debate about whether copyrights in sound recordings should include a general public-performance right that would make their owners eligible to be paid when their songs are performed publicly on broadcast radio stations. History suggests that this debate may become heated and potentially protracted.

Nevertheless, from the perspective of copyright policy, this public-performance - right debate is simple. Denying a public-performance right in sound recordings is bad copyright policy and bad technology policy, and it undermines both the international and economic interests of the United States. Consequently, Congress should enact the Performance Rights Act: There is little to be lost and much to be gained." [PFF]

Did the Making-Available Debate End Before It Began 13 June 2008
Today, many courts are adjudicating copyright-infringement claims against consumers who used file-sharing programs like KaZaA to "share" copyrighted music and movies with thousands of strangers. These courts have been struggling with the question of whether the unauthorized "sharing" of a work infringes the rights of its copyright owner--in others words, whether U.S. law provides copyright owners with a so-called "making-available" right.

Recently, the Court hearing Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas posed a question about when appellate decisions are binding precedents for lower courts. The answer to this question appears to show that--at least in the federal district and circuit courts--the making-available debate ended seven years ago.

http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/ps/2008/ps4.13thomasandtasini.pdf"

[PFF]

Stop Press Important Litigation Alert June 12, 2008

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation is crowing about a ruling they got that people who sell promo CDs--that the recipient is given with full knowledge that the recipient is not supposed to sell the disc--are permitted to sell their promos on eBay and presumably in bricks and mortar stores as well. Ah yes, a great victory for the EFFluviati. What does this mean exactly? It means that the EFFluviati once again have managed to screw artists and songwriters." [MusicTechPolicy]

Orphan Works: No Copyright Infringement Litigation Says the Google Budget Office June 24, 2008
"Orphan works legislation is no problem, says the Congressional Budget Office because "[a]ccording to Copyright officials, there have been very few lawsuits against copyright infringers in recent years and the value of the awards in those suits have not been large."" [MusicTechPolicy]

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