Category Archives: Copyright

Trichordist Bookshelf – Essential Reading for Artists Rights

“WHO OWNS THE FUTURE” by JARON LANIER – BUY AT AMAZON:
http://www.amazon.com/Who-Owns-Future-Jaron-Lanier/dp/1451654960/

The Dazzling New Masterwork from the Prophet of Silicon Valley

Jaron Lanier is the bestselling author of You Are Not a Gadget, the father of virtual reality, and one of the most influential thinkers of our time. For decades, Lanier has drawn on his expertise and experience as a computer scientist, musician, and digital media pioneer to predict the revolutionary ways in which technology is transforming our culture.

Who Owns the Future? is a visionary reckoning with the effects network technologies have had on our economy. Lanier asserts that the rise of digital networks led our economy into recession and decimated the middle class. Now, as technology flattens more and more industries—from media to medicine to manufacturing—we are facing even greater challenges to employment and personal wealth.

But there is an alternative to allowing technology to own our future. In this ambitious and deeply humane book, Lanier charts the path toward a new information economy that will stabilize the middle class and allow it to grow. It is time for ordinary people to be rewarded for what they do and share on the web.

Insightful, original, and provocative, Who Owns the Future? is necessary reading for everyone who lives a part of their lives online.

“FREELOADING” by CHRIS RUEN – BUY AT AMAZON:
http://www.amazon.com/Freeloading-Insatiable-Content-Starves-Creativity/dp/1935928996

“A wonderful book that catches an encouraging shift in the zeitgeist. Ruen’s epiphany regarding the effects of his own piracy and freeloading of the bands he loves was eye opening.” – David Byrne

“Fascinating.” – The Village Voice

“The original slacker’s dream of free everything may have been realized by the Internet-but along with it came the slacker’s nightmare of never getting paid for one’s creativity. Freeloading seeks-and to a large extent succeeds-to wrestle with the collapse of the commons and the possibilities for a renewed social contract.” – Douglas Rushkoff

“Brooklyn’s Chris Ruen is one of the most compelling and forward thinking critics of our current download culture.” – M3 Music Conference, Netherlands

“A book…that promises to contribute greatly to copyright debates.” – Terry Hart, Copyhype

Author Chris Ruen, himself a former dedicated freeloader, came to understand how illegal downloads can threaten an entire artistic community after spending time with successful Brooklyn bands who had yet to make a significant profit on their popular music. The product of innumerable late-night, caffeine-fueled conversations and interviews with contemporary musicians such as Craig Finn of The Hold Steady, Ira Wolf Tuton of Yeasayer, and Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, Freeloading not only dissects this ongoing battle-casting a critical eye on the famous SOPA protests and the attendant rhetoric-but proposes concise, practical solutions that would provide protection to artists and consumers alike.

“FREE RIDE” by ROBERT LEVINE – BUY AT AMAZON:
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Ride-Parasites-Destroying-Business/dp/0307739775

“A book that should change the debate about the future of culture….With this stylishly written and well-reported manifesto, Levine has become a leading voice on one side of our most hotly contested debate involving law and technology.”
—Jeffrey Rosen, The New York Times Book Review

“Turbo-reported….Free Ride is a timely and impressive book–part guilt trip, part wake-up call, and full of the kind of reporting that could only have been done with a book advance from an Old Media company.”
—Businessweek

“[A] smart, caustic tour of the modern culture industry.”
—Fortune

“Brilliant…A crash course in the existential problems facing the [media].”
—Richard Morrison, The Times

“The most convincing defense of the current predicament of the creative industries that I have read.”
—James Crabtree, Financial Times

“With penetrating analysis and insight, Levine, a former executive editor of Billboard magazine, dissects the current economic climate of the struggling American media companies caught in the powerful fiscal grip of the digital industry…. This incisive book is a start at an informed dialogue.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Can the culture business survive the digital age? That’s the burning question Robert Levine poses in his provocative new book. And his answer is one that will get your blood boiling. Rich with revealing stories and telling tales, Free Ride makes a lucid case that information is actually expensive – and that it’s only the big technology firms profiting most from the work of others that demand information be free.”
—Gary Rivlin, author of Broke, USA

“One of the great issues of the digital age is how people who create content will be able to make a living. Robert Levine’s timely and well-researched book provides a valuable look at how copyright protection was lost on the internet and offers suggestions about how it could be restored.”
—Walter Isaacson, President/CEO of the Aspen Institute and author of Benjamin Franklin

“This book thoroughly documents a wide-spread outbreak of cyber amnesia. Despite libertarian delusions, industries often get Free Rides, especially in their early days, but they eventually give back. Taxpayers build roads, then get hired to build cars. The Internet gives back a lot in exchange for its Free Ride, but one thing it defiantly isn’t giving back is a way for enough people to make a living. No matter how amusing or addictive the Internet becomes, its foundation will crumble unless it starts returning the favors it was given and still depends on.”
—Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget

“Free Ride is a brilliantly written book that exposes the dark side of the Internet. A must read for anyone interested in the horrific undermining of our intellectual culture.”
—Edward Jay Epstein, author of The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood

“Robert Levine deftly dissects the self-serving Orwellian freedom-speak being served up by Silicon Valley’s digital new lords as they amass fortunes devaluing the work of artists, journalists and other old-fashioned ‘content creators.’ Free Ride begs us to remove our blinders and take a hard look down a cultural dead-end road.”
—Fred Goodman, author of Fortune’s Fool: Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music, and an Industry in Crisis

“Without being a Luddite, Levine makes the phony digital media gurus of our day seem as simple-minded as their slogans.”
—Ron Rosenbaum, author of How the End Begins and Explaining Hitler

“YOU ARE NOT A GADGET” by JARON LANIER – BUY AT AMAZON:
http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/0307389979

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A programmer, musician, and father of virtual reality technology, Jaron Lanier was a pioneer in digital media, and among the first to predict the revolutionary changes it would bring to our commerce and culture. Now, with the Web influencing virtually every aspect of our lives, he offers this provocative critique of how digital design is shaping society, for better and for worse.

Informed by Lanier’s experience and expertise as a computer scientist, You Are Not a Gadget discusses the technical and cultural problems that have unwittingly risen from programming choices—such as the nature of user identity—that were “locked-in” at the birth of digital media and considers what a future based on current design philosophies will bring. With the proliferation of social networks, cloud-based data storage systems, and Web 2.0 designs that elevate the “wisdom” of mobs and computer algorithms over the intelligence and wisdom of individuals, his message has never been more urgent.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Article 27

Somethings are so simple, fundamental and common sense they cross the boundaries of countries and culture. If only these same principles could penetrate the fortress walls of Silicon Valley which now claims “the internet” as a nation state outside the governance or protection of human rights.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) (French) (Spanish) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected.

Article 27.

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Getting Copyrights, Right. David Lowery at Politico

Our own David Lowery makes a lot of compelling arguments in Politico on Monday morning, but this one in particular regarding a copyright registry and orphan works should be of interests to all consumers and individuals as well as all creators. Copyright effects everyone, not just musicians.

Register Your Family Albums

Both conservatives and liberals should be frightened by the “Principles’” attempt to “reformalize” effective copyright protection by encouraging Goodlatte to take away “rights and remedies” for those who do not register their works. Especially those works that the report deems to have “no commercial value”—as decided by the elites rather than the market, apparently.

So if one of the “users” the principles seem to think they represent — like me — posts a photo of my children on my Facebook page but I don’t register it, and somehow a company or individual then uses this picture commercially, or in some other vile manner, this report explicitly states that I would not have the same “rights and remedies” that I currently enjoy. In fact my reading of this report says I would have no remedies unless I were to win an argument that my family photos have commercial value — full employment for lawyers.

So are we all gonna have to register our family photos with Big Brother in order to keep control of them?

Read the full article here at Politico:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/building-a-real-copyright-consensus-91231.html

ASCAP President Paul Williams’ “State Of The Union” To Songwriters!

Must watch video.

ASCAP President and Chairman Paul Williams gave an informative and inspirational speech at this year’s meeting, speaking eloquently about the pitifully low royalties being paid by streaming music services like Pandora. He also laid out his vision for what ASCAP and its members need to do to help strengthen ASCAP’s role in the digital age.

Derek Khanna & Co. Continue Attack on Artists Rights at SXSWi Panel

The recent SXSW Interactive panel titled “Copyright & Disruptive Technologies” was merely another single point of view attack on artists, musicians and creators as artists rights are copyrights. It’s interesting that this panel offered no differing perspective from the view point of the artists and creators whose work is actually being exploited, without permission (or compensation).

On the panel were those who are advocating for “Permissionless Innovation” including Andrew Bridges, partner at Fenwick & West LLP, Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network as well as a trio from Yale Law School’s Information Society Project including Wendy Seltzer, Margot Kaminski and Derek Khanna.

Glen Peoples at Billboard reported on the ongoing unilog of the copyleft attack on artists rights. The panel presented the usual anti-artist, anti-creator maximalist talking points which don’t believe in the artists right to grant consent for the exploitation of their work (and in many cases don’t believe in granting the creator compensation as well).

We’ve previously pointed out in some detail that Derek Khanna is wrong while highlighting all of the obvious fallacies and self created myths in his disavowed RSC “memo” on copyright. Now it appears that Derek himself is confused over the who may have even requested the memo. As our reader Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) noted,

“Right now, we know who wrote the paper, but not who requested it, what supervision it was under and who, if anyone, approved its publication. This is not an acceptable way to interject a work into the public discourse.”

The persistent use of the meme “permissionless innovation” might just as well be called what they want it to really be, “permission to steal, and profit with immunity.” There is nothing innovative about stealing from or exploiting artists. In fact it’s a very, very old narrative sadly.

Panelist, Ben Huh complained that it might actually cost him money to track down rights holders whose work he is profiting from, how unfair right? Ben says…

“The cost of tracking down the rights owner is a minimum of $300 to $500 [per image]– if you’re successful.

Of course Mr. Huh went on to illustrate his problem in not paying creators in greater detail stating,

I have 23 million images, and I’m one of the smaller [online businesses] out there.

Yeah, what a drag to actually compensate the creators! So in simple math 23 Million multiplied by $500 equals $11.5 trillion dollars. One might determine that perhaps this is not a well thought out business model that requires such vast capital to support it’s inventory, if the cost of that inventory actually requires payment to the creators. Here again we see another internet business supported by advertising that earns revenue on marginal costs, but refuses to pay the creators fair compensation for their labor.

Of course, the site does provide a DMCA link, but we have to wonder how many rights holders are actually using it.

cheezburgeDMCA

What is clear is that the war on artists and creators which is now over a decade old continues to rage on by those who are profiting. Let’s once again be clear that this discussion is about money. It is about mass scale, enterprise level, commercial businesses profiting from the illegal exploitation of works by artists, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, authors and other creators.

Just for fun, we went over to Mr.Huh’s website Cheezeburger dot com to see why he would be so invested in the battle against artists rights. Well, as it turns out the first two items we saw were the products of well known and beloved mainstream creators (you know, the companies the copyleft hates but can’t seem to live without).

In this first screenshot below we see images from Fox Tv’s “King Of The Hill” show. What we also see is that Toyota, one of the already identified 50 Brands Supporting Music Piracy paying the bills to Mr.Huh. Good work if you can get it, being able to monetize content of a major TV network without the pesky need to ask permission or to share in that advertising revenue.

chezburgerKingOfTheHillToyota

And, the second post we noticed were images from the Disney Pictures film “Up.” This time with advertising courtesy of Google and AT&T, also previously identified as two more of the 50 Brands Supporting Music Piracy.

cheezburgerDISNEYUP

And here’s the kicker from the man who doesn’t want to ask permission to monetize creators content for profit… hmmm… hypocrisy much?

http://corp.cheezburger.com/legal/api-terms-of-service/

(d) Pre-Approval Required. The license described in 1.1(a) above is contingent on you submitting all application-related materials that are requested by the Company and the Company subsequently approving your application. The Company may approve or reject your application in its sole discretion. The approval of your application by the Company shall not constitute an endorsement or legal review of your application.

But wait there’s more…

http://corp.cheezburger.com/legal/terms-of-service/

3. General Use of the Websites — Permissions and Restrictions
Cheezburger hereby grants you a revocable, non-transferable, and non-exclusive permission to access and use the Websites as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that:
A. You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Websites, including but not limited to Content and User Submissions (each as defined below), without Cheezburger’s prior written authorization.
B. You agree not to alter or modify any part of the Websites, including but not limited to Cheezburger’s technologies.
C. You agree not to access User Submissions (defined below) or Content through any technology or means other than any as authorized by this Terms of Service or a written agreement between you and Cheezburger.
D. You agree not to use the Websites for any commercial use without the prior written authorization of Cheezburger. Prohibited commercial uses include, but are not limited to, any of the following actions taken without Cheezburger’s express approval:
1. Sale of access to the Websites, Content or services via another website or medium (such as a mobile application);
2. Use of the Websites, Content or services for the purpose of gaining advertising or subscription revenue;
3. The sale of advertising, on the Websites or any third-party website, targeted to the content of specific User Submissions or the Content;
4. Any use of the Websites, Content, User Submissions or services that Cheezburger finds, in its sole discretion, has the effect of competing with or displacing the market for the Websites, Content or User Submissions.

And it continues to go on from there into another set of rights, and restrictions. Wow. Ok then… well, so much for permissionless innovation afterall…