THE HILL:
* Protect rights of artists in new copyright law

Should Congress take on the challenge of updating the Copyright Act, it must do so guided by sound principles, and its deliberations must be based in reality rather than rhetoric.

Chief among these principles is that protecting authors is in the public interest. Ensuring that all creators retain the freedom of choice in determining how their creative work is used, disseminated and monetized is vital to protecting freedom of expression. Consent is at the heart of freedom, thus we must judge any proposed update by whether it prioritizes artists’ rights to have meaningful control over their creative work and livelihood.

ZIMEYE:
* Mukanya’s Concern on Music Piracy: The New Zimbabwean Epidemic

Personally, I take unbridled umbrage at such individuals who are tired of working real jobs and are now trying to snatch easier ways to cut corners and make survival here in the Diaspora. By committing such nasty internet acts of pirating on our Zimbabwe musicians products they are feeding on other people’s blood.

This is in cases where most of our entertainers throw in their blood, sweat and tears to emerge with such scintillating music hoping to make headlines, best sellers and earn decent income. I would then wonder why someone would, from the blues, make such an evil act of trying to benefit from someone’s work using the internet, hoping not to be caught.

BUSINESS WEEK:
* Congress Reviews the Copyright Act in the Digital Age

BILLBOARD:
* Business Matters: Digital Piracy Study Conflicts with Two Papers it Cites

There have been numerous studies that have concluded file sharing hurts recorded music sales. The JRC study is different because it focuses only on file-sharing’s effect on digital purchases.

* SXSW: David Lowery and Co. Lash out Against Industry ‘Pimps’

Lowery said it was incumbent on artists to speak out about the importance of paying for music. Many artists who defer to corporate interests suffer from a kind of “Stockholm Syndrome,” he said.

“Lars Ulrich was the first to speak out and they put his head on a stake,” Lowery said, referring to the backlash against the Metallica singer after he took Napster to court in 2000. “But Ulrich was right. If you go back and watch his interview with Charlie Rose, everything he said came true. The technologists were wrong.”

COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE:
* Worth the Wait: 9th Circuit Delivers Big Win for Creators in Isohunt Case

the court pointed to numerous instances in which Fung was instrumental in assisting users in finding, acquiring, and burning infringing content. The court also explained how Fung profited off this infringement:

“Fung promoted advertising by pointing to infringing activity; obtained advertising revenue that depended on the number of visitors to his sites; attracted primarily visitors who were seeking to engage in infringing activity, as that is mostly what occurred on his sites; and encouraged that infringing activity. Given this confluence of circumstances, Fung’s revenue stream was tied directly to the infringing activity involving his websites, both as to his ability to attract advertisers and as to the amount of revenue he received.”

THE MUSIC VOID:
* EU Piracy Report – Ramifications For The Music Business

More importantly, there can be no argument that Google has played a massive unarguable part in helping piracy to thrive. Whether that was intentional or not is a moot point. The fact is you can type in any artist name and you links will have links to pirate site’s outnumbering those to legal sites.

The recent campaign to shame brands who’s advertising supports illegal file sharing sites is a worthy cause which TMV supports.

It would be helpful if Google gave all of the revenue it earns from SEM directly related to pirate sites back to the industry so rights holders and ultimately artists actually got paid from pirate sources. Hitting the pirates in the money pocket is exactly the right way to bring them to the negotiating table. Why do we want to negotiate with such people – because the user data is of immense value to brands and music rights holders themselves.

BRAND-E.BIZ:
* Ads fund illegal music, says IFPI

“Brand owners typically want to avoid the reputational damage that can be caused when their advertisements are placed on websites that engage in or facilitate unlawful activity,” says the IFPI. “They also want to be sure their advertising budget is not providing financial support to unlicensed websites.”

VOX INDIE:
* A Good Week for Copyright
* Mirror, Mirror…Why Does the Anti-Copyright Lobby Live in Opposite World?

The talking points echoed by the panel at SXSW reflected the anti-copyright lobby’s disingenuous mantra that content creators seeking to protect their work from theft should be viewed as criminals, while those who brazenly steal (and monetize) the work of others are somehow the “innovators.” Are you serious? I hate to break it to these folks, but the tech industry does not have first dibs on the adjective “innovative.”

Creative artists have always thrived on the cutting edge–and while the modern-day tech industry has developed new means of delivery and consumption–their innovations would be useless were it not for the content their products deliver. In many ways, creative content is the fuel has fed the tech revolution. Why can’t we have a discussion that acknowledges this symbiosis, rather than diminishes it?

THE ILLUSION OF MORE:
* More Than 3Dimensions
* Copyright, copyright everywhere…

So, for anyone who reads this blog and is not knee-deep in the gore of the copyright battle, the big picture as I see it this: I believe the copyright system will change over the next decade or so, but if that change is predicated too much on the self-serving premises of its tech-industry antagonists, the results for artists in particular, and for society in general, will be regressive rather than progressive. It would be like allowing the oil industry to overly influence emissions policy.

MUSIC WEEK:
* IFPI slams EU piracy study as ‘flawed and misleading’

The findings seem disconnected from commercial reality, are based on a limited view of the market and are contradicted by a large volume of alternative third party research that confirms the negative impact of piracy on the legitimate music business.

CENSORSHIP IN AMERICA:
* Music Censorship – A Timeline

SPITFIRE HIPHOP:
* What You Can Do Today – To Stop Brand Sponsored Piracy Through Touring Contracts or Sponsor Deals: Artists Helping Artists

If you are like most artists, you feel overwhelmed by the alliance of Big Tech and Fortune 500 companies allied against us in the intricate network of brand sponsored piracy.

ABC ONLINE:
* Internet Piracy – is it a right to not pay artists you like?

The self-righteous anger of free downloaders reveals much about the weakness of human nature and the often heartless and faceless nature of what constitutes debate on the internet.

This is one of the most revealing books about how technology shapes us I have ever read. It goes far beyond the normal platitiudes and in forensic detail explains the connections between human endeavour, morals, consumption and commerce.

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* Streaming Accounts for Just 4 Percent of Global Recording Revenues, Study Finds…
* For the First Time Ever, Song Downloads Are Declining In the US…
* Chevrolet Is Now Financing Grooveshark’s Mobile Expansion…
* Why Non-Disclosure Agreements Are Making It Impossible to Watch a Video In Germany…

A source close to one of the other negotiations with YouTube said that the rights holders had proposed that they’d base the deal on a revenue share – a proposal that seems more than fair. Only problem, the source said, is that Google/YouTube won’t tell anyone what its revenue and profits are.

For a corporation that has based its entire business on the sharing of information, it’s somewhat ironic how reluctant it is to share its own.

THE VERGE:
* Google accidentally blocks entire Digg domain from search, is working on a fix

MASHABLE:
* Supreme Court Refuses to Hear $220k Music Piracy Case

This is the third time the court has refused to hear a peer-to-peer piracy case. One of the other cases was that of Joel Tenenbaum, the other person who refused to settle with the RIAA, and was sentenced to pay $675,000 for downloading 30 songs. The Supreme Court declined to hear his case in May.

TORRENT FREAK:
* Spain to Crackdown on Pirate Sites and Outlaw File-Sharing
* isoHunt Loses Appeal Against the MPAA, Keyword Filter Remains
* Fresh Calls to Congress to Make Movie and Music Streaming a Felony
* MPAA: Pirates Can’t Hijack Freedom of Expression

THE SUN DAILY:
* Putting a stop to digital piracy

Internet companies all work together to block IP addresses that broadcast spam (www.spamhaus.org/). This doesn’t “break the internet” or “violate free speech”. The notion that brilliant technologists in the US$400 billion telecom business that is growing at 10% a year and the US$28 billion internet advertising business that is growing 10% a year can’t help make the internet a just and ethical marketplace for musicians is false.

DIGITAL TRENDS:
* Set-top showdown: Apple TV vs. Roku 3 vs. Boxee Box vs. WD TV Play vs. Google TV

TORONTO STAR:
* Government urged to invest in music industry to drive economic activity

Music Canada has come up with 17 recommendations in a report, “The Next Big Bang: A New Direction for Music in Canada,” released at Canadian Music Week this week.

SPYGHANA:
* Dying Musicians cry out over 1M CD sales drop to 50K

The National Chairman of Ghana Musicians Rights Organisation (GHAMRO,) Mr. Carlos Sakyi, has lamented the increasing rate of piracy in the industry saying it is collapsing Ghana’s music industry.

THE INDIAN EXPRESS:
* Piracy Equals Drunken Driving

Flipkart made a clear distinction about guilt-free downloads, paid or otherwise. It was an affirmation that downloading music (or movies) off torrents has now become a sort of uncool behaviour…much like drunken driving.

THE FUTURE OF COPYRIGHT:
* Controversial copyright bill passes German Upper House

On 1 March 2013, the Bundestag, the Lower House of the German Parliament, approved a new legislative proposal that aims to protect the copyright of publishers on the Internet. The new bill would require search engines and news aggregators like Google News to pay a fee for displaying content longer than “individual words or short excerpts” (snippets). Read more in our previous article on this topic.

THE DEANS LIST:
* Music, Copyright and New Technology in the News From a Creator’s Perspective

THE LEFT ROOM:
* Piracy, free books, etc

5. What I think

I have endless and fantastically violent contempt for the sites making money off the back of work they didn’t help create, and for the people behind them. I have nothing, really, against the ordinary people who illegally download my books – I can’t stop you, most of you wouldn’t have bought them anyway, and I just hope that, if you enjoy them, you consider buying some of them at some point, to support not just me, but also the other people, less visible, whose work made my books possible in the first place.

WIRSINDLEGION:
* The Pirate Bay and human rights

STOP THE CYBORGS:
* Google Glass ban signs

For a complete listing of every weekly update of the Artists Rights Watch, CLICK HERE!