Month: December 2015

YouTube’s DMCA decision and the campaign to morph victims into villains | Vox Indie

YouTube will pay copyright court costs for a few users–not because it’s right–but to protect Google’s bottom line

According to a story in today’s NY Times, the folks at YouTube are ready to pony up cash to support some of its users “fair use” claims in court.

“YouTube said on Thursday that it would pick up the legal costs of a handful of video creators that the company thinks are the targets of unfair takedown demands. It said the creators it chose legally use third-party content under “fair use” provisions carved out for commentary, criticism, news and parody.”

You’ve probably read a lot about “fair use” lately.  It’s the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s mantra and if the folks there had their way, pretty much everything and anything would be considered “fair use.”  Fair use an important legal doctrine and when applied properly (criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research) is not an infringement of copyright.  However, these days, too often is used as a disingenuous defense for copyright theft.

READ THE FULL STORY AT VOX INDIE:
http://voxindie.org/youtube-covers-legal-costs-for-some-users/

by trichordist

Thom Yorke on the Disappointment of His Bit Torrent Experiment

Music Technology Policy

Remember when Bit Torrent, Inc. (Daniel Ek’s former employer) was trying to get higher value advertising…oh, sorry…was trying to demonstrate that they were all things pure and high minded because Bit Torrent was really designed to leverage their huge user base derived from piracy…sorry…Bit Torrent Bundle was really designed to help artists find an audience?

Remember when Thom Yorke allowed himself to be used as a poster boy for Bit Torrent Bundle on his solo record “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes”?  Ever wonder how that worked out?  Thom Yorke is interviewed by the Italian site Repubblica and fills us in.

Complete Music Update translates thusly in answer to the interviewer’s question was the Bit Torrent experiment successful:

“No, not exactly”, he said. “But, in fact, I wanted it to be an experiment. It was a reaction to everything that was going on. At the time, people were only talking about…

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by thetrichordist