This blog normally concerns the rights and revenues of artists. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon has consistently been on the wrong side of these issues. Wyden opposes the “Classics Act” that corrects what is essentially a typo in copyright law.  A typo that allows multi-billion dollar digital services like Google, Spotify, Pandora and Sirius to withhold royalties to performers that recorded before 1972 (the year sound recording copyrights were federalized).   Unfortunately due to biases built into the music industry before 1972 this means that African American artists are disproportionately harmed by this loophole.  That is why the Oregon NAACP has called out Wyden on his opposition to the classics act.

Wyden has falsely characterized the bill as a windfall to record labels. He also falsely claimed to his constituents that performers would not receive any money from the Classics Act.  The Senator either did not read the bill or is lying.  The terms of the classics act are as plain as day.

So since the Senator is so concerned with unearned windfalls, let’s turn the table and look at his own families finances. Let’s see if perhaps the powerful Senator and his family benefitted from unearned windfalls.

What is up with this:

http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-fund-born-in-senators-basement-after-son-has-de-shaw-internship-2011-2

Wyden’s son Andrew Wyden went from interning at DE shaw (19 Billion in assets) to owning his own hedge fund in a matter of months.  As the article notes David Shaw (Principle at D. E. Shaw) has been a frequent contributor to Sen Wyden and also supported his Super PAC:

Apparently it’s extremely rare for college kids to “get to intern on a D.E. Shaw portfolio for the summer,” said Brian Marshall, who used to run the fund.

But a D.E Shaw spokesperson assured Bloomberg, “Adam went through the same rigorous vetting and interview process as all other D.E. Shaw group interns.”

The reason observers might think otherwise is because David Shaw has donated thousands of dollars to Senator Wyden’s election and re-election campaigns in 2004 and 2010. Shaw and his wife each gave the maximum $4,800 each that they’re allowed to donate for any single election cycle, to Wyden.

Shaw also contributed $5,000 in 2010 to Holding Onto Oregon’s Priorities, a political action committee established by Wyden, according to Campaignmoney.com

Other articles report that Andrew Wyden (the junior) started with 3 million dollars.  Who gives a 26 year 3 million dollars to run a hedge fund out of a Senators basement?  It must be someone who knows the son very well.  Perhaps a rich former employer like D.E. Shaw?  To be clear I’m not definitively stating that D. E, Shaw gave the Andrew Wyden his stake.  I have no evidence to support it.  But the money came from somewhere.  Both the senator and the son know where the money came from.  They could clear this up.  But if they continue to remain silent, I say it is fishy enough that it should be investigated by someone.  This is above my pay grade, but here are some suggestions: Senate ethics? SEC? FEC? FBI? Any and all?

ESPECIALLY since Wyden the junior had an extraordinarily good first year. Up 90% in the first year.  According to Absolute Return magazine:

Wyden’s best personal trade last year was an investment in IDT Corp. starting in February, when the Newark, New Jersey, telecommunications company traded at an average of $4.84 a share, he said. IDT now is at $23.90

Lucky bet? Could be.  I mean the stock of many thinly traded telecommunications companies trade in a volatile manner.  Especially if they they have patents or spectrum that are positively impacted by FCC decisions. Pop. But IDT is no ordinary telecommunications company.  In fact it’s misleading to consider it a pure telecommunications play.  Here are some highlights from their 2008 annual report ( I couldn’t find later annual reports):

There are three possible issues with IDT holdings. Senator Wyden is on the house Energy and Natural resources committee.  IF (and that’s a big If), the Senator was privy to any information that would impact IDT’s two energy businesses  (and hence stock price) what safeguards were in place to assure this kind of information didn’t go to his son? Fair question since his son’s hedge fun was operated out of the senators Washington DC townhouse.  Second, the value of the wireless spectrum that IDT owned could potentially impacted by the Senators action or inaction.  Wyden is no stranger to the wireless spectrum issues.  He was instrumental in getting 3g spectrum freed up from the pentagon for use by commercial telecommunication companies.  Advance knowledge of the senators action or inaction could materially affect value of IDT spectrum and hence the stock price of IDT.

To be clear.  I have no evidence of wrongdoing, but there is something not quite right about letting a sitting senator’s son operate a hedge fund out of the senators home. It deserves further examination.

Finally I’ve heard the Senator is a fan of the movie The Big Lebowski.   Might we remind him what “happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?”

+++++++

See also this article

https://www.thedailybeast.com/get-elected-get-your-kids-rich-washington-is-spoiled-rotten

One of the things the Music Modernization Act (MMA) does is fix what is essentially a typo in copyright law that allows a handful of digital services (Google, Sirius, Pandora etc) to not pay royalties to performers on Pre-1972 recordings.  This part of the Music Modernization Act is commonly referred to as “The Classics Act” or “Classics Provisions.”

The Music Modernization Act passed the House without a single no vote. 415-0. Rarely do we see this sort of bipartisan consensus in the US Congress.  Even the Dec 8th 1941 declaration of war against Japan was not unanimous. Part of the reason the bill enjoys such wide support in US House of Representatives is because the Pre-1972 loophole seems ridiculously unfair. It violates everyone’s – republican, democrat, liberal conservative- EVERYONE’s sense of fair play.

Except Senator Ron Wyden. He’s fine with unfair play.  He’s fine with stiffing creators to benefit a few billionaires.

Yes, Senator Ron Wyden the progressive democrat from the bluest of blue cities, Portland Oregon.

You see Senator Ron Wyden is threatening to block the bill. Unless of course he gets his amendment that would gut the provisions that restore digital royalties for Pre-1972 performers.

Wyden is willing to go against his constituents, the unions and even the NAACP! (African American performers would seem to be disproportionately harmed by the loophole.) Metaphorically this is the hill on which Wyden is prepared to die.

What the fuck is Ron Wyden’s problem?

Is he just a blackhearted and cruel person?  Is he lazy and just doesn’t understand the issues? My limited interactions with the Senator makes me think no. Is there a financial motive? Perhaps even good old fashion corruption?  Seriously.  He would seem to have put himself into a lose-lose position, with no political upside. It’s a question worth asking.

Consider this:

People think of Google as a California company, but Google has massive server farm operations in the state. Google is one of the companies that benefits enormously from the pre-1972 loophole.  You think that it’s an accident that Wyden is the one U.S. Senator against the bill?  I don’t.  Has anyone looked at this?  I mean investigate him.

Also what is up with this:

https://dealbreaker.com/2011/02/son-of-senator-starts-hedge-fund-out-of-dads-basement-following-de-shaw-summer-internship/

Wyden’s son runs a hedge fund out of the Senators basement?  What could possibly go wrong? I wonder who the “investors” are in that hedge fund?  Maybe someone should look into that as well.  I mean who gives a 26 year old 3 million dollars to start a basement hedge fund?

I mean that literally.  Who gave the original 3 million?

Sen Rony Wyden has just posted a medium blog in which he makes the rather astonishing claim he is helping artists.

Let’s look at how Ron Wyden has tried to “help” artists in the past:

• He sponsored the Orwellian-named “Internet Radio Fairness Act” that would have slashed artists pay from digital services.  In some cases would have slashed artist royalties 70%.  The bill never got out of committee as it was so obviously a give away to Google, Pandora, Spotify and other digital services.
• Ron Wyden opposed anti-piracy protections in the SOPA bill. Most people don’t understand SOPA.  They fell for the “don’t break the internet” bumper sticker slogan rather than looked at the details of the bill. Since the SOPA act failed in 2012, many countries including the UK have enacted similar but much stronger anti-piracy provisions. None of the dire consequences predicted by Wyden and his google funded anti-copyright fellow travelers ever emerged. Wyden has never acknowledged he was demonstrably wrong on the SOPA provisions that would have helped artists.
• Ron Wyden has consistently opposed all sensible and bipartisan reforms to the whac-a-mole DMCA takedown notice routine that companies like Google exploit. Whac-a-mole because they allow infringing files to repopulate their servers within minutes.  Basically Google makes hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars by exploiting this loophole.  (Remember Ron Wyden’s home state of Oregon hosts vast data centers for Google).
• Although he will deny it, Ron Wyden tanked TPP because it’s intellectual property rights provisions didn’t weaken copyright sufficiently. There is no other reasonable conclusion.  Ron Wyden will say he opposed TPP because it would hurt American workers, but if you look at the timeline, Wyden was a proponent of TPP until Google didn’t get what they wanted on copyright. Under mock pressure from astroturf Fight For The Future (an anti-copyright group led by a Google lobbyist) Wyden changed his  position.
• Ron Wyden opposes the Classics Act which would fix the Pre-1972 loophole which allows digital services and billionaire owners to avoid paying the royalties to performers that had the misfortune to record before Feb 15 1972. Unequal protection under the law.
• On top of that the “progressive” Senator has not acknowledged what is a pretty ugly and obvious truth: the pre-1972 loophole disproportionately harms African American artists.  Sad artifact of history, but a disproportionate share of songs were developed and popularized by African-American artists but the biggest hits were performances by white artists. The pre-1972 loophole freezes these unfair biases in place. For instance: Percy Sledge’s Sea of Love doesn’t get royalties; but Michael Bolton’s Sea of Love does. How can anyone with a conscience live with this?
• Ron Wyden just proposed a bill called ACCESS (clever right?) It is essentially the Classics Act but it is laden with loopholes that would allow services like Google and likely even The Pirate Bay, to continue to exploit artists without pay. One clause requires the rights holder to notify the service they are infringing (like they don’t already know), and then allows the service 180 days to correct their behavior.  6 months of royalty free use?  WTF?  There are also impossible to fulfill recordation and notification requirements that create holes that again would disproportionately harm African American artists because they were more likely to record on small specialty labels without the legal and economic resources that the major labels enjoyed. There is a reason international treaties on copyright discourage registration formalities.  Onerous formalities (like Wyden’s) end up disenfranchising independent and less sophisticated artists. Do you think those are white kids in the suburbs of Portland?

But even all this doesn’t really give you a sense of the deceit Wyden is willing to engage in to protect companies that have data centers in his state.

So let’s take a closer look at his blog post   “A Better Way to Protect Artists”

The deceit starts with Wyden not explaining to the reader that all the protections he supposedly provides in his bill (ACCESS) are also in the Classics Act which he opposes.

“For absolutely every living artist who recorded before 1972, my bill would give you new rights and new revenue from digital streaming, while also creating a uniform copyright law across the whole country.”

This is what the Classics does.  What Wyden is not telling you is that he has basically cloned the bill and inserted  a  billion dollars worth of loopholes into the act. ACCESS to legacy artists wallets is more like it.

But Wyden continues.  Next he makes the spurious claim that the genuinely pro-artist Classics Act somehow “locks away” ideas.

Artists deserve to be compensated for their work, but at the same time, we shouldn’t lock up ideas for decades after the creator has passed away.

This is the #1 bogus argument that every anti-copyright dead ender makes. Seriously Senator, if there is one question you need to answer, this is it: How does paying artists for a stream of their performance lock away that work?  Huh?  We are waiting. I guarantee you that Wyden won’t answer because nothing is “locked up.”  As a general rule when ANYONE in politics says they are doing something to  “benefit the public” it almost always turns out that “the public” is a large corporation in their district. Quite progressive right.  Really looking out for the little guy there.

The second obfuscation the Senator engages in,is the notion that copyright protects ideas. I only bring this up because Wyden is extremely educated on this matter and he has to know he is engaging in a deception on this point. Copyright does not protect ideas. Copyright only protects unique expression. Huge difference. There are hundreds of court cases and hundreds of years of academic literature that clearly lay this out. Shameless demogoguery designed to whip up hysteria never goes out of fashion.

Wyden continues:

“That’s why researchers like the Library Copyright Alliance (which includes the American Library Association), the Internet Archive and the Society of American Archivists all have endorsed my ACCESS to Recordings Act.”

All of these orgs are Google funded or rely on Jonathan Band for policy positions.  Jonathan Band of course is one of the star academics in Google Academics Inc report. So, a bunch of orgs that effectively act as proxies for Google support your bill.  Oh and Google just happens to have large tax exempt data centers in Oregon sucking down cheap electricity subsidized by ordinary Oregon ratepayers. Nothing funny going on here. The Senator might also want to note that the Internet Archive thinks they have some duty to distribute copies of Dabiq the official ISIS propaganda magazine. Brewster Kahle and his fellow Internet maximalist ideologues at Internet Archive are the worst kind of pseudo-intellectual bubble dwellers. They don’t give a fuck what kind of mayhem results from their irresponsible actions.  (I’m from San Bernardino County I’d be glad to introduce the Senator to some people…) That’s a real winning coalition  Next time maybe the Senator can get slightly more sympathetic astro turfers to support his bill. See if big tobacco has any.

But it doesn’t end there.  Wyden continues with his corporatist oligarch friendly propaganda.

Wyden repeats the widely debunked claim that proposed Classics Act creates a 144 year copyright for sound recordings in 1923 that are covered by state copyright law. The 144 year copyright term, which applies to a very narrow class of sound recordings was created by the 1995 copyright legislation.  It has nothing to do with the Classics Act.  That ship has sailed long ago. Here Wyden seems to be engaging in The Big Lie tactic.  Repeat a false claim until people think it’s true.  And this is a sitting US Senator. Tellingly this line of attack was first trotted April 26th by Mark A. Lemley who was (is?) outside counsel for Google.

Rent-A-Senator™ Wyden?

Here are some more howlers:

“To be clear, I support one of the goals of CLASSICS, and the reason it is supported by artists — to open up the revenue from new digital streaming services to older artists. Due to pending litigation, or the threat of litigation, virtually all streaming services are making payments to the copyright owners — often record labels. But, without the safeguards in federal law, we don’t know whether or how distributions are being made to the artists.”

First.  Does Wyden really think it’s a good thing that artists had to sue to get their money?  It’s not like most artists have a couple hundred thousand dollars sitting around to file a federal lawsuit against Google or Sirius.  Does he think they do?   Wyden is such a corporate whore now he doesn’t even know when he’s saying completely tin eared shit like this. Dude get out of the bubble once in a while.

Second.  Most artists have not received their money because the digital services are still appealing the class action.  They won’t get their money for years. I expect that hundred of artists will pass away before the money is ever paid.

Third. This:

But, without the safeguards in federal law, we don’t know whether or how distributions are being made to the artists.

WTF? This is exactly what the Classics Act does.  Safeguards to ensure the artists are paid directly via SoundExchange.  You get it? He is opposing a bill that does exactly this.  It’s total bullshit. He is simply trying to hide the fact his ACCESS  Act simply inserts a bunch of safe harbors and loopholes into the Classics Act.  And these are loopholes that will absolutely save digital services hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars; will result in artists being paid less; and these artists will be disproportionately African American.

Wyden is absolutely not a friend of artists.  The record is clear.

Jonathan Taplin will keynote the inaugural Forum On Internet Governance

The Forum on Internet Governance
June 21, 2018
Landmark E Street Cinema
555 11th Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20004

From our friend Will Buckley Founder / Executive Director, FarePlay, Inc.

The Forum on Internet Governance is in response to the mounting call for internet reform from policy makers and the media. The Forum will explore the socio-economic challenges created when powerful internet companies are allowed to self-regulate.
After a long public love affair with the internet, things changed last fall as reports began to surface about Russian interference and false advertising during the presidential election. Washington was finally being forced to turn their attention to those internet companies who have been derelict in taking responsibility for what has been taking place on their platforms.

It came as no surprise when internet powerhouses Google, Facebook and Twitter were easily invaded by Russian hackers. After all, for decades they have been fighting off all attempts by legislators to put controls in place to address criminal and abusive activity on their platforms.

Now, with recent revelations about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and legislative hearings with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the discussion about the need for internet governance has come sharply into focus.
The Forum is a half day event (8:30 AM to 12:30 PM) bringing together a diverse group of thought leaders and experts to discuss their concerns about the most pressing problems on the internet and to make recommendations for addressing those problems.

Sessions will include discussions on privacy, transparency, user safety, fake news, safe harbor abuse, the lack of ethical practices, and other areas of public concern.
Jonathan Taplin, author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Have Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy will be the keynote speaker.

–William Buckley Jr.

Tix here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-forum-on-internet-governance-tickets-5881468631

Agenda
 8.30 – 9.00 AM
Registration / Continental Breakfast

9:05- 9:35AM
Session 1: Keynote speech
Title: Is the internet breaking the creative eco-system?
Description: In his latest book, ‘Move Fast & Break Things – How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy’, film producer and academic, Jonathan Taplin, documents the monopolization of the Internet by Google, Facebook and Amazon, and proposes a new future for musicians, journalists, authors and filmmakers in the digital age.
Speaker: Jonathan Taplin

9:45 AM – 10:45 AM Session 2
Panel Discussion Title: Whose Safe Harbor?
Description:
Safe harbors were meant to provide a balance between access to content and the liability of internet platforms. Yet, in the US, like in Europe, or Australia, safe harbors have essentially allowed digital service providers to build massive businesses with little accountability about the content that they provide access to. So who are these safe harbors really protecting? How can a better balance be achieved between the normal aspiration to access content and the rights of content providers? What are the key points for safe harbor reform?
This session will feature representatives from the creative sector who will discuss the impact of the safe harbor regime on their businesses and what’s needed to achieve better copyright protection in the digital eco-system.

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Session 3: Panel Discussion
Title: The call for Internet Governance
Description:
A couple of decades ago, the digital promise was to bring additional freedom and new ways to apprehend the world through connectivity and new tools. But have these promises been kept? What kind of environment did the digital revolution foster for mankind in general and the creative community specifically? Should the internet be more regulated? Academics and creative industry experts debate on the ethics of this brave new world.
Panelists will discuss what needs to happen to ensure the internet is a safe environment for users while providing a level economic playing field for non-internet companies and creatives.
Topics will include: Privacy, Fake News,Terrorism and Safe Harbor abuse and the role played by Google, Facebook, Amazon and other major internet platforms.

> 12:05 PM – 12:25 PM Closing 

Sen Ron Wyden shown here when he was the trombone player for”The Shyllz” an early 80’s Palo Alto new wave band. 

A few months ago I came across an article on Portland, Oregon’s mixed history with labor unions despite it long being a bastion of progressivism. Andrew Bulkeley writing in Oregon Business in 2017:

“But even as social responsibility goes mainstream, organized labor remains an outlier among many [Oregon] companies that self-identify as progressive enterprises. To be sure, unions have something of a foothold in government and legacy industries — the grocers QFC and Kroger, manufacturers like Vigor Industrial and Daimler Trucks North America. Among many young companies and new business models, however, the union presence is tenuous at best.”

Portland’s Nike has long had its union problems. But it’s vague commitments to diversity and support of milquetoast social issues hardly make it a bastion of progressivism and is thus not the perfect case study.

Perhaps the more illustrative story of progressive Portland’s anti-unionism concerns the city’s beloved Powells Books.  In the 1990s the book shop management and progressive democratic owner Michael Powell fought a decade long battle against its employees efforts (and right) to unionize.  Even today Sontz the CEO of Powells Books still seems bothered by the fact her employees are unionized. In the same article in Oregon Business she says:

“[A union] slows you down,” Sontz says. “It makes you less entrepreneurial.”

Unions also tend to give workers a living wage so they can say support a family. Or own a home. Something increasingly difficult in Portland. Workers could easily argue that Powells books could be “more entrepreneurial” by paying its CEO less.  Use that money to invest in new technology. Ah ,but it’s always been so much easier to blame those pesky union workers for the company’s woes. Union bashing is usually the “look like you’re doing something” strategy when you don’t actually have a management strategy.

Sen Ron Wyden seems to be following in this peculiar Portland tradition.  He seems to have issues with pre-1972 performers (music workers) and the American Federation of Musicians and whether digital services (the bosses) have to pay them at all. And yes you read that right.

Specifically, Sen Ron Wyden is trying to sink a bill (The Classics Act) that is designed to plug a loophole in the interaction between state and federal copyright law that allows big companies like Google, Spotify, and Sirius to avoid paying royalties to performers and union side musicians that had the misfortune to record before Feb 15 1972. This is particularly galling because his opposition to the act would seem to benefit one company more than any other:  Sirius XM.

Sirius XM market cap is currently more than 30 plus billion dollars and last reported net profits running at 22% of revenue. This is a company with no other satellite radio competitors. It relies almost exclusively on licenses imposed on music rights holders by the federal government.  And the regulations that govern the setting of royalties actually mandates below market rates. Its net profit margins are quite extraordinary when you consider it is stagnant business.  Rent seeking and crony capitalism, two great tastes that taste great together!

And this is not Wyden’s first rodeo. He can’t be forgiven for not understanding the issues.  It is a pattern. This is his second attempt to cut pay to performers in a way that benefits digital services. The second time in less than a decade! In 2012 he proposed the Orwellian named Internet Radio Fairness act which would have slashed pay to performers up to 70%.   We’re not talking a minor adjustment to federally mandated rates.

But it doesn’t end there. Protecting the billionaires that own these digital companies is so important to Wyden, he has just introduced a kind of “poison pill” bill (ACCESS Act) that seems specifically designed to gut the CLASSICS legislation (Contrary to what Wyden claims It reduces existing copyright terms on many songs originally protected by state copyright laws).

I often wonder what it is Wyden has against musicians? Is it like that old SNL skit which “reveals” biographer Albert Goldman’s hatred of John Lennon and Elvis stems from the fact he’d once been The Beatles trombone player. (Spoiler Alert) Elvis came to a Beatles show and convinced John Lennon to fire him.

Finally referring to an organized multi-company effort to set performer prices at zero as a “loophole” is very generous to Wyden. It more like price fixing. (Where is that FTC investigation?)  Further there was no loophole in copyright law until Sirius and Pandora decided to stop paying the royalty in 2012.  They have litigated and appealed ever since to keep the loophole open. More ethical (and better run) companies like Apple continue to pay this royalty. I assume because like most reasonable people, they look at the law and see that congress never intended there be a “gotcha” loophole. It’s more likely Sirius and Pandora will lose their cases eventually.  So Wyden is not just for preserving a loophole, he’s trying to protect companies that are likely breaking the law, and screwing unions at the same time.

Now that’s a very peculiar kind of “progressivism” isn’t it? Welcome to Portland.

P.S. BTW does anyone know if all those Silicon Valley data centers out in The Dalles hire union workers?  Cause usually Silicon Valley is quite anti-union.  But boy do they love Ron Wyden! 

The 9th Circuit was effectively told by Google counsel they were engaging in conspiracy theories. Then they were forced to produce documents by the court. Turned out court was right. #ConspiracyFacts

On the morning of April 25 less than 24 hours after the Music Modernization Act passed the House 415-0. Mark Lemley a professor at Stanford wrote the following letter to a group of IP Lawyers:

“I think this term extension is unnecessary. I am thinking of putting together a short professors letter arguing that if Congress is to create a sound recording digital public performance right, it should expire when a corresponding copyright would naturally have expired and should be subject to the same limitations and defenses as copyright law. If you are interested in helping put together such a letter, please let me know. Time is short. If you think I am misreading this for some reason, I’d like to know that too.”[1]

This is significant for two reasons. This email appears to be the basis of the “Gang of 40” IP professors letter in opposition to the Classics Act.  Opponents of the Classics Act (mostly Google funded EFF and Public Knowledge) have used this letter to try to block or gut the legislation, by shopping the debunked claim of copyright term extension to Senate staff.

Second according to the a court document commonly referred to in press as a “shill list” (Oracle v Google) Lemley has acted (continues to act?) as outside counsel for Google. He is a long time advocate for Google’s policy positions.  He also features prominently in the “Google Academics Inc”, report published by Google Transparency Project.  This report details Google’s funding for academic institutions and research, and notes how it appears to have predictable results on the research conclusions produced by academics. That is, the research conclusions generally support Google’s public policy positions. Some have criticized the inclusion of certain professors in this report, but Lemley’s inclusion appears uncontroversial. Lemley unlike many other professors does not seek to hide his connections to Google.

To be clear, Lemley is doing nothing illegal or unethical.  However if you put the Gang of 40 letter in the context of the greater public policy debate around The Classics Act this letter is extremely problematic for Google. For this letter appears when Google, through its trade policy group DiMA, was telling congress that they were negotiating in good faith with performers, songwriters and other rights holders. They held (and still hold) a public position in support of The Classics Act. Yet the letter appears to have been produced by Google outside counsel.  This would seem to imply negotiators for DiMA were unwittingly being undermined by their own side, or (more likely IMHO) negotiators were in on it and are continuing to play a double game.  That is not acting in bad faith, it is acting in terrible-fuck-you-extra-googley-bad-faith.  For a second time.

Senate Staff should look into this.

[1]This email was provided by multiple sources.  Further the published excerpt was verified by yet another recipient of the email.

Public Knowledge is a well known Google astroturf group. They were also listed in a court document often referred to as “the Google Shill list”. Public Knowledge organized and submitted a letter to the US. Senate urging rejection of copyright reform language that would close the pre-1972 sound recording loophole that allows a small handful of companies to avoid paying royalties to pre-1972 performers. The loophole – if it is a loophole at all- came to public attention in 2012 when a handful of digital broadcaster simultaneously stopped paying royalties older performers (Apple and other “good” tech companies still pay this royalty). The loophole has subsequently been challenged in court. The US congress noting the arbitrariness of the pre-1972 distinction has proposed language to close this loophole.  To bolster their case against the closure of the loophole, Public Knowledge has manufactured an argument that claims a return to the status quo is somehow a copyright term extension. PK then they managed to somehow get their letter  signed by “40 IP law professors.”  That’s right 40 academics have decided to help a handful of tech billionaires to continue to stiff pre-1972 artists. Sadly this type thing has become all too common in academia.

We would like to note that 15 of these professors appear to have benefitted from or continue to benefit from  Google funding.

To be clear.  We are not saying they were all paid directly. But as money is fungible, significant funding from Google to their institution, center or non-profit likely helped support their work and contributed significantly to their academic career.

9 of these professors are named in the Academics Inc report by Google Transparency Project.

6 others work/worked for institutions that are/were significantly funded by Google. And I don’t mean a few dollars here and there. We are talking hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.

Let’s face it. Opposition to the Classics Act is being coordinated by Public Knowledge and a small group of professors that mostly have Google in common. Someone should ask why is that?  If Google won’t comment ask Michael Beckerman at the Internet Association. I bet he knows.

Here are the 16 professors.

Michael Carrier Rutgers Law School

Michael W. Carroll
American University Washington College of Law

Paul J. Heald
University of Illinois College of Law

Mark A. Lemley Stanford Law School

Mark McKenna
Notre Dame Law School

Aaron Perzanowski
Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Matthew Sag
Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Pamela Samuelson
UC Berkeley School of Law

Jason Schultz
New York University School of Law

Lawrence Lessig
Harvard Law School
(Vast sums donated by Google to associated foundations and non-profits)

Jessica Silbey
Northeastern University School of Law
(Berkman affiliated faculty, Berkman receives Google Funding,)

Rebecca Tushnet
Harvard Law School
(Berkman, Berkman receives Google Funding,)

Eric Goldman
Santa Clara University School of Law
(Santa Clara University School of Law received Google Buzz cy pres for Ethics Center )

Brian Love
Santa Clara University School of Law
(Santa Clara University School of Law received Google Buzz cy pres for Ethics Center )

Tyler T. Ochoa
Santa Clara University School of Law
(Santa Clara University School of Law received Google Buzz cy pres for Ethics Center )