Author: Trichordist Editor

Trichordist Editor

YouTube’s Copyright Problem | Plagiarism Today

Bottom Line

If YouTube is going to be more than a destination for watching content and a key part of where producers and others go to post their content, it needs to solve its copyright problem, meaning that it is both a place original expression can thrive and a place pirated and infringing content is kept at bay.

While ContentID and YouTube’s rules have done a decent job in the majority of cases, it doesn’t really feel as if YouTube is building on stable ground in either direction.

YouTube has to do more to both protect fair use and legitimate commentary/criticism while doing more to prevent illegal material from taking home on the service. Those two ideas are not in opposition to one another, though many would let you believe they are.

READ THE FULL STORY AT PLAGIARISM TODAY:
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/10/23/youtubes-copyright-problem/

by Trichordist Editor

Help for New Musicians Chasing Cash | BBC UK

With digital downloads, falling album sales and rampant piracy, what’s it like trying to establish yourself as a new performer in today’s troubled music industry?

Well, in the words of one UK music business professional: “It’s like trying to create a hurricane by running around a field in circles.”

Artists can no longer depend on labels to finance their projects and invest in building their careers. Long demonized, it appears the true value of investment capital, expertise and contracts are coming into focus for today’s new artists.

In her guide – entitled Easy Money? – Ms Harris identifies six main sources of money for music projects:

  • grants
  • friends and family
  • crowdfunding
  • sponsorship
  • debt
  • investment

She says that during her 15 years in the music industry, it has “moved from an internal funding model to having to go to external sources” for cash to kick-start projects.

Normally, she says, musicians are looking for about £5,000 to £10,000 to fund a specific project, such as a record or live appearances.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE AT THE BBC UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24249918

by Trichordist Editor

Slaves of the Internet, Unite! | The New York Times

A familiar figure in one’s 20s is the club owner or event promoter who explains to your band that they won’t be paying you in money, man, because you’re getting paid in the far more valuable currency of exposure. This same figure reappears over the years, like the devil, in different guises — with shorter hair, a better suit — as the editor of a Web site or magazine, dismissing the issue of payment as an irrelevant quibble and impressing upon you how many hits they get per day, how many eyeballs, what great exposure it’ll offer. “Artist Dies of Exposure” goes the rueful joke.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE NEW YORK TIMES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/slaves-of-the-internet-unite.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

by Trichordist Editor

Swedish Artists Are Now Threatening Legal Action Over Streaming Royalties… | DMN

The origin of the outrage is telling: Sweden is widely regarded as a model country for streaming and access, thanks to massive adoption and recovering recording revenues. The threatened suits suggest that not everyone is celebrating or, more importantly, enjoying the early spoils.

Regardless of the locale, the issue comes ahead of very difficult juncture for Spotify. Mega-artists like Thom Yorke continue to raise uncomfortable questions about paltry payouts, but more perilous questions are dangling on the financial side. Recent financial figures show an unsustainable level of cash burn at Spotify, and potentially serious problems attracting more capital as a result. And after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars, Spotify is getting dangerously close to depleting its funding tranche.

READ THE FULL STORY AT DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/10/25/swedishartists

by Trichordist Editor

YouTube Awards Tarnished by YouTube Hate Videos and Jihadi Recruitment

YouTube, Just Like Television? What network broadcasts hate and jihadi recruitment programing?

Music Technology Policy

Google has a lot of excuses for why they profit from piracy, but what is inexcusable is how YouTube profits from hate videos and war porn.  It is difficult to understand how Lady Gaga and other artists slated to perform on the “YouTube Music Awards” would be able to turn a blind eye to this evil, no matter the fee and no matter how much “promotion” a media giant like Google can bring to bear.

The Problem from Hell is Easily Solved

johnny rebel youtube

What is difficult to understand about YouTube’s hate problem is how Google could just ignore it–particularly when these videos no doubt violate some policy that Google pays lip service to.  Fortunately, the Anti-Defamation League has compiled a list that Google could easily use to enforce violations of their dormant terms of service when it comes to hate speech.

I tried YouTube searches by picking a few names from…

View original post 527 more words

by Trichordist Editor

@natgeo and @geico sponsor beheading videos on YouTube…yes, real ones

Just Like Television?

Music Technology Policy

beheading

[Editor Charlie sez: Here’s a recent “content warning” video embedded from YouTube:

So YouTube makes it look like they are screening violent videos, but all they are really doing is grabbing users email addresses to sell them other stuff and preserving Google’s monopoly over video traffic by allowing grotesque videos to drive traffic to YouTube through referring sites.

 

YouTube–the #1 music destination online–is also the home of all sorts of grotesque videos, monetized by YouTube and Google.  Try searching YouTube for “beheading” and you’ll get the idea.  544,000 search results all available for streaming directly into your home, right now, all over Internet television.

Not only is YouTube available at home, but it’s also linked to Google’s education apps, government apps, and by the Android.  And these are not just an odd video here and there, these videos account for millions of views.

Some of the beheading videos…

View original post 55 more words

by Trichordist Editor

Do these companies really want their products promoted aside “Free Find and F**k” ads? | Vox Indie

Ads for Adidas, Acura, Bertolli, Crest, Charmin, Domino’s, Ford, Geico, Hellmann’s, Lowe’s, Panera, Papermate, PG&E, Post and more share space with sex ads.

Ad Industry Best Practices?

The ad industry and ad service providers have made a show of agreeing to voluntary “best practices” agreements to fight ad-sponsored piracy,  but despite their talk and White House support, not much has changed.  Take a look at the graphic below…What kind of  industry “best practices” do these ad placements represent?

READ THE FULL POST AT VOX INDIE:
http://voxindie.org/#sthash.vEKTxQ2V.dpuf

by Trichordist Editor

New Study Shows Up to 96% of Megaupload Files Are Infringing

A new study from North Eastern University is getting some attention and it’s interesting how some people are spinning the numbers, so we decided to take a look.

“For Megaupload (MU) the researchers found that 31% of all uploads were infringing, while 4.3% of uploads were clearly legitimate. This means that with an estimated 250 million uploads, 10.75 million uploads were non-infringing. For the remaining 65% the copyrighted status was either unknown, or the raters couldn’t reach consensus.” – Torrent Freak

Simple Math : 31% + 65% = 96%

by Trichordist Editor

Spoof Ad Campaign Responds to BitTorrent’s Recent Billboards

The BitTorrent Billboard advertising campaign story has taken an interesting turn spawning a satirical response spoof banner ad campaign appearing on sites such as Grooveshark, Mashable, MediaFire and Rollingstone.com. The banner ads read “All your content are belong to us” and “Instead of paying artists, we spent money on banners.”

Clicking on the faux ad banners lands on the site RightTheMusic.Org that presents internet piracy fun facts such as “Worldwide, 432.0m unique internet users explicitly sought infringing content during January 2013” and provides an additional click through the source of the quote.

AS REPORTED ON AT TORRENT FREAK:
http://torrentfreak.com/angry-artists-attack-bittorrent-with-spoofed-billboards-131018/

AS REPORTED ON AT SOFTPEDIA:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/BitTorrent-Banners-Trigger-Spoof-Campaign-from-Angry-Artists-392769.shtml

AS REPORTED ON AT ADLAND:
http://adland.tv/node/156152#Zrk6olusqTDT7IBX.99

by Trichordist Editor

Top 10 Reasons People Use To Justify Pirating Digital Content (And Why They’re Wrong) | Lit Reactor

Book authors are now learning what it’s been like to be a musician for the past decade.

Pirating digital content is illegal. Full stop.

Yet people continually steal eBooks and movies and television shows and treat it like it’s no big deal. There’s a couple of reasons it happens: Torrenting is easy and the chance of getting caught is low. And saving money is fun, especially when the economy isn’t at its strongest. But the biggest reason was summed up perfectly by Devin Faraci of Badass Digest (who tweeted the following while I was writing this, and I couldn’t possibly say it better myself):

In our culture today people think they deserve their entertainment, not that it’s a perk.

An eBook is a luxury, not a right. If you can’t afford it, too bad, but that’s life.

Still, people excuse the practice of pirating with a plethora of ridiculous reasons that don’t hold up to scrutiny. I have yet to hear a single legitimate argument in favor of it. Here’s the ones I’ve heard so far–and why they’re complete nonsense:

READ THE FULL POST HERE AT LIT REACTOR:
http://litreactor.com/columns/top-10-reasons-people-use-to-justify-pirating-digital-content-and-why-theyre-wrong

by Trichordist Editor