Author: Trichordist Editor

Trichordist Editor

Intellectual property — Our forgotten constitutional right? | Fosters

This story originally ran on Constitution Day, but we just got hipped to it now. Worth the read.

Cyber-piracy increasingly costs the U.S. economy money that instead of creating and supporting jobs goes into the pockets of criminals. The government must act, and swiftly, by exercising its constitutional responsibility to ensure that this trend is reversed. This may require breaking some new ground and should be done only after careful, principled debate, with respect for liberty and adherence to our other, equally important, constitutional rights.

If the framers could understand this matter in the eighteenth century, we must believe the current Congress can grapple with it today. Previous efforts to update our intellectual property protection system were defeated in a flurry of misinformation. The proposed legislation may have been opaque and overly broad, but the concerns expressed by many conservatives and libertarians were overstated.

On this Constitution Day, let’s remember that even in the Founder’s concept of a limited federal government, it is the proper obligation of that government to secure the property of its citizens against lawlessness. Protecting intellectual property is a property rights issue. There is a difference between liberty and lawlessness: We should favor the former and oppose the latter. On Constitution Day we should think about the protection of intellectual property rights on the Internet as a logical, contemporary extension of the basic Constitutional rights of authors, scientists and inventors that our framers set forth so plainly two and a quarter centuries ago.

READ THE FULL STORY AT FOSTERS:
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130919/GJOPINION_0102/130919239/-1/FOSOPINION

by Trichordist Editor

Copyright Erosion: How DMCA Misuse Became A Multimillion Dollar Shakedown

Essential Reading for All Musicians and Creators.

Music Technology Policy

I participated on a panel at the 2013 USC Institute on Entertainment Law and Business on October 5 in Los Angeles.  The topic was the erosion of copyright, not just through a lack of enforcement, but through permissive misinterpretation of the intentions of Congress.

My presentation was based on the briefing on brand sponsored piracy that I gave to the National Association of Attorneys General earlier this year (which you can see here).  A caveat–while I discuss only Google here, these problems are not limited to Google alone.  However, since Google is a monopolist in both search and online advertising, the difference between what Google does and others do while measurable is unlikely to be statistically significant.

The argument is that due to an extraordinarily distorted interpretation of the “safe harbors” created with the best of intentions by the Congress in 1998 (the so-called “DMCA notice and takedown”), the…

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by Trichordist Editor

The Misconceptions of Music Piracy | DeepWit Recordings

A fantastic and detailed exploration of the issues from the perspective of a Deep House, Independent, EDM Label.

The second biggest misconception I have run across about piracy is that it does not hurt sales.

The first question I have to ask people when they say this to me is, have you actually done a test to prove this hypotheses?

I have, and from what I have seen, from a small labels perspective is YES without a doubt it effects our sales. I can also say, being involved with a fairly recognizable Deep House producer, that when we take down illegal download sites for him, it can make all the difference between making it into the top 100 and not.

Maybe this does not hold true for all labels or artists, but I can certainly say for my label we have more lost revenue (my estimate would be about a third of what we could be making instead goes to piracy) then we get fans in return for this “free” promotion.

READ THE FULL POST AT DEEPWIT RECORDINGS:
http://deepwitrecordings.wordpress.com/tag/why-music-piracy-hurts-musicians/

by Trichordist Editor

Copyright: The Inverted Human Pyramid | The Cynical Musican

You are no doubt aware of the hearings currently being undertaken by the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet – part of a major review of existing copyright law (and if not, I just told you). As can be expected in this enlightened (or, at least, interconnected) age – recordings are available on the web and I’ve been trying to catch up with the debate.

Whilst watching the hearing from two weeks ago (with representatives from the “rights holder side” present) I couldn’t help feeling that none of the witnesses was able to articulate just why copyright was so important to the nation as a whole – not just the small portion of it that actually owns marketable copyrights. Given that the House of Representatives represents all Americans, it would seem that such an explanation is deserved.

This got me thinking of how I would go about explaining it and I offer it for your reading pleasure.

READ THE FULL POST AT:
http://thecynicalmusician.com/2013/08/copyright-the-inverted-human-pyramid/

by Trichordist Editor

The End of Quiet Music | The New York Times

There’s a lot to take away from the recent opinion piece in the New York Times from Alina Simone about the new (but not better) realities for musicians and creators. Here are two paragraphs that have resonated with us, asking the important questions about where we are, and where we are going.

Instead of helping these musicians, we tell them they just have to adapt to the new realities of the music economy. And short of embedding MP3s in toilet paper, they have. Bands have demonstrated remarkable creativity in trying to monetize whatever they can to make up for the inability to, er, monetize their music itself. They will come over and play Xbox 360 with you or personally record your outgoing voice mail message.

We’ve placed the entire onus of changing-with-the-times on musicians, but why can’t the educational, cultural and governmental institutions that support the arts adapt as well, extending the same opportunities to those whose music provides the soundtrack to our lives? If they don’t, Darwinism will probably ensure that only the musical entrepreneurs survive. I can’t say if the world of music will be better or worse off if that happens, but it will certainly be a lot louder.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/the-end-of-quiet-music/?_r=0

by Trichordist Editor

Why Copyright Infringement is Theft | Copyhype

This post by  Devlin Hartline at Copyhype was Cross-posted on the Law Theories blog.

In the never-ending copyright debate, one often comes across certain words the usage of which both sides vehemently disagree upon. One such point of contention is the use of the word “theft” to describe copyright infringement. Ars Technica ran an article a few years back where Vice President Joe Biden was quoted as saying that “[p]iracy is flat, unadulterated theft.” Copyhype’s Terry Hart had a post a week later discussing the infringement-as-theft meme, mentioning the fact that even Justice Breyer, a copyright skeptic, had referred to deliberate infringement as “garden-variety theft.”1 The response from the other side of the debate was predictable, with the usual suspects demanding that copyright infringement is not theft—though the skeptics conspicuously neglected to define the word theft or to actually explain why it’s wrong to refer to infringement as theft.

READ THE FULL POST AT COPYHYPE:
http://www.copyhype.com/2013/09/why-copyright-infringement-is-theft/

by Trichordist Editor

Grand Theft Auto V : How Profits Soar when Piracy Is Managed.

Both the PS3 and the XBOX 360 have anti-piracy and digital rights management mechanisms in place that lock out users who are detected to have loaded cracked or unauthorized versions of the games.

It’s no wonder then that Grand Theft Auto 5 is the fastest selling entertainment product to reach one billion dollars in gross revenue. In just three days the game that took over $250 million dollars and years to produce had set a new record.

This is what we should all be looking at. This is the kind of wild imagination, innovation and investment that is possible when piracy is managed into acceptable levels. Of course we know there may be people who find functional work-a-rounds, but they are largely the exception, not the rule, and the numbers pretty much prove it.

What is interesting about the release of GTA V is that it looks more like the release of an iphone than a new album or movie. In other words, it is a digital entertainment release with the same potential of sales as a piece of hardware (or pre-internet piracy entertainment products).

This alone illustrates the possibilities for the size and scope of the digital entertainment market with adequate (not perfect) anti-piracy measures in place. You’ll also note that the #2 and #3 fastest selling products are also console video games which employ the same anti-piracy mechanisms.

With an estimated production/marketing budget of $265 million, GTA V is not only the most expensive video game of all time, but also more expensive than most of today’s Hollywood blockbusters. Considering this, it seems only fair to compare GTA’s commercial success to that of Hollywood movies.

READ THE FULL STORY AT STATISTICA:
http://www.statista.com/topics/868/video-games/chart/1501/most-successful-entertainment-products/

by Trichordist Editor

SoundExchange and BandPage Collaborate to Put $2M in Unclaimed Royalties in Musicians Pockets | Music Industry News Wire

Music Industry Newswire reports on some good news!

WASHINGTON, D.C. /Music Industry Newswire/ — SoundExchange, a music industry non-profit focused on distributing digital performance royalties to recording artists and record labels, and BandPage, a leading solution for musicians to manage their presence online, recently teamed up to notify recording artists of unclaimed royalties with SoundExchange.

Together the two groups identified more than $2 million in unclaimed digital performance royalties for thousands of BandPage musicians who have not yet registered with SoundExchange. Bandpage musicians with unclaimed performance royalties will be notified by BandPage directly via email.

READ THE FULL POST AT MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS WIRE:
http://musicindustrynewswire.com/2012/08/07/min5749_140533.php/soundexchange-and-bandpage-collaborate-to-put-2m-in-unclaimed-royalties-in-musicians-pockets/

by Trichordist Editor

Hotfile’s Loss Will be Indie Filmmakers’ Gain | Vox Indie

Ellen Seidler at Vox Indie takes a detailed look at how the recent decision in the Hot File case will effect indie filmmakers and other creators.

MPAA victory against Hotfile is a victory shared by all content creators hurt by online piracy

The best news in the fight against online piracy since Megaupload’s demise came yesterday as the MPAA annouced a big victory in their copyright infringement lawsuit against Hotfile, a cloud-based cyberlocker website known to harbor pirated movies, music, books and more. Though specific details of the court decision won’t be released for another two weeks, the judge issued a summary judgement in favor of the plaintiffs.

READ THE FULL POST AT VOX INDIE:
http://voxindie.org/hotfile-loses-copyright-infringement-case#sthash.WB0oxGhx.dpuf

by Trichordist Editor

Music Piracy – An Artist’s Opinion | Sara Tiemogo

Music piracy is stealing. And it does hurt the musician. Over the past decade, we have gradually shifted from physical distribution to digital distribution with the advancement of mp3 players, specifically the advancements of Apple and it’s “iProducts”. Digital distribution now accounts for more than 52% of the music industry in the US.

But there was a time during the shift when people had difficulty placing “value” on a digital product, with tangible products being of more value. This is what led people to believe that they aren’t really “stealing”, because a file can be duplicated an infinite number of times and not “cost” the musician anything. But it does cost us.

READ THE FULL POST HERE:
http://saratiemogo.com/blog/music-piracy-an-artists-opinion/

by Trichordist Editor