Author: Trichordist Editor

Trichordist Editor

So Much For Innovation, YouTuber’s Meet The New Boss…

The persistent myth that artists and creators neither want or need partners in the self empowered digital age seems to have hit a wall. The LA Weekly recently reported on a number of high profile YouTube Artists who have found themselves on the bad end of bad deals with YouTube Producers. Get that. Artists have found themselves on the bad end of deals with business people exploiting them.

Ben Vacas, the creator of Braindeadly posted a video on his YouTube channel explaining the situation to his fans and audience,

“I woke up today hoping to make a video, but I went into a call with Machinima this evening and they said that my contract is completely enforceable. I can’t get out of it,” Vacas tells the camera. “They said I am with them for the rest of my life — that I am with them forever.

How could this happen in this digital age when no one should ever need any help or support from anyone else? So many in the tech blogosphere are constantly on the bullhorn bemouning the evils of record labels and movie studios, so the hypocrisy and irony of this new generation of creators falling prey to the same old types of exploitation is telling.

What’s worse is these artists appear to have entered into the types of agreements that the traditional record and film businesses have long since left behind as those industries matured and the rights of artists have been won in long hard fought battles.

As Chris Castle of Music Tech Policy commented in his post, It’s Called A Union, Numbnuts he sadly points out the obvious that the more things change the more they stay the same. Artists and creators are still prey for those seeking opportunistic exploitation of the creative class.

Well kids, welcome to the new boss. There is a reason why talent and craft unions exist and it’s not to “stifle innovation” of filmmakers any more than copyright exists to “stifle innovation” of musicians, artists, photographers, writers, authors, filmmakers and other creators.

But perhaps it is this more recent story that is more revealing. All Things D wrote this in “YouTube’s Show-Me-The-Money Problem“,

“It’s hard, given YouTube’s low [revenue-sharing] numbers and lack of marketing infrastructure to make the unit economics for premium programming work,” says Steve Raymond, who runs Big Frame, a YouTube network/programmer that says it has generated 3.2 billion views.

So let’s do the math on this. YouTube, which is the great white hope of, and often cited embodiment of the independent new digital culture for creators has bred an environment of draconian contracts for individual creators and at the same time it can not generate enough revenue for it’s most successful producers to maintain a sustainable business model.

How is this “innovation and progress”? Answer, it’s not. Of course readers of this blog will be familiar with David Lowery’s insightful and accurate analysis of the music business “Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss” and now we can see that the same forces are also shaping the new reality for more artists and creators than just musicians.

For all of the hype, it’s really funny what happens when you actually just look at the math. What’s more funny is when some tech blogs make statements like, “First of all, YouTube revenue is incremental revenue on top of other revenue.” Well apparently they haven’t spoken to Big Frame about that, unless of course they are suggesting that Big Frame’s primary business (and the creators that work for them) should have day jobs to supplement their revenue from YouTube. You know, jobs like selling t-shirts and touring…

by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Monday March 18, 2013

DIGI DAY:
* Why is Ad Tech Still Funding Piracy?

Visit the top torrent search engines, and you’ll find ad calls from Yahoo, Google, Turn, Zedo, RocketFuel, AdRoll, CPX Interactive and others. These sites exist to connect people with illegal downloads of intellectual property, a practice that’s estimated to cost the U.S. economy $20 billion in the movie industry alone. No matter your feelings about U.S. copyright laws, they are laws, and there’s no doubt these sites facilitate illegal behavior, even if they don’t house the content themselves. The oxygen that sustains many of these sites is advertising, delivered by the vast archipelago of the ad tech industry.

According to AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley, it’s an easy problem to fix, but ad companies are attracted by the revenue torrent sites can generate for them. Kelley said his company refuses to serve ads to torrent sites and other sites facilitating the distribution of pirated content. It’s easy to do technically, he said, but others refuse to do it.

“We want everyone to technically stop their customers from advertising on these sites, but there’s a financial incentive to keep doing so,” he said. “Companies that aren’t taking a stand against this are making a lot of money.”

JUNKEE:
* The Case Against Free

What is the difference between the writer who can’t sustain a career because of publishers who are unwilling to pay them because the next person will do it for free, and the musician who can’t afford to play in their band because taking time off work to play some shows makes their vocation unsustainable?

THE ONION (Thanks CopyHype!):
* Word ‘Innovate’ Said 650,000 Times At SXSW So Far

Bryant additionally confirmed the absence of the less common phrases “investment model,” “practical business strategy,” and “economic realities,” which together have been mentioned a total of zero times.

LIFE HACKER:
* Why I Stopped Pirating and Started Paying for Media

For a period I pirated everything I could. As technology pushed forward, it became less necessary, and now I don’t even bother. Here’s why.

Piracy affects pretty much every part of the entertainment industry from big corporations to independent creators. While pirating isn’t always immoral (say you already own the movie), it is illegal, and while many pirates buy more, that doesn’t mean they buy everything they pirate—and that hurts the industry in question, particularly when you’re talking about independent creators.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE:
* For Amanda Palmer, it takes a village

she also fretted that not every artist — PJ Harvey, Jeff Mangum, Elliot Smith, to name just a few — can be or wants to be as “hyper-social” as she is. “It’s our collective responsibility to help them because they’re not as loud,” she said.

THE WASHINGTON POST:
* Hey Internet, where’s the outrage?

Given CISPA’s legal benefits to private companies such as Google and Facebook, it’s easier to see why the corporate pillars of the Internet haven’t jumped on the outrage bandwagon.

However, it’s not as clear why other major Internet players, such as Craigslist or Wikipedia, who participated in SOPA protests aren’t being as vocal now.

COPYHYPE:
* “Manifestly ill-founded”: Pirate Bay Free Speech Argument Tossed

a unanimous chamber at the European Court of Human Rights held that the massive infringement the site enabled justified any interference with the site founders’ free expression rights. The Court, in fact, said that the founders’ appeal on free speech grounds was “manifestly ill-founded.”

MUSIC WEEK:
* More music pirated than TV, film and games combined – new Ofcom report

Ofcom has published a new report tracking online copyright infringement during Q3 2012, with music seeing far higher volumes of piracy than TV, film, video games, software and e-books combined.

PRECURSOR:
* Cellphone Unlocking Effort a Trojan Horse to Gut DMCA Digital-Locks Copyright Enforcement

Remember, this new Fix-the-DMCA coalition is just a new PR face for the old Free Culture/Free Software movement that does not believe software and digital information should be copyrightable, patentable or proprietary. It can’t be said enough that their definition of a “free and open Internet” is where “free” means no payment or permission required and “open” means no property respected.

Amazingly this movement opposes the principle of digital “locks.” In our society most people lock their house, yard, room, car, bike, money, etc. Locks are our friend and our protector. Locks are only the enemy to those who seek to take something from someone without their permission. We lock what has value and what we want to protect or control.

TECH LIBERATION:
* Who Really Believes in “Permissionless Innovation”?

That’s a great question, but let’s ponder an even more fundamental one: Does anyone really believe in the ideal of “permissionless innovation”? Is there anyone out there who makes a consistent case for permissionless innovation across the technological landscape, or is it the case that a fair degree of selective morality is at work here? That is, people love the idea of “permissionless innovation” until they find reasons to hate it — namely, when it somehow conflicts with certain values they hold dear.

NEW YORK TIMES:
* Google Concedes That Drive-By Prying Violated Privacy

Google on Tuesday acknowledged to state officials that it had violated people’s privacy during its Street View mapping project when it casually scooped up passwords, e-mail and other personal information from unsuspecting computer users.

LA TIMES:
* SXSW 2013: Spotify predicts a ‘decent living’ for artists

“My goal is to not just convert the 24 million into buying [a subscription],” Ek said. “My goal is to get  1 billion using streaming services rather than a piracy service.”

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* Because as Long as Fans Aren’t Stealing, It Must Be Okay…
* The European Court of Human Rights Rejects an Appeal of The Pirate Bay Verdict…
* Why Those Who Claim Copyright Enforcement Stifles Innovation Are Wrong.

If, as anti-copyright campaigners claim, copyright stifles innovation, then how come the interfaces of pirate websites are so unimaginative and, let’s face it, crap?

DIGITAL TRENDS:
* Indie band Quiet Company and the terrifying, murky waters of streaming sites and social networks

“After everything, I’m not sure there is a new model. The old model is still the model, it’s just that the Internet made it way worse.”

HYPEBOT:
* On Gaining Visibility Through Grooveshark: Mike Masnick vs. Bruce Houghton

But there has to be a line that we don’t cross. If I told Quiet Company that they could build their fanbase by working with a company that stole musical instruments from working musicians, would that be an acceptable path to success?

TORRENT FREAK:
* Kim Dotcom: “I Will Never be in a U.S. Prison”

BRETT DANAHER:
* Explanation of Megaupload Study (or: Econometrics 101)

Perhaps lots of invisible fairies *just happened to appear in January 2012* in countries with high Megaupload use and told consumers to start buying more movies.  And some fairies appeared in medium Megaupload countries and told consumers to start buying a few more movies.  And no such fairies appeared in low Megaupload countries.  But how likely is this counter-explanation?

ARL POLICY NOTES:
* Notes from Register Pallante’s “The Next Great Copyright Act”

Stronger Enforcement

—The new law must respect the integrity of the internet, including free speech

—There needs to be, however, a mix of legislative and voluntary efforts to combat infringement online

—On solution may be to increase criminal penalties for streaming, or at least bring them in line with the penalties for distribution through downloads

DOTTED MUSIC:
* Music Industry Plagued By Retitling Of Songs #Infographic

A new infographic report “State of the Music Licensing Industry: 2013” just published by The Music Licensing Directory provides alarming new data that shows an increasingly problematic music licensing landscape for recording artists, labels and publishers.

MUSIC TECH POLICY:
* Best SXSW Panel: Recording Academy’s Artist Rights Panel Includes…Artists! @nakia, @davidclowery and @eastbayray1
* Pandora Promo Campaigns: Disinformation by Internet Radio Fairness Coalition?
* SXSW: The Governor’s Salute to Texas Music (Don’t Tell the Broadcasters)

For a Complete Archive of all Weekly News and Updates [CLICK HERE].

by Trichordist Editor

It’s about money. It’s about education of musicians and creators that the money is out there, it’s just not being “shared” with musicians.

Music Technology Policy

It’s been a pretty surprising SXSW so far–on the conference side it has become very similar to the Consumer Electronics Show.  Lots of panels about copyright and artist rights, but no artists.  Lots of suits–consultants, lawyers, some consultants who are lawyers, lawyers who are consultants and even journalists who are lawyers.  Lots of organizations on the Google Shill List–but no artists.  And don’t forget–every consultant has a client.  As one of these wanna-be shill listers said, “Sorry for the tirade, but my boss was in the audience.”

To the very great credit of the Recording Academy, today marked the first panel in a week that actually included artists.  Three of them, in fact: Nakia, David Lowery and East Bay Ray along with Daryl Friedman of the Academy.

A few observations–Nakia is of the generation of artists that came up in a post-Napster world.  He mentioned several times that he gave…

View original post 184 more words

by Trichordist Editor

Derek Khanna & Co. Continue Attack on Artists Rights at SXSWi Panel

The recent SXSW Interactive panel titled “Copyright & Disruptive Technologies” was merely another single point of view attack on artists, musicians and creators as artists rights are copyrights. It’s interesting that this panel offered no differing perspective from the view point of the artists and creators whose work is actually being exploited, without permission (or compensation).

On the panel were those who are advocating for “Permissionless Innovation” including Andrew Bridges, partner at Fenwick & West LLP, Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network as well as a trio from Yale Law School’s Information Society Project including Wendy Seltzer, Margot Kaminski and Derek Khanna.

Glen Peoples at Billboard reported on the ongoing unilog of the copyleft attack on artists rights. The panel presented the usual anti-artist, anti-creator maximalist talking points which don’t believe in the artists right to grant consent for the exploitation of their work (and in many cases don’t believe in granting the creator compensation as well).

We’ve previously pointed out in some detail that Derek Khanna is wrong while highlighting all of the obvious fallacies and self created myths in his disavowed RSC “memo” on copyright. Now it appears that Derek himself is confused over the who may have even requested the memo. As our reader Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) noted,

“Right now, we know who wrote the paper, but not who requested it, what supervision it was under and who, if anyone, approved its publication. This is not an acceptable way to interject a work into the public discourse.”

The persistent use of the meme “permissionless innovation” might just as well be called what they want it to really be, “permission to steal, and profit with immunity.” There is nothing innovative about stealing from or exploiting artists. In fact it’s a very, very old narrative sadly.

Panelist, Ben Huh complained that it might actually cost him money to track down rights holders whose work he is profiting from, how unfair right? Ben says…

“The cost of tracking down the rights owner is a minimum of $300 to $500 [per image]– if you’re successful.

Of course Mr. Huh went on to illustrate his problem in not paying creators in greater detail stating,

I have 23 million images, and I’m one of the smaller [online businesses] out there.

Yeah, what a drag to actually compensate the creators! So in simple math 23 Million multiplied by $500 equals $11.5 trillion dollars. One might determine that perhaps this is not a well thought out business model that requires such vast capital to support it’s inventory, if the cost of that inventory actually requires payment to the creators. Here again we see another internet business supported by advertising that earns revenue on marginal costs, but refuses to pay the creators fair compensation for their labor.

Of course, the site does provide a DMCA link, but we have to wonder how many rights holders are actually using it.

cheezburgeDMCA

What is clear is that the war on artists and creators which is now over a decade old continues to rage on by those who are profiting. Let’s once again be clear that this discussion is about money. It is about mass scale, enterprise level, commercial businesses profiting from the illegal exploitation of works by artists, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, authors and other creators.

Just for fun, we went over to Mr.Huh’s website Cheezeburger dot com to see why he would be so invested in the battle against artists rights. Well, as it turns out the first two items we saw were the products of well known and beloved mainstream creators (you know, the companies the copyleft hates but can’t seem to live without).

In this first screenshot below we see images from Fox Tv’s “King Of The Hill” show. What we also see is that Toyota, one of the already identified 50 Brands Supporting Music Piracy paying the bills to Mr.Huh. Good work if you can get it, being able to monetize content of a major TV network without the pesky need to ask permission or to share in that advertising revenue.

chezburgerKingOfTheHillToyota

And, the second post we noticed were images from the Disney Pictures film “Up.” This time with advertising courtesy of Google and AT&T, also previously identified as two more of the 50 Brands Supporting Music Piracy.

cheezburgerDISNEYUP

And here’s the kicker from the man who doesn’t want to ask permission to monetize creators content for profit… hmmm… hypocrisy much?

http://corp.cheezburger.com/legal/api-terms-of-service/

(d) Pre-Approval Required. The license described in 1.1(a) above is contingent on you submitting all application-related materials that are requested by the Company and the Company subsequently approving your application. The Company may approve or reject your application in its sole discretion. The approval of your application by the Company shall not constitute an endorsement or legal review of your application.

But wait there’s more…

http://corp.cheezburger.com/legal/terms-of-service/

3. General Use of the Websites — Permissions and Restrictions
Cheezburger hereby grants you a revocable, non-transferable, and non-exclusive permission to access and use the Websites as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that:
A. You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Websites, including but not limited to Content and User Submissions (each as defined below), without Cheezburger’s prior written authorization.
B. You agree not to alter or modify any part of the Websites, including but not limited to Cheezburger’s technologies.
C. You agree not to access User Submissions (defined below) or Content through any technology or means other than any as authorized by this Terms of Service or a written agreement between you and Cheezburger.
D. You agree not to use the Websites for any commercial use without the prior written authorization of Cheezburger. Prohibited commercial uses include, but are not limited to, any of the following actions taken without Cheezburger’s express approval:
1. Sale of access to the Websites, Content or services via another website or medium (such as a mobile application);
2. Use of the Websites, Content or services for the purpose of gaining advertising or subscription revenue;
3. The sale of advertising, on the Websites or any third-party website, targeted to the content of specific User Submissions or the Content;
4. Any use of the Websites, Content, User Submissions or services that Cheezburger finds, in its sole discretion, has the effect of competing with or displacing the market for the Websites, Content or User Submissions.

And it continues to go on from there into another set of rights, and restrictions. Wow. Ok then… well, so much for permissionless innovation afterall…

by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Monday March 4, 2013

A Weekly Review of Artists Rights, Copyright and Technology News for Creators from Around The Web.

BILLBOARD:
* ASCAP President Paul Williams, Songwriters Josh Kear, Dan Wilson Make Royalty Case to Congress

As songwriters, we need to ensure that Congress hears our side of the story as they review how digital music royalties are paid. The way it works now, songwriters are being forced to become unwitting investors in unsustainable businesses that undervalue our music.

* Inside the IFPI’s Digital Music Report 2013
* House Representatives Form Creative Rights Caucus

“A number of key Hill leaders are taking an interest in creators’ rights and we hope they will help influence new members about the importance of protecting copyright.”

MUSIC TECH POLICY:
* The Fallacy of “Incremental Revenue” Part 1
* Shocker: Ad Networks Profit from Piracy
* Thom Yorke on Google the Commoditizer
* Sharing is Caring: What is Google’s Position on Data Sharing with Artists?

THE GUARDIAN:
* Thom Yorke: ‘If I can’t enjoy this now, when do I start?’

…the band seemed like evangelists for the revolutionary possibilities of a digital world, self-releasing 2007’s In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want download. Yorke is a bit more sceptical about all that now.

Having thought they were subverting the corporate music industry with In Rainbows, he now fears they were inadvertently playing into the hands of Apple and Google and the rest. “They have to keep commodifying things to keep the share price up, but in doing so they have made all content, including music and newspapers, worthless, in order to make their billions. And this is what we want? I still think it will be undermined in some way. It doesn’t make sense to me.

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* An Open Letter to the CEOs of Brands Advertising on Infringing Sites…
* ‘Have Music Sales Finally Hit Bottom?’ (Billboard Asks In 2004…)
* The Industry Isn’t Good at Paying Artists. So I Invented ‘Copper…’
* Citing Burdensome Royalty Costs, Pandora Caps Its Listening Hours…

THE HUFFINGTON POST:
* On Empowering Artists

It is not surprising that the companies (and their surrogates), whose business model largely consists of monetizing the stolen intellectual property of creators, are also proselytizing the virtues of “reforming” copyright. And of course it would be just these websites, ad networks, and search engines that would profit most from the types of “reforms” they suggest.

AD EXCHANGER:
* New Pressure For Networks And Exchanges To Shun Piracy Sites

“It’s difficult to advertise online at scale and not wind up on pirated content, at some point, as you’re buying through various exchange and remnant inventory sources,” Luttrell said.

DAILY PAUL:
* Libertarians Must Stand Together on Copyright

I am a passionate member of the liberty movement. But I do think many libertarians are wrong (the ones I have spoken with), when they A) Believe in market-based capitalism and principles, but B) believe all music, journalism, artistic work, and similar creative content should be “free”, no matter how much time, money, or talent went into them. This is an enormous contradiction, and many do not understand just how far the rabbit hole goes.

HYPEBOT:
* Shazam Drives $300 Million A Year In iTunes, AmazonMP3 Sales

POLITICO:
* Pandora turns up volume on royalties debate

ANDREW ORLOWSKI:
* “The price of nothing”

“All these businesses do is take something digital and reduce the value of it to the value of storage. That’s not particularly smart. Imagine, perhaps, a food market where everything cost a dollar a kilo. Suppliers would soon learn that they needed to produce at 50 cents, or find another way to do business.”

THE ATLANTIC:
* The Enduring Myth of the ‘Free’ Internet

Yes, it is certainly the case that the devices that connect us to search engines, countless websites, social media, and e-mail bring us vast amounts of content for which we do not pay separately. But access to this “free” information on the Internet, as everyone acknowledges as soon as it is pointed out, is not gratis. Monthly charges for broadband Internet service, plus cable television fees and smartphone bills that together comprise the range of household pleasures and obligations as well as work-related communication that are so embedded in our lives amount to hefty sums.

MUSIC WEEK:
* Google streaming could provide ‘biggest route to legal music consumption’

PANDO DAILY:
* What’s good for Silicon Valley might not be good for America

While Silicon Valley hasn’t directly taken away jobs from the media industry in the same way it has from the retail sector, the disruption created by Internet distribution has still resulted in declining financial performance and massive job losses in journalism, television, motion pictures, and the music industry. The tech sector will of course argue that the developments have been beneficial to consumers, but even if we accept that position without debate, it still doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people in the press, media, and entertainment industry have been hurt by Silicon Valley’s success.

TORRENT FREAK:
* U.S. Government Wins Appeal in Kim Dotcom Extradition Battle
* Cablevision Disconnects Persistent Pirates for 24 Hours
* High Court Orders UK ISPs to Block Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy
* Japanese Police Arrest 27 File-Sharers in Nationwide Show of Force
* Comcast Punishes BitTorrent Pirates With Browser Hijack

by Trichordist Editor

Music Technology Policy

Now here’s an interesting article in AdExchanger, a site apparently targeting the ad network trade.  (Lest we be accused of speaking of that which we do not have direct knowledge, it’s perhaps best to seek confirmation from a knowledgeable source.)  It is quite remarkable in the blitheness with which it acknowledges that big brands are funding pirates (or what used to be called “rogue sites,” if you remember that one).  To wit:

A big factor in play is that these categories [that is, the piracy categories] toward lead gen[eration] and other performance driven metrics. In other words, they’re inherently less focused on adjacency issues.

Ah, “adjacency issues.”  Of course.  Sounds so insignificant, doesn’t it?  What exactly would constitute focusing on “adjacency issues”?

“I would guess that the CMOs of many companies do not actually understand that they are appearing on some of these sites to the extent that they…

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by Trichordist Editor

How Musicians Are (Not) Making Money, and who is… @SFMusicTech w/ East Bay Ray

SF Music Tech is always a great place to get the temperature of the current ideology and trends relating to music and technology. Brian Zisk does a great job of creating an environment for the tech community to explore it’s relationship to music and musicians.

Respect Musicians Choices. Musicians need to get Paid.

Artists should have creative control over their work, their careers and they should be paid fairly. We couldn’t agree more. This sentiment was echoed by Emily White of Whitesmith Entertainment on one panel and was ofter heard repeated during the day. Whenever there was a “shout out” to give props to musicians it was almost always met with universal applause from the audience regardless of the panel topic.

During the day the mantra of how artists deserved respect and payment was heard over and over. Everyone loves musicians. Musicians need to be paid. But some struggled to truly accept this as a universal concept that extended to businesses operating on the internet as well.

We’ve all heard the stories of musicians being exploited by record labels, music publishers, band managers, booking agents, etc. These tales are almost universally met with disgust, as they should be. But when artist exploitation takes the form corporate profiteering on the internet the tech community often recoils into a bit of selective reasoning and double standards.

So let us say this loud and clear about people throwing stones inside of glass houses… any wrong doing of illegally exploiting musicians for corporate profiteering should be unacceptable even it is happening on the internet.

How Musicians Are (Not) Making Money

Kristin Thompson from the Future OF Music Coalition noted that even though there may be many new revenue streams available to musicians, many of them only pay “micro pennies.” The consensus was clear and perhaps best summed up by Incubus manager Steve Rennie who essentially said, “eventually this should all work it self out where musicians can earn professional careers again, but the timing might just be really bad for this generation of musicians, and that’s the luck of the draw in life.” We actually don’t find that to be encouraging.

The irony and the disconnect didn’t take long to surface when East Bay Ray from the Dead Kennedy’s pointed out how exactly musicians don’t get paid from corporately funded music piracy sites when he showed a screenshot from mp3skull providing free downloads of his bands music financed by 1-800 Flowers and Alaska Airlines.

Willful Blindness

Of course those who believe in the exploitation of musicians for the profit of internet businesses had no problem rapidly resorting to name calling when it would be a lot more productive to acknowledge the problem as a detriment to the livelihood of musicians, and seek to work towards a cooperative solution to help musicians get paid.

What about Transparency, Being Open and More Human?

Ray went on to note how the negative effects of these sites create an environment that allows companies like YouTube to operate as an opaque black box. Using the best publicly available information he quickly calculated that YouTube’s 35% payment to artists (versus Itunes and Spotify’s 70%) could be a contributing factor to the 45% decline in professional musicians in the last decade. By Ray’s calculations (here at Digital Music News) the numbers may create a loss of 12,000 middle class musicians.

The Elephant In The Room

Some would like to argue that the revenue these sites are generating is inconsequential. These people seem to have difficulty understanding that if brand sponsored piracy can support 200,000 infringing domians that Google is tracking in it’s transparency report, then there is clearly enough there that musicians should be getting paid.

The real point is that there appears to be plenty of money being made online from the distribution of music, it’s just that the money is not being “shared” with musicians.

200kDomainsTracked

Any honest conversation about compensation to musicians has to address the single largest detriment to the revenue of artists at any level, which are the ad network financed music piracy sites. Ignoring these sites leaves out the most critical variable in evaluating fair and ethical compensation models when over 200,000 sites pay nothing at all to musicians with unlimited access to illegally free inventory. These sites profit from exploiting musicians and paying the musicians nothing.

Any legally licensed, legitimate music tech start up also has to acknowledge that mass scale, enterprise level, commercial infringement of music does NOT create a better environment for innovative entrepreneurs but rather a much more difficult one.

The truth is, there is no new professional middle class of musicians. The grand experiment of the digital utopia has been a massive failure for musicans and everyone at SF Music Tech now knows it. The soft back peddling by most on old hard line positions shows clearly that the reality for professional musicians has gotten worse, not better.

One of the most overheard phrases of the conference was, “we have to do better to get musicians paid.” Indeed, as we have noted here the truth is self evident, if the Internet is working for musicians, why aren’t more musicians working professionally? Not everyone aspires to work a day job, make music as a hobby and allow internet corporations to profit from their labor, illegally.

“Here we are, stuck with all these people who want music for free,” said Dave Allen, founding member of Gang of Four and interactive strategist at the branding agency North. “We have to find a way for musicians to make a living.”

If the tech and internet community are truly interested in getting musicians paid wouldn’t it make sense to start where money is already being made?

by Trichordist Editor

Petition to Stop Advertising on Pirate Sites

Please sign the letter in the link below to the CEOs of brands that appear on multiple occasions on infringing sites. Ask them to take a pledge to keep their ads off of illegal sites. Keep in mind that this list is not a comprehensive list of brands that appear on pirate sites.

Click Here : Please Sign The Petition to Stop Advertising on Pirate Sites

An Open Letter to the CEOs of Brands Advertising on Infringing Sites:

We, the undersigned, are just a few of the millions of artists and creators living, working, and creating across the United States. It has come to our attention that your companies are advertising on websites that illegally host or distribute creative content. We want to make you aware of the harm your companies do to independent artists and small businesses when you advertise on these sites.

Advertising on these sites encourages others to exploit our work for economic gain without a return to us. It deprives us of the opportunity to build communities with fans when they visit illegal sites to obtain our work, rather than our sites. It also gives consumers a false sense of security by lending an air of legitimacy to these sites. And, it rewards activities that are illegal.

Advertising on these sites also damages your own brands by association.

We understand that it can be difficult to know where your companies’ ads might end up because of the complexity of online advertising. However, difficult does not mean impossible. It appears that other companies make ad buys in ways that don’t result in their brands being tarnished and our work being exploited.

We ask you to encourage your companies to do the same.

You are in the best position to employ high-quality control standards and to demand the same from the ad networks you use. We encourage your companies to uphold high ethical standards for advertising placement, just as you do in other areas of business.

Please ask your online advertising purchasers to adopt practices like those detailed in the Statement of Best Practices to Address Online Piracy and Counterfeiting, released last year by the Association of National Advertisers, the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The practices outlined here, if adopted by major companies like yours, would go a long way towards ensuring a free and fair online marketplace for artists and creators to thrive. A report released by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab on February 14, 2013, under the direction of Jonathan Taplin, has identified the top ten Ad Networks placing ads on infringing sites. And, according to research and documentation by artists working in tandem with this project, your companies have been identified as brands that repeatedly advertise on infringing websites.

Now that this issue has been brought to your attention, we hope that you will take affirmative steps to address this problem.

by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Monday Feb 25, 2013

A Weekly Review of Artists Rights, Copyright and Technology News for Creators from Around The Web.

THE NEW YORK TIMES:
* For Music Industry, a Story of Two Googles

…as long as the search side of Google causes friction with the music industry, its other side — the one that is trying to compete with Apple, Amazon and every other digital music service out there — will face some rough patches.

SF GATE:
* New tune at SF MusicTech Summit

The freewheeling era of file sharing, it appears, is slowly coming to a close as artists begin to assert their rights and tech companies consider business alliances with the creators they once flagrantly ignored.

“Here we are, stuck with all these people who want music for free,” said Dave Allen, founding member of Gang of Four and interactive strategist at the branding agency North. “We have to find a way for musicians to make a living.”

SF WEEKLY:
* SF MusicTech: Dead Kennedys’ East Bay Ray Lashes Out at Internet “Pimps”

“There’s opportunists on the Internet that have taken advantage of the artists,” he said, at one point calling them “pimps.” The slim royalties from streaming services, coupled with the proliferation of free MP3s online, meant the music industry was “selling a free ride on a carnival horse, but they’re starving the carnival horse.”

SOLVEIG
* Recap SF Music Tech Summit XII 2013

REUTERS:
* Content economics, part 1: advertising

TV is still the monster, the elephant: for all the talk of cord-cutting, Americans have clearly voted that, given the choice, they’d much rather have cable TV than broadband internet.

And for web-based publishers, the situation is much, much worse even than this chart makes it look.

SEATTLE WEEKLY:
* The Misplaced Zeal of Aaron Swartz

The late activist’s efforts helped put power and public sympathy into the hands of corporations at the expense of artists, musicians, and the people.

Past and present facilitators of digital piracy like Napster, Audiogalaxy, Grokster, Megaupload, and The Pirate Bay are not misunderstood beacons of freedom of speech. They are digital black-market distributors who never asked artists’ permission to feature their works or paid creators a penny, and whose owners took money for themselves via venture-capital funding, subscription fees, or advertising revenue.

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* The Pirate Bay Is Actually Suing Someone for Trademark Infringement…
* I’m East Bay Ray. And I Think YouTube Has Forced 12,000 Musicians Out of Work…
* Spotify, Pandora & Google Have a New Problem: The New York Times…

MUSIC ALLY:
* Writing or speaking about streaming music screwing artists? Read these articles first
* Harlem Shake tops Billboard Hot 100 chart thanks to YouTube streams

ALL THINGS D:
* Big Music Says Google Isn’t Cracking Down on Pirate Sites, After All

“We have found no evidence that Google’s policy has had a demonstrable impact on demoting sites with large amounts of piracy.”

THE VERGE:
* Spotify pushing labels to lower costs, open up free service to phones

Spotify, the popular music subscription service, is due to meet in the coming weeks with its major counterparts in the record industry to renew their licensing agreements. The Verge has learned that managers at Spotify are expected to ask for substantial price breaks from the music labels as well as the rights to extend its free pricing tier to mobile devices.

VOX INDIE:
* Smokey the Bear Fuels Piracy’s Fire?
* Google Wants to Pass the Buck on Piracy, but Keep Theirs?

Any progress in severing piracy’s blood supply is a certainly a good thing BUT for Google to claim the company is working to “block funding” of pirate sites–while simultaneously profiting from them–seems more than a tad disingenuous. What about blocking access to funding via their AdSense accounts on YouTube and Blogger? Why focus on Visa and Mastercard when one’s own house is in such disarray?

COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE:
* The vine should suffer, not the artist.

THE CYNICAL MUSICIAN:
* The Limits of Copyright
* Copyright Maximalism

The misapplication tends to be especially apparent in the comments section of TCM, where the strangest things are brought up as examples of what would happen if we let up the good fight against copyright. The fact that they strangely failed to materialise over the 300 years or so that copyright had been in existence prior to 2000 (when it tended to be enforced a good deal better) doesn’t throw those who would put forward such theories.

FORBES:
* Congressman Says He’ll Propose Ban On 3D-Printable Gun Magazines

THE TELEGRAPH UK:
* Google looks to Cut Funds to Illegal Sites
* Google’s Copyright War Rages On

In private, the creative industries argue that Google’s supposed favoured status began in Number 10.

David Cameron’s former director of strategy, Steve Hilton, is married to Rachel Whetstone, head of communications at Google. It handed Ms Whetstone a “hotline” to Number 10, opponents argue. Although the couple now live in California, that hotline is “still hot”, says one source. “But it doesn’t matter anyway, because the damage is done.”

The close relationship between Number 10 and the top brass at Google’s Mountain View headquarters has become the framework for all subsequent discussion, critics say. It was emblematic when, nearly a year ago, Downing Street was apparently so in tune with Google’s thinking that the company’s chairman, Eric Schmidt, and the Chancellor, George Osborne, published a joint leader in The Financial Times.

COMPUTER WORLD:
* A Declaration of the Interdependence of Cyberspace

You allege that government has had no role in the Internet, and for this reason it has no claim to the Internet today, but this accusation is founded on nothing more than ignorance and superstition. Government labs and government-funded research programs gave birth to the Internet’s essential technologies, and government policies continue to guide the development of important Internet innovations today.

SALON:
* Stop pretending cyberspace exists – Treating the Internet as a mythical country makes us dumber

If you’re not convinced by now that the very notion of cyberspace is silly, try substituting “fax” or “telephone” or “telegraph” for “cyber” in words and sentences. The results will be comical. “Activists denounced government criminal surveillance policies for colonizing Fax Space.” “Should Telephone Space be commercialized?” Again, the point is not that telecommunications should not be structured and governed in the public interest, but rather that the debate about the public interest is not well served by the Land of Oz metaphor.

SPIEGEL.DE:
* ‘Liquid Democrazy’: Pirate Party Sinks amid Chaos and Bickering

The Pirate Party has been too busy tearing itself apart, with members fighting leaders, who are bickering among themselves and antagonizing the members too. In just the last two days, party leaders for the states of Baden-Württemberg and Brandenburg have stepped down, citing the negative climate. “The atmosphere is so poisonous, there’s hardly any constructive work taking place anymore,” says Udo Vetter

TORRENT FREAK:
* Former File-Sharing Site Admin Fined 6.4 Million Euros
* Google Refuses to Index Huge Streaming Movie Portal Homepage

THE VOICE OF RUSSIA:
* US to crack down on intellectual property theft

The 141-page document refers to China at least 188 times. Russia is mentioned 45 times, and India is also mentioned.Those cases cited mostly involved employees stealing trade secrets on the job rather than cyber-attacks. US corporate victims of the theft included General Motors, Ford, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Motorola, Boeing and Cargill.

TOP COPYRIGHT BLAWGS

by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Monday Feb 11, 2013

A Weekly Recap of Artists Rights, Copyright and Technology News for Creators from Around The Web

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:
* Reappearing on YouTube: Illegal Movie Uploads

The recent problematic uploads may have undercut the rental effort. Movies produced by Disney’s Touchstone Pictures, such as “I Am Number Four” and “Shanghai Noon” are available free on YouTube, even though the studio struck a rental deal through the site.

HYPEBOT:
* Spotify Listener Data Used To Predict Grammy Winners

THE GUARDIAN UK:
* Pirate sites are raking in advertising money from some multinationals

Sites such as Pirate Bay often portray themselves as altruistic, non-profit “freedom fighters”, when the truth is they’re nothing of the sort – their exploitation of artists for their own monetary gain is far worse than the most unscrupulous labels ever were, as they pocket large sums of ad revenue without having to invest it into developing the content they flog.

MUSIC TECH POLICY:
* Pirate Site Isohunt Selling Dead Kennedys Tickets

JAPAN DAILY PRESS:
* Japan’s ‘Operation Decoy File’ to help deter online piracy

THE DEANS LIST:
* Music, Copyright and New Technology in the News From a Creator’s Perspective 02/05/2013

COPYHYPE:
* Friday’s Endnotes – 02/08/13
* Bringing Reality Back to Copyright Debates

Smith and Telang found that of the papers based on empirical data (as opposed to theoretical models), 25 found economic harm from piracy, while only 4 found little or no harm. And for those who are skeptical of non-academic papers: Smith found that 12 peer-reviewed papers published in academic journals found a negative impact from piracy while only 2 did not (and there are legitimate questions concerning the methodology of those 2 outlier papers, some of which are explored in Stan Liebowitz’s 2005 article Economists’ Topsy-Turvy View of Piracy).

Evidence like this, of course, does not tell us where to go from here. But it is amazing how many who join with skeptics of copyright either don’t know about the scholarly record on piracy or don’t care.

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* The Average TuneCore Artist Now Makes $120 a Year…
* Spotify Executive: “We’re Totally Transparent, and We Definitely Live by That Principle.”
* In Just 3 Years, P2P Usage Has Dropped 35% In France…

FORBES:
* We Need Strong Copyright Laws Now More Than Ever

So why does CEA attack songwriters in this way? Flawed logic. They reason that member companies can make more money if they pay songwriters and other creators less. The truth is that music creators and technology companies need each other. Many innovative and wonderful music-related products are made by CEA members. But many of these products have no purpose without music. The copyright and associated costs—often pennies on the dollar—are deemed harmful. Make no mistake, the companies of the CEA believe in intellectual property. Just ask them about their own intellectual property, such as their patents or trademarks.

Mr. Shapiro’s conclusion is that copyright laws are hurting America. Nothing could be further from the truth.

CNET:
* Next-gen Xbox will require constant net connection

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
* Recording Academy Chief on the Grammys, Pandora and Getting Artists Paid (Q&A)

The problem is, in the transition of all this, we have to remember that it all comes back to the men and women who are creating this wonderful music, and do they have a real ability to make that a full-time vocation as opposed to a part-time hobby?

USWITCH:
* Fines to replace disconnections for internet pirates?

SMART COMPANY:
* Why Telstra plans to slow you down to fight online piracy

Telstra will soon conduct a “limited trial of a range of technical options for better managing broadband internet performance for our customers during peak periods”. One of those options is to “shape”, as the industry euphemism puts it, customers’ access to peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution networks such as BitTorrent.

PC PRO:
* Anti-piracy letter plans face delay over costs

COMPLEX:
* The 25 Most Important Civil Rights Moments in Music History

BILLBOARD:
* Business Matters: MP3 Stores Harder to Find as Google Search Removal Requests Accumulate

Legitimate MP3 links are becoming harder to find even as the RIAA has sent more than 3,400 removal requests to Google relating to approximately 10 million specific URLs from its search results. Legal stores like Amazon and Myxer, as well as legal streaming sites like YouTube and legal streams and downloads at music blogs, are buried under more illegal MP3 links than when Billboard.biz examined 30 artists in November.

Now, using the same 30 artists as before, it took an average of 11.06 search results to find the first legal search result of any kind and 26.84 search results to find the first legal MP3 store. In November, the results were 7.9 and 11.75, respectively. (Each search was conducted by typing in “MP3” and then the name of the artist. Two spellings were used for Ke$ha and P!nk.)

SONIC SCOOP:
* Input\Output Podcast: David Lowery and the Future of Artists’ Rights

SPIN:
* Music Piracy’s Search Problem: Recording Industry Bringing the Fight to Google

THE DUQUESNE DUKE:
* Pirating or advancing; Debating illegal music downloads – Stealing intellectual property is still a crime

The debate against music piracy has also decreased in popularity. Illegal downloading has become a socially accepted practice and as friends talk about what music they recently downloaded, they forget that they are discussing a crime.

Because of piracy, the music industry is in a downward spiral. And when the time comes for our favorite musicians to pack up their instruments and cancel their tours, we will look at each other, dumbfounded, wondering what could have caused such misfortune to manifest. We will blame the labels. We will blame iTunes. We will demonize Justin Bieber and denounce greed.

But what is really holding the industry back isn’t the greed of the structure. It’s the greed of the people who believe they have the right to all the music they want without paying for it. For the love of music, buy the album and appreciate it for what it is worth.

RAPID TV NEWS:
* Legal content downloading up in France, video and TV series stir piracy

CNN:
* What happens if the price of music falls to zero?

THE HUFFINGTON POST:
* The Internet Is Not Free by Lowell Peterson Executive Director, Writers Guild of America, East

So far, the brightest minds in the business have not figured out how to replicate the revenue streams currently generated by television advertising, theater tickets, and DVD sales, so the market for programs created directly for digital distribution has been pretty thin. Thus, if traditional television and cinema are displaced by the Internet, there will not be enough high-quality content for the ISPs to distribute unless we can figure out how to generate more money to pay people to create it.

TERRIBLE MINDS:
* 25 Thoughts On Book Piracy

MUSIC ALLY:
* Pandora’s active listeners dropped by 1.5m in January

HARPERS:
* Google’s Media Barons

As a journalist and board member of the Authors Guild, I’ve watched in dismay as writers, living and dead, have suffered steep drops in income and copyright control thanks to Google’s — and its smaller rivals’ — logistical support for pirating and repackaging everything that we writers, editors, and publishers hold dear. From the humblest newspaper reporter to the most erudite essayist, we do the work, we invest the money and time, some of us risk our lives — and Google, broadly speaking, reaps the benefits without spending a dime.

FROM THE TRICHORDIST:
* What You Can Do Today to Stop Brand Sponsored Piracy Through Touring Contracts or Sponsor Deals: Artists Helping Artists
* Yes, Piracy Does Cause Economic Harm
* Streaming Services Ranked By “Artist Friendliness”
* Wolves in Sheeps Clothing Criminalizing All Who Oppose Them But for He Who Brings the $unlight: The Troubled, $trange, Fearful, Frightened World of Gary $hapiro, the Diogenese of Anti-Copyright Lobbyists
* Google, Advertising, Money and Piracy. A History of Wrongdoing Exposed.
* Google’s Dehumanized “Safe” Advertising Practices in Gmail: More Laughs From the Leviathan of Mountain View
* Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?
* One Bad Apple: The Complete Checklist on Google’s “Non Anti-Piracy” Anti-Piracy Policies

by Trichordist Editor