Author: Trichordist Editor

Trichordist Editor

Two Simple Facts about Technology and Piracy : iTunes Vs. YouTube

Fact number one.

Unlike Google’s YouTube, Apple’s Itunes Store does not have a piracy problem, nor does it have an unmanageable issue with DMCA notices. This is often explained that this is because Apple does not allow user generated content from just anyone, therefore there is a barrier to entry that prevents such issues. But this is simply just not true, anyone can upload an album of music to Itunes using any one of the third party aggregation services such as Tunecore or CDbaby. And yet, there are not (as far as we know) hundreds or thousands of DMCA notices and content take downs on Itunes per day, as there are on YouTube. So why is this? In a word, intent.

If Apple, Spotify, Amazon and virtually every other legal and licensed distributor of digital music can put into place, the checks and balances that are capable of managing these rights effectively why is it so hard for Google to do the same YouTube? Think about it.

Fact number two.

YouTube can effectively filter content if it wants to. Since day one, we have never, ever seen any live porn on YouTube. Not a single live link to porn, ever. In debates in various online forums we have often proposed the challenge to anyone to present an active live link to full fledged porn on YouTube. It has NEVER happened. No one has EVER been able to present a live link to an active porn video on YouTube in the six plus years we and our friends have presented the challenge. Talk about a crowd sourcing FAIL.

What these two facts reveal is that rights management online, the protection of copyrights and the enforcement of Intellectual Property require nothing more than the intent and will to do so. But don’t take our word for it, listen to Google’s own Chief Economist Hal A Varian from his book “Information Rules” where he describes “Bitlegging.”

“Bitlegging” can’t be ignored: there’s no doubt that it can be a significant drag on profits.

Bitleggers have the same problem that any other sellers of contraband material have: they have to pet potential customers know how to find them. But if they advertise their location to potential customers, they also advertise their location to law enforcement authorities. In the contraband business it pays to advertise… but not too much.

This puts a natural limit on the size of for-profit illegal activities: the bigger they get, the more likely they are to get caught. Digital piracy can’t be eliminated, any more than any other kind of illegal activity, but it can be kept under control. All that is required is the political will to enforce intellectual property rights.

So Apple, Amazon, Spotify (and hundreds of others) can effectively manage digital distribution without triggering millions of DMCA notices. YouTube can effectively filter porn, and yet the internet is not broken as best as we can tell.

Maybe, just maybe this isn’t so complicated after all. That is unless one has a specific intent and motive from which they perhaps profit from the mass scale aiding of commercial level infringement.

by Trichordist Editor

Obama Inauguration and White House IP Policy via IPEC, Victoria Espinel

As we’ve written before much of the big internet, anti-copyright blogosphere seems to live in a persistent state of denial regarding The Copyright Policy Reality Gap. We applaud not only President Obama’s support for better protection of Copyright and IP, but also Vice President Biden and we look forward to the next four years of progress for creators rights.

“What’s more, we’re going to aggressively protect our intellectual property.  Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people.  It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century.  But it’s only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can’t just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor. ” – President Barack Obama

“…piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It’s smash and grab. It ain’t no different than smashing a window at Tiffany’s and grabbing [merchandise].” – Vice President Joe Biden

In his first term President Obama appointed Victoria Espinel to the position of US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, which was created during the Bush administration in 2008. Intellectual Property Enforcement is a bi-partisan issue that reaches across all sectors of the United States economic interest.

Intellectual property are the ideas behind inventions, the artistry that goes into books and music, and the logos of companies whose brands we have come to trust.   My job is to help protect the ideas and creativity of the American public.  One of the reasons that I care about this is because I believe it is enormously important that the United States remain a global leader in these forms of innovation – and part of how we do that is by appropriately protecting our intellectual property.  Our intellectual property represents the hard work, creativity, resourcefulness, investment and ingenuity of the American public.  Infringement of intellectual property can hurt our economy and can undermine U.S. jobs.

To learn more about the work being done, you can go here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/intellectualproperty/spotlight

Artists, photographers, authors, illustrators, filmmakers and creators of all types who rely upon the protection of their copyrights and intellectual property are encouraged to also express their gratitude and appreciation to one of our best and dedicated champions on Capital Hill.

We encourage and suggest that all creators email their support of the great work done by Victoria Espinel and the Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at:

intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov

by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Sunday Jan 13, 2013

Grab the coffee!

Recent Posts:
* The Copyright Policy Reality Gap
* Free Culture’s Epic Fail – If Free is Working, Why Fight Copyright?
* Reading Between The Lines Google Tells The Truth On Ad Supported Piracy
* “Maintain Choice For Everyone” Vint Cerf On Internet (and Google) Regulation #2013CES
* The Return of Orphan Works: Trojan Horse: Orphan Works and the War on Authors by Brad Holland, Part 5 (Conclusion)
* CES Fart Club aka The Slaptastic “Pro-Artist Copyright Policy Panel” features Anti-Copyright Advocates and Google Named Shills #2013CES

FROM AROUND THE WEB

THE HUFFINGTON POST:
* Verizon Copyright Alert System Would Throttle Internet Speeds Of Repeat Online Pirates
* Copyright Alert System: How ISPs Will ‘Break Your Internet’ If They Catch You Pirating

THE ILLUSION OF MORE:
* Paying Attention to the Echo Chamber at CES Copyright Panel Discussion

I think it’s safe to say that, before we were on the Internet, before everything could become sharable data, that nobody would rationally have argued that selling bootleg CDs out of a car trunk would be an act protected by free speech. That being the case, the philosophical/legal question is, “What’s really changed?”

POP UP PIRATES:
* Youtube Allows Pirate “Partners” to Profit From Illegal Movie Uploads
* R.I.P. myArtCinema2 (A.K.A. YouTube Pirate)

BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY:
* Photography industry shows mass opposition to government copyright changes

More than 70 organisations representing photographers, agencies and picture libraries – from Associated Press, Getty Images, Magnum Photos to the Press Association, Reuters and Tate – have joined forces, urging Parliament to vote against proposed changes to UK copyright law, BJP can exclusively reveal

CURTIS AGENCY – PUBLISHING IN THE 21st CENTURY:
* Curtis Agency, E-Reads Deploy Program to Neutralize Pirates
* Long Before E-Book Revolution, War for Control of E-Rights Was Lost

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* Levi’s Was First. Now, Several Major Brands Want to Pull Their Pirate Site Advertising…
* Spotify Is Now Deploying 6 Different Types of Cookies…
* It’s Official: Vinyl Sets Another Sales Record In 2012…

VOX INDIE:
* Consumer Electronics Show’s Copyright Panel – Certain Artists Need Not Apply

BILLBOARD
* Album Sales Down in 2012, But Digital Shows a Healthy Boost

Digital-track sales enjoyed 5.1% growth to 1.34 billion units and thanks to that robust performance, album sales plus TEA (track equivalent albums whereby 10 tracks equal one album), only declined 1.8% for the year.

TORRENT FREAK:
* RapidShare: Traffic and Piracy Dipped After New Business Model Kicked In
* Verizon’s “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Measures Unveiled

COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE:
* Copyright and the 113th Congress

by Trichordist Editor

“Maintain Choice For Everyone” Vint Cerf On Internet (and Google) Regulation #2013CES

Vint Cerf the man credited with being a co-creator of the internet spoke at CES today and was asked about internet regulation by and audience member. What is interesting about Cerf’s response is that it echoes the sentiments that artists, creators and rights holders have been arguing are important to have a fair, ethical and sustainable internet for all citizens that does not unfairly favor specific companies are corporate interests.

As reported by Ars Technica, Zero regulation for telcos could endanger neutrality, Internet co-creator says.

One audience member asked Cerf what kind of regulation is necessary to protect consumers from predatory practices on the Internet, and from companies favoring certain kinds of content over others. The audience member mentioned that the question is relevant to Google, Cerf’s employer.

Cerf answered, “With regard to the regulatory practices, what I am after more than anything else is to inhibit anti-competitive behavior. It’s necessary to make sure that people who control underlying resources don’t do so in such a way as to distort the market. If there is a distortion—and you have to demonstrate that if you want to take regulatory action—then… you need to do something about it to maintain choice for everyone and make sure the market is open for competition.”

We pretty much agree with everything Vint is saying above in bold as media piracy facilitated and aided by companies like Google appear to be distorting the market due to a lack of regulation and anti-competitive behavior.

Further more, as much so is our mantra, we find that we could not agree more with Vint’s observation that you need to maintain choice to ensure a fair and competitive market.

We’re encouraged by Mr. Cerf’s comments in that we can clearly see that he truly understands the need for regulated markets so that they can function fairly for all stakeholders. Unfortunately his comments are with respect to broadband access and not a fair and regulated internet that would address the market distortion created by media piracy whereby the choice of where to distribute their work is removed from creators without consent.

by Trichordist Editor

The Copyright Policy Reality Gap

We hear a lot from the free culture movement and the CopyTheft advocates about where they think Copyright and IP Protection should be headed, but it’s important to note what the actual values are for Copyright protection on Capital Hill. Perhaps there’s no place better to start than with the White House itself…
“”What’s more, we’re going to aggressively protect our intellectual property.  Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people.  It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century.  But it’s only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can’t just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor. ” – President Barack Obama
“…piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It’s smash and grab. It ain’t no different than smashing a window at Tiffany’s and grabbing [merchandise].” – Vice President Joe Biden
Also, let’s be clear (as is noted below) that at this point there is nothing the least bit controversial about acknowledging the degree of the seriousness that online piracy presents to American jobs and the US economy.
“Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs.  It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders. ” – whitehouse.gov

Artists and creators live a different lifestyle with many trade offs from conventional employment often working long odd hours for lower than minimum wage and without benefits. For artists and creators this is balanced out in the rights and protections granted in copyright that allow the artist a sustainable living. As a society we have granted these rights to creators as an incentive to produce a meaningful cultural economy. So effective have these protections been that America has the most profitable and most exported popular culture throughout the world.

“Recently, I’ve had a chance to read letters from award winning writers and artists whose livelihoods have been destroyed by music piracy. One letter that stuck out for me was a guy who said the songwriting royalties he had depended on to ‘be a golden parachute to fund his retirement had turned out to be a lead balloon.’ This just isn’t right.” – US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke

Now is the time to have a serious and meaningful conversation about the future of a fair and ethical internet that does not punish the innovative artists and creators who enrich our lives. Technology may change but principles do not. The internet and digital technology have opened up many new opportunities for artists, but it has also opened up new opportunities for those who wish to exploit those artists for personal or corporate gain.

We call upon the administration and both parties to protect the fundamental rights of artists and creators by adopting a fair and ethical set of principles for internet policy.

by Trichordist Editor

Free Culture’s Epic Fail – If Free is Working, Why Fight Copyright?

One of the argument’s that is often trotted out by free culture advocates and the copytheft hive mind is to make hay of any artist or creator who gives away their work willingly as an example of how free models can work to benefit creators. Well, the truth is that creators have been employing “Freemium” models long before the birth of the internet. Previously, musicians would for example employ street teams to canvas consumers exiting the concert of a similar type artist and give them free music.

However, it was also the creators choice to determine what would be given away for free, how much of it and for how long. In other words, the creator embracing the power of free, also retained the power of choice. Unfortunately the simple concept of choice and consent has been lost and the faucet free can no longer be turned off.

The power of free, works best with the creators power of choice.

After all, anyone can surrender their Copyright, opt out, or even use Creative Commons. Which also begs the question, if Creative Commons is the solution, shouldn’t there be enough content available after 10 years to show how much better Creative Commons is for artists and creators than traditional copyright protections?

If there are really so many people, creating so much great content, and willing to give it away for free wouldn’t this alone render Copyright a useless and antiquated concept? Why argue so aggressively to take what is not given, when there is so much being given away freely?

It makes no sense to oppose the protections granted in Copyright or to deny these rights to those who wish have them, when there is so much content being made available for free. Why so little faith in free markets? Why not honor the artists and creators who chose not to give their work away by removing their work from the businesses of the exploitation economy? Why not let an honest marketplace chose between the products made available willingly for free, and see how they perform against those who wish to charge?

If we are talking about free markets, wouldn’t there be a great benefit to the artists and creators who embrace “permissionless innovation”? If there are so many benefits to artists and creators in “permissionless innovation” it would attract more than enough creators eager to reap the rewards. We think the answer is pretty obvious as to why so many in the free culture movement insist on wanting to take rights away from artists and creators. Simply put, “permissionless innovation” is nothing more than theft for profit, without consent or compensation.

It appears many of these so called new business models are so deeply flawed as to be incapable of functioning with only willing participants. In other words, they can only function with unwilling participants, who have not granted consent and who are not being compensated.

The epic fail of the free culture and copytheft movement is to have so little faith in their own philosophy so as to not believe that creators and artists would actually, willingly surrender enough content of high enough quality to allow their models to function.

by Trichordist Editor

CES Fart Club aka The Slaptastic “Pro-Artist Copyright Policy Panel” features Anti-Copyright Advocates and Google Named Shills #2013CES

Not even kidding, just match the Anti-Copyright Google shills to the panelist list below. Talk about letting the fox guard the hen house. Wow, these are the same people who whine when not invited to trade organization and policy meetings like the TPP, but are so opposed to a balanced conversation they couldn’t actually invite a single artist rights representative! Ok, wow.

This is looking like a Silicon Valley Smug Alert, or otherwise known as Fart Club.

Beyond SOPA: Creating a Pro-innovation, Pro-artist Copyright Policy

Copyright policy – once an esoteric and legal backwater – now has a critical impact on our ability to work, play and communicate. In 2012, millions of Americans contacted their member of Congress to protest restrictive copyright proposals, while intellectual property issues took center stage in Washington and at the Presidential debates.

Join a group of entrepreneurs and DC policymakers as we discuss how to protect IP while maintaining a vibrant internet and creating new opportunities for content creators.

Moderated by:
Declan McCullagh, CNet Reporter

Featuring panelists:

Also on Tuesday January 8th, our own Hank Shocklee will be the DJ at The Innovation Movement party at Surrender at Encore from 7-10 pm.

Hit us up if you’re in town for the show – we’re still taking business meeting requests if you’d like to meet up.
See you in Vegas!

Google names names in amended ‘shills’ list – Employees, consultants, trade groups outed | The Register UK

In addition to the CCIA, Google named the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute as organizations who have received funds from Google…

Oh, and yeah… Mike Masnick is listed as a Google shill as well in the article at the link above too…

by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Sunday Jan 6, 2013

Happy New Year! Grab the coffee!

Recent posts from The Trichordist:
* First USC-Annenberg Brand Supported Piracy Report and Google Response
* Trojan Horse: Orphan Works and the War on Authors by Brad Holland, Part 2
* Trojan Horse: Orphan Works and the War on Authors by Brad Holland, Part 3
* Trojan Horse: Orphan Works and the War on Authors by Brad Holland, Part 4
* What the FTC Should Know About Brand Sponsored Piracy and Google’s “Pinto Problem”

FROM AROUND THE WEB:

THE SMITHSONIAN :
* What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web?

“I’d had a career as a professional musician and what I started to see is that once we made information free, it wasn’t that we consigned all the big stars to the bread lines.” (They still had mega-concert tour profits.)

“Instead, it was the middle-class people who were consigned to the bread lines. And that was a very large body of people. And all of a sudden there was this weekly ritual, sometimes even daily: ‘Oh, we need to organize a benefit because so and so who’d been a manager of this big studio that closed its doors has cancer and doesn’t have insurance. We need to raise money so he can have his operation.’

“And I realized this was a hopeless, stupid design of society and that it was our fault. It really hit on a personal level—this isn’t working. And I think you can draw an analogy to what happened with communism, where at some point you just have to say there’s too much wrong with these experiments.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES:
* Copyright Rules and the Art They Inspire

PITCHFORK:
* The Year in News 2012

THE REGISTER UK:
* The ‘Digital Economy’ in 2012: A big noisy hole where money should be

“Privacy and copyright are two things nobody cares about,” Mark Bide told us, “unless it’s their own privacy, and their own copyright.” How true.”

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:
* Report links Google, Yahoo to Internet piracy sites

COPYRIGHT ALLIANCE:
* Instagram Still Has the Right to Commercialize Your Work (or Why You Should Read Terms of Service Carefully)

CNET:
* Google, Yahoo accused of funding piracy

TECHCRUNCH:
* Keen On… Piracy: How Online Ad Networks Are Supporting The Major Pirate Movie And Music Sites [TCTV]

Annenberg’s Advertising Transparency Report should be seen as a wake-up call to brands to invest their advertising dollars in legal networks like Spotify or YouTube rather than pirate sites. Pretty simple, eh? Let’s hope that Madison Avenue wakes up to the troubling implications of Taplin’s report and shifts all its online advertising dollars to movie and music sites which actually pay artists for their content.

VOX INDIE:
* More Evidence Ad Dollars Fuel Web Piracy

HUFFINGTON POST:
* Towards a Bill of Rights for Online Advertisers

THE MUSICAL DISCONNECT:
* The Takedown-Why the DMCA has failed

AD LAND:
* David Lowery makes list of people who changed the music industry.
* Collateral Damage: How Free Culture destroys advertising.

STOP FILE LOCKERS:
* Crocko.com lose Paypal. Resellers to follow.
* UltraMegaBit: A Crime Committed on American Soil
* Avangate forced to drop file sharing sites. More sites poised to lose Avangate payment processing.

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* Abject Looting Continues at Pandora…
* In France, 92% of Pirates Never Receive a Second Warning Letter…
* Growth of Paid Downloads vs. Streaming, 2012 vs. 2011…

TORRENT FREAK:
* Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2013
* Music Biz Wants To Block Pirate Bay….Plus 260 Additional Sites
* IMAGiNE BitTorrent Group Leader Sentenced To Five Years in Prison
* Identifying Pirates Now Easier Following Swedish Supreme Court Decisions

COPYHYPE:
* A look ahead to 2013

BARRY SOOKMAN:
* Most popular intellectual property and technology law blogs

by Trichordist Editor

Final Recap, News and Last Links of 2012…

Grab the coffee!

Recent Posts:
* What Can Songwriters Do: Copyright Office Comment Period Ends Today for Mechanical Royalty Statements of Account
* The Return of Orphan Works: A Review of the 2008 Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act Part 1
* Ending Decade Old Arguments : How the Promise of the Internet has Failed Artists and Musicians…
* Billy Corgan Exploited By… Citi Bank, AT&T, Target, Virgin Atlantic, Mazda, Neiman Marcus, Musicians Friend, Hertz, BMW, Audi, Boston Market, Urban Outfitters, Williams Sonoma
* Songwriter comments on Section 115 Rulemaking
* FTC Treats Google With Kid Gloves and No Transparency
* Fair Pay for Air Play, Terrestrial Radio Performance Royalties for Musicians
* The Piracy-Pandora Connection: Can the Super Bowl, Oscars and Grammys Move the Needle on Brand Supported Piracy?
* The Return of Orphan Works: Trojan Horse: Orphan Works and the War on Authors by Brad Holland

FROM AROUND THE WEB

Seattle Weekly:
* It’s Time for Artists to Fight Piracy as Vigorously as They’ve Challenged Pandora

“…it’s time for artists to band together to set the story straight. Don’t leave it to the few brave enough to speak strongly on the matter. There needs to be a large, coordinated effort by bands big and small to tell their story–to sign a letter to fans explaining how devastating piracy is to their ability to make music for a living (or at all).”

Vox Indie:
* IP and Instagram–a Teaching Moment Perhaps?
* Should More Artists Speak Out Against Piracy?
* Creative Commons Celebrates 10 Years

CNN Money:
* Instagram can now sell your photos for ads
* Instagram says it won’t sell your photos to advertisers

Copyhype:
* Freeloading: How Our Insatiable Hunger for Free Content Starves Creativity, by Chris Ruen

The Guardian UK:
* Intellectual property crime unit to be set up by City police

Torrent Freak:
* U.S. and Russia Announce Online Piracy Crackdown Agreement
* Anti-Piracy Chief Patents “Pay Up or Disconnect” Scheme

Mashable:
* “T-Shirts and Touring” as Revenue for Artists just took a left Turn (YOLO)

Brian Pickings:
* The Best Music Books of 2012

Digital Music News:
* 10 People That Totally Changed the Industry In 2012…

(11) Oh, there’s one more guy…In one fiery and insanely-viral post, performer and professor David Lowery somehow managed to reframe the entire debate over technology, piracy, and the plight of the artist. And, draw attention from seemingly every corner of both the tech and creative communities. It was the biggest post of the year for the music industry, and potentially, the start of a very different type of discussion in 2013.

* Major Label Lobbying vs. Google Lobbying, 2012…
* The State of Music Subscription, December, 2012…
* USC Is Now Researching the Amount of Advertising Flowing Into Pirate Sites…
* Google Exec: If You Really Want to Kill Piracy, Then Kill the Advertisers Who Support It…

Ad Land:
* Senate passes a resolution asking Backpage.com to drop adult classifieds
* Adland booted from Google Adsense due to PETA’s misogynist ads

Copyright Alliance:
* Capitalist Copyrights: A Republican Reply to “Three Myths about Copyright”
* MUSIC Act introduced
* YouTube Moves for Safe Harbor Against Viacom

Daily Dot:
* YouTube strips Universal and Sony of 2 billion fake views

The Cynical Musician:
* Copyright and Scarcity

by Trichordist Editor

Zoë Keating’s Request for Internet Transparency met w/ usual Hypocrisy

We’ve been following Zoë Keating’s blog for a while. Zoë represents (figuratively, not literally) a new generation of musicians whose careers have only really existed in the post-internet, pro-piracy environment. As such, the perspective of these artists who have little experience in the world prior to optional payment and virtually no artist control over the distribution of their work is somewhat different from those who have inhabited both environments.

We celebrate the Zoë Keatings of the world for their undying tenacity in their efforts to navigate the current music industry without having had the benefit of the pre-piracy era. Zoë’s made a few excellent observations and suggestions. One recent post has been to ponder the creation of a new artists rights coalition to represent the needs of contemporary indie and DIY artists. Another post has been soul searching on what might be the fair way to set appropriate royalty rates across the various terrestrial, satellite and internet streaming radio platforms.

But it is one of Zoë’s most recent posts which has really caught our attention, as Zoë has been “slashdotted” just for asking for transparency and data sharing from the internet companies profiting from the artists work.

In the case of a service like Pandora, when someone has taken the time to create a station around my music or given my songs a “thumbs up”… I’d rather know where in the world those particular listeners are than be paid the $0.0011 per play that is currently required by law. That was my point.

Now, we don’t think this should have to be a choice, and we think Zoë has an excellent point, especially given that the Declaration Of Internet Freedom specifically states transparency as one if it’s principles.

Declaration of Internet Freedom

We stand for a free and open Internet.

We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles:

Expression: Don’t censor the Internet.

Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.

Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate.

Innovation: Protect the freedom to innovate and create without permission. Don’t block new technologies, and don’t punish innovators for their users’ actions.

Privacy: Protect privacy and defend everyone’s ability to control how their data and devices are used.

As with many things we’ve seen from the tech sector, there always seems to be selective reasoning when it comes to them actually adhering to their own principles. This from the same people who want permissionless innovation, up and until, you are not asking them for permission as Google is illustrating with Doogle.

Of course the double standard and irrationality of the freehadist hive mind doesn’t stop there. Among the comments posted, this one is indicative of the faulty logic and thinking expressed by so many of the anti-artist maximalists.

“She got money, I got music. There was no agreement to get my data. 0% is hers.”

The point that should be emphasized is that there was no agreement period. Pandora gets a compulsory license. It gets the benefit of a “one-stop shop” for all sound recordings so long as it pays the rates, no questions asked. Congress took away from Zoe Keating the choice to make that agreement. So it’s also perfectly valid to say that Pandora should also turn over some data to artists in exchange for that – especially if the consumer is (and should be) given the choice to opt-in.

We are pro-choice and respect consent, and we believe that the internet and tech community should also as well.

by Trichordist Editor