Artists Rights Watch – Page 24

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

March 4, 2013March 30, 2013 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?

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

February 25, 2013February 24, 2013 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

February 11, 2013March 30, 2013 by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Sunday Feb 3, 2013

Grab the coffee!

Recent Posts:
* Over 50 Major Brands Supporting Music Piracy, It’s Big Business!
* @pepsi and @beyonce @superbowl Ads Supporting Pirate Lyrics Site That Exploits Adele and Skyfall
* Derek Khanna is Wrong: Copyleft Mystery Man’s Misleading Memo Creates its Own Myths…
* It’s Not Whack A Mole if You Own the Mole: New York Times Coverage of Brand Sponsored Piracy
* Zero Dark Thirty, Best Picture Academy Award Nominee, Exploited by AT&T, Verizon, MetroPCS, Nissan, H&R Block, British Airways, Progresso, and more…
* #StopArtistExploitation – Tweet Daily for Artists Rights!
* Underreporting and No Accountability: Another Reason Streaming Royalties are So Small
* Internet Pay To Play: Payola’s Revenge – Guest Post by Robert Rial of Bakelite78

From Around The Web

LA WEEKLY:
* YouTube Stars Fight Back

“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.

“If I’m locked down to Machinima for the rest of my life and I’ve got no freedom, then I don’t want to make videos anymore,” he says quietly.

The screen fades to black.

NEW YORK TIMES:
* Playing Whac-a-Mole With Piracy Sites
* As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle

Spotify, Pandora and others like them pay fractions of a cent to record companies and publishers each time a song is played, some portion of which goes to performers and songwriters as royalties. Unlike the royalties from a sale, these payments accrue every time a listener clicks on a song, year after year.

The question dogging the music industry is whether these micropayments can add up to anything substantial.

“No artist will be able to survive to be professionals except those who have a significant live business, and that’s very few,” said Hartwig Masuch, chief executive of BMG Rights Management.

ADLAND:
* Online pirating: sponsored by many brands, and now, one government.

BUSINESS INSIDER:
* How Jobs In The Media Industry Got Demolished In The Last 10 Years [Charts]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has put together a presentation on the recent history and direction of media jobs. It’s not pretty.

THE LEFT ROOM:
* Piracy, Free Books, etc

DIGITAL BOOK WORLD:
* Does Piracy Hurt Digital Content Sales? Yes

BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY:
* Photographers find support in House of Lords in copyright fight

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
* Ray Charles’ Children Win Lawsuit Over Song Rights Termination

BLABBERMOUTH:
* TOOL Frontman Sounds Off On Illegal Downloading, Music Industry And Digital Distribution

“There’s a disconnect between people not buying music and not understanding why [bands] go away. There are people who are like monkeys in a cage just hitting the coke button. They don’t really get that for [musicians and artists] to do these things, they have to fund them. They have to have something to pay the rent.”

VOX INDIE:
* New Spotlight on Piracy Profitmongers

THE ILLUSION OF MORE:
* Think File Sharing is Sticking it to The Man? Really?
* On Being a Luddite

Decisions about business and policy have to be made based on the best information we have available. After a certain point, simply poking holes in studies — particularly those whose results you don’t happen to like — isn’t sufficient.

It may indeed, as the GAO suggested, be impossible to measure the economic effects of piracy with a large amount of accuracy. But if dozens of researchers have tried, all using different methodologies, then their conclusions in the aggregate are the best we’re going to do. Put another way, it will henceforth be very difficult to dislodge Smith and Telang’s conclusion that piracy does economic harm to content creators.

RAPIDTV NEWS:
* LATAM pay-TV operators unite against piracy

CIOL:
* Kamal Haasan fans help curb Vishwaroopam online piracy

BILLBOARD:
* Worldwide Independent Network Announces ‘Independent Manifesto’
* Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus Talks Piracy, Pros and Cons of Digital at MIDEM

“I believe that artists should be paid for their creativity. There’s no other industry where people can come in and take what you create for free and give it away for free and that’s acceptable.”

MUSIC ALLEY:
* U2 manager Paul McGuinness: ‘I don’t want to engage in Google-bashing, but…’
* Irving Azoff sticks it to Pandora and StubHub
* Midem 2013: How the Music Industry Manages Innovation

“We are the last fortress against this YouTube situation, and we are fighting hard on that,” he said. “The problem is the fair price, getting statements and getting all the business plans… The biggest problem to solve the YouTube deal is they want a non-disclosure deal, and we are not allowed by Germany law to do with any partners a non-disclosure [deal]. We have to do it open.”

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* Pandora Executives Cash Another $3 Million In January…
* Hey Advertisers: You Might Want to Ask VEVO for a Refund…

HYPEBOT:
* Myspace Allegedly Hosting Unlicensed Indie Music, Merlin Prepares Legal Response
* The Most Honest Interview About the Music Industry Ever, Featuring Jacke Conte of Pomplamoose

“YouTube seemed like a really incredible opportunity, but it’s not repeatable. I don’t know how to make it in the music industry. I don’t think anybody really knows how, and I’m unable to repeat what happened to Pomplamoose.”

PLAGIARISM TODAY:
* 4 New-ish Pro-Copyright Sites To Read

THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY:
* Laws of Creation: An Examination of Intellectual Property Rights

INSTITUTE FOR POLICY INNOVATION:
* Copyright and Innovation? No. Copyright IS innovation.

YAHOO:
* New Order’s Peter Hook: Musicians, Journalists Only People Who Don’t Get Paid for Work

Hook expressed astonishment that in the internet economy, consumers act aggrieved if musicians ask to be compensated for their music or if reporters object to having their stories re-purposed by other news organizations without getting credit or cash.

“If you love and respect music, you should pay for it,” Hook said.

TORRENT FREAK:
* Russia Wants To Fine Websites For Poor Copyright Takedowns
* University of Illinois Disconnects Pirating Students, Staffer Asked To Leave
* Pirate Bay Founder Could Be Prosecuted For Hacking “Within a Month”

VARIETY:
* Music retail giant puts tunes online (Amoeba Archives Project)

THE SCOTSMAN:
* New look at copyright key to digital boom

THE CALGARY HERALD:
* Your content is Freely Shared; their Profit is Closely Held

There’s enormous potential in this ‘Your Content, Their Profit’ crowd-sourcing business model, and it’s turned companies like YouTube, Google and Twitter into multi-billion-dollar corporations.

Whether you realize it not, what you post online (your words, your pictures, your pictures of other people, you name it) becomes someone else’s revenue generating opportunity as soon as you post it.

Top social networking sites build into their user agreements and conditions of use the automatic rights to profit from the content that’s posted (or stored or indexed).

JOHN BOSTOCK @ TED CONVERSATIONS:
* Meet the new Boss, Worse than the Old Boss

THE MAUI NEWS:
* Creators v. Consumers : Restating the Obvious

SAD RED EARTH:
* Aaron Swartz and “Hactivision”

February 3, 2013February 4, 2013 by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Sunday Jan 27, 2013

Grab the coffee!

Recent Posts:
* Two Simple Facts about Technology and Piracy : iTunes Vs. YouTube
* Kim Dotcom’s “End Of Piracy”, that was easy…
* Obama Inauguration and White House IP Policy via IPEC, Victoria Espinel
* UPDATED: The Real Gangnam Style: Was Google Off a Couple Magnitudes on Earnings Call?
* With Friends Like These: Amazon Advertising Against Illegal Camper Van Beethoven Links While Camper Van Beethoven Gives Amazon Exclusive Content.
* Grammy Award Nominated Black Keys Exploited by… American Express Delta Airlines Card, AT&T, Dish Network, M&M’s (Mars), Nissan and others…

From Around The Web…

COPYHYPE:
* Three Reasons Copyright is Not a Monopoly

THE CYNICAL MUSICIAN:
* Commodities, Monopolies, Remixes and Rights – A Symphony

Copyrighted works are not commodities, nor are the distributors and users of such works able to operate completely independently – they depend on the creators to provide them with works to distribute and use. Thus, the restrictions imposed by copyright are not a monopoly – a distributor or user can still ply his business with regards to other works, the only thing he cannot do is use someone’s work without their permission. This law is simply an extension of the natural control a creator enjoys when he is the sole possessor of his work.

STOP FILE LOCKERS:
* Mega Piracy: It’s just the beginning
* Hotfile terminated by Paypal.
* DigiWeb accepting Payments for Kim Dotcom via Paypal and Credit Card

ILLUSION OF MORE:
* What I’d tell my own kids about piracy. Why scarcity is a good thing.

VOX INDIE:
* Content Leeches-The Dark Underbelly of YouTube’s Content Monetization
* Chronic, Ill-Gotten Gains–Google’s Web of Piracy Profit

Over the past two and a half years I’ve written extensively about Google’s ongoing link to ad piracy profits. Earlier this month USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab released a report documenting the fact that search giant is at the head of the pack when it comes to monetizing (and subsidizing) online piracy via its ad networks. The relationship between Google and online piracy seems clear as day.

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* Aimee Mann: “My Record Isn’t on Spotify. Artists Don’t Make Money on Spotify.”
* MEGA Declares War on Pirate-Based Google Advertising…
* In the Last Year, Google Takedown Demands Have Increased 1,300%…

BUZZ FEED:
* Why Does Google Still Reward Content Scraping?

THE INDEPENDENT UK:
* Stream-age kicks: Is Spotify a musician’s friend or foe?

POP UP PIRATES:
* YouTube (and Netflix) Monetize Online Piracy

Google/YouTube will, as always, claim that it’s the rights holder’s job to police YouTube and to request that infringing content be removed. Of course, in the interim, Google’s happy to make money and Netflix is happy to attract new customers (and make money).

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
* We’re Kind of Terrified to Search After Sundance’s ‘Google and the World Brain’

NPD GROUP:
* Driving Under The Influence (Deconstructing the “Pirates Buy More Music” Myth)

DIGIDAY:
* 10 Bad Apples of Digital Media

The Thought Leader
They write articles that get published in AdExchanger, Digiday, etc. They sit on all the panels at OMMA, Adtech, etc. Here’s a thought: Stop talking, and do what you say. I’m tired of hearing pitch after pitch about how their company is changing the world with proprietary technology, but when it’s time to put their money where their mouth is, nothing works. Then their reply is, “Well, we’re still in the infancy of this business.” It’s all bullshit, and they know it. But if they can get enough clients on the line and generate enough buzz, some stupid company will acquire them with little to no due diligence.

IRISH TIMES:
* A middleman in the great internet copyright debate (Robert Levine)

PAID CONTENT:
* Amazon opens music store for Apple devices, songs start at 69 cents

GQ:
* Kim Dotcom and the decline of HMV are not unrelated

No matter what you think of Kim Dotcom, or upload sites, it’s impossible to deny that people using sites like Megavideo for illegal downloads is a major (though not the only) reason these people are about to be unemployed. Whether that is Dotcom’s fault or that of its users – half a million signed up for Mega in the first 24 hours – is up to the courts to decide. But Dotcom’s assertions that he is opposed to privacy ring false. He claimed that “because of the business model Hollywood has, they are forcing people into piracy,” before arguing that the answer is a flat fee subscription model like Netflix or Spotify. But that isn’t the site that he has launched. He could have done just that but instead, he has intentionally created a new version of Megaupload, the most intricately designed tool for stealing other people’s hard work for free ever made, and simply made it harder for people to blame him.

TORRENT FREAK:
* Hadopi Plans Large File-Sharing Warning Increase For 2013

JONATHAN TAPLIN:
* Aaron Swartz

January 27, 2013February 4, 2013 by Trichordist Editor

Artists Rights Watch – Sunday Jan 20, 2013

Grab the coffee!

Recent Posts:
* Well this is Embarrassing, a Tunecore Ad on 4Shared…
* Don’t Get IRFA’d: Westergren’s Fake “Tour Support”
* Golden Globe Winner Adele Exploited by American Express, AT&T, British Airways, Target and Nissan

From Around The Web:

ADLAND:
* Youtube and Google have money problems

GRAPHIC LEFT OVERS:
* Creatives Stunning Revolt Against Big Bad Business

As best I can determine, none of the creators of these images were asked to participate in a program that paid them peanuts (a one time payment of $12) and gives away their work hundreds of thousands of times. This is a great deal for Google and its users and a complete disaster for the photographers who participate against their will.

“D-Day” (Deactivation Day) is set for February 2nd and a growing number of contributors are pledging to deactivate their portfolios or pull large numbers of images until the one million image mark is met.

MICROSTOCK POSTS:
* Photographers plan to remove images from iStockphoto

THE CURTIS AGENCY:
* More Horror Stories from the Digital Book Bazaar

I have often written that piracy is the biggest threat to the e-book business. (visit Pirate Central). This is a good instance why. – Richard Curtis

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* Study: A Majority of Americans Would Support Moderate Piracy Enforcement…

MEDIABISTRO:
* How to Stop Piracy: Carnegie Mellon Professor Michael Smith at DBW

“The shutdown of Megaupload caused a statistically significant increase in digital sales,” he said, comparing numbers between countries with high Megaupload usage to countries with low Megaupload usage.

LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL:
* At adult expo, fans hunt autographs while pros battle piracy

PHILSTAR.COM:
* TFC Japan all-out in its anti-piracy campaign

“We have an office here that provides em- ployment as it serves the community it is in. We are grateful that the new anti-piracy laws in Japan recognize the ‘sensur- round’ value of the busi- ness that we bring and the empowering impact of the content that we deliver to our target audience,” says Olives.

“There are naysayers who said that piracy is an unwinnable war,” narrates Lopez. “But we believed that piracy should be treated like a disease that needs to be eliminated. You always start effective disease preven- tion through mass information. People need to know what the disease is and what it does. And you need partners who share the same faith in the cause. We found one in OMB chairman Ronnie Ricketts.”

SE TIMES.COM:
* Balkans need better intellectual property protection

“Potential investors are not much interested to invest in a country where intellectual rights are not protected,” Blagojevic said, adding that infringement of these rights has caused substantial losses to Serbia’s economy.

Citing International Data Corporation statistics, Blagojevic said the value of pirated software in Serbia in 2011 was estimated at nearly 87 million euros.

“If the piracy rate would be dropped 10 percent, the state budget revenues could increase $20 million [14.9 million euros] and some 10,000 jobs could be opened, primarily in the IT industry,” Blagojevic said.

AD AGE:
* If Pandora Can’t Monetize Mobile, Can Anyone?

MUSIC TECH POLICY:
* What’s all this then? Google’s “Ad Cops” Are Missing the Point
* How the Rate Court Cottage Industry is Leading to the Destruction of Collective Licensing
* Brand Sponsored Piracy and Award Shows: British Airways Delivers the ultimate insult to Adele

TECH CRUNCH:
* Keen On… Incubus: Limousines, Feeling Dirty and Being Kicked In The Balls (TCTV)

HYPEBOT:
* Ted Cohen On Music Tech And The Music Industry [INTERVIEW]

Do you still favor subscription over advertising-based music services?

Yes, I do. I don’t think that the advertising model so far has proved to be sustainable. I think that we have undervalued subscription. I am paying $150 a month for cable. I watch 20 or 30 hours of TV a week. I probably listen to 50 to 60 hours of music a week. I’d argue with you that music is worth more than $10 a month subscription service.

The labels were so concerned about (piracy)—and I was there at the time—that we had to come up with a price that was just a little bit more than free to convince people that they should pay. So far, we have not been able to raise the price. I think that music is worth at least $20 or $25 a month.

THE PRECURSOR:
* The Google Lobby Defines Big Internet’s Policy Agenda

READ WRITE:
* Is Kim Dotcom’s New Site, Mega, The Wild West Of Piracy?

UPDATE FROM THE CES “PRO-ARTIST” PANEL:

CES Panel Moderator and CNET writer Declan McCullagh discloses artists and creators representatives were not actually invited despite CES claiming they were. As we reported, the panel was comprised of anti-artist and anti-copyright publicly acknowledged Google paid shills.

MARIA BUSTILLOS:
* Yes and No (Lessig, Swartz and Society)

January 20, 2013March 30, 2013 by trichordist

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

January 13, 2013February 4, 2013 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

January 6, 2013February 4, 2013 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

December 27, 2012December 28, 2012 by Trichordist Editor