Category: Artists Rights Watch

Billy Bragg and Beggars Group Rethink YouTube & Streaming… | MusicAlly

We wonder if this is the future of music and artist revenue streams?

While Wheeler was positive about subscription streaming services, he opened both barrels on YouTube. “If YouTube launches a subscription service and it eats Spotify and Rdio, you’ll look back at these times as great days,” he cautioned. “They want to eat all the other music services and our business. That’s their plan.” He said the record industry was “caught out” in the early days of YouTube and didn’t realise the video site would become so big, initially thinking it was just about licensing music for a video of “a cat on a skateboard and then it became the biggest music service in the world”.

Bragg backed him up by saying, “If you want to talk about artists getting angry about the use of their music, YouTube is the place we should be looking at.”

Wheeler concluded, “We got caught out and that needs addressing. Otherwise they will eat our dinner.”

READ THE FULL STORY AT MUSICALLY:
http://musically.com/2014/04/07/beggars-group-recalibrates-50-streaming-payment-to-artists-and-attacks-youtube/

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What YouTube Really Pays… Makes Spotify Look Good! #sxsw

by trichordist

Everyone hates the DMCA | VOX INDIE

Unfortunately, rather than manage copyright, it’s provided a huge loophole through which a number of online pirate entrepreneurs sail blissfully through. Known as the “safe harbor” provision, this oft-abused language has served to shelter digital thieves at the expense of rights holders. ”Safe Harbor” has enabled the growth of a criminal cancer and it’s a cancer–that as of now–cannot be beaten, only kept (marginally) at bay. As Wikipedia notes, “The DMCA’s principal innovation in the field of copyright is the exemption from direct and indirect liability of internet service providers and other intermediaries.” As I’ve suggested previously, any update to the law should include a requirement that in order to qualify for the limitations to liability that safe-harbor offers, certain user-generated content sites must implement reasonable technology to mitigate content theft.

READ THE FULL POST AT VOX INDIE:
http://voxindie.org/everyone-hates-the-dmca

by Trichordist Editor

One Band Have Worked Out a Way to Cheat Spotify out of Money| Noisey.Vice

We just can’t get enough of this story. There’s a great interview with the band at the link below.

Spotify is a great way for most musicians to make money. By most musicians, I mean a superstar economy of 1% who account for 77% of all artist revenue from streaming. And by “money” I mean the $0.007 per stream that most artists receive.

READ THE FULL STORY AT VICE:
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/one-band-have-worked-out-a-way-to-cheat-spotify-out-of-money

by Trichordist Editor

London Police Attempt to cut off illegal websites’ advertising revenue | BBC

What we find so interesting about this is that the digital music services that report to be friends of musicians are not taking a strong public position against Ad funded Piracy and supporting these measures.

Spotify, Pandora and the like are affected by the downward economic pressure created by Ad Funded Piracy that diminishes both the amount consumers are willing to spend on subscription fees and the amount that can be charged for legitimate advertising on legitimate services.

Why aren’t Spotify and Pandora more publicly engaged in the fight against Ad Funded Piracy as it certainly is a large contributing factor as to why these businesses remain unprofitable.

Websites offering illegal copyrighted material could see their advertising revenue cut under a new initiative.

Police have created an online database of websites “verified” as being illegal.

It is hoped that firms that handle advertising will use the resource to make sure they do not serve advertising on those sites, cutting off revenue.

Top piracy sites generate millions of pounds thanks to advertising.

One estimate, from the Digital Citizens Alliance – a group backed by rights holders – suggested that piracy websites worldwide generated $227m (£137m) from advertising revenue each year.

Even smaller sites commanded revenues into the hundreds of thousands, the group said.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE BBC:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26788800

by Trichordist Editor

ISPs Can Be Forced To Block Piracy Sites, EU Court Rules | Forbes

In an endorsement of the UK’s anti-piracy policy, the European Court of Justice has ruled that EU states do have the right to order ISPs to block copyright-infringing websites.

The decision, which confirms an opinion late last year, follows a dispute between two movie companies – Germany’s Constantin Film Verleih and Austria’s Wega-Filmproduktionsgesellschaft – and internet provider UPC Telekabel Wien.

READ THE FULL POST AT FORBES:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2014/03/27/isps-can-be-forced-to-block-piracy-sites-eu-court-rules/

by Trichordist Editor

Jury: MP3tunes founder must pay $41 million for copyright violations| Ars Technica

Michael Robertson, an entrepreneur who has been waging legal feuds against the music industry for more than a decade now, has been ordered to pay $41 million to a record label that sued him.

The record label EMI sued MP3tunes back in 2007, and the case finally went to a jury last week in New York federal court. The jury found MP3tunes, and Robertson personally, liable for copyright violations.

A separate damages trial ended yesterday, with the jury issuing a verdict of around $41 million. That’s an estimate, because the decision was a “complex, lengthy” verdict that will take the lawyers until next week to calculate precisely, according to a Reuters report on the outcome of the trial.

READ THE FULL STORY AT ARS TECHNICA:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/jury-mp3tunes-founder-must-pay-41-million-for-copyright-violations/

by Trichordist Editor

Copyright “safe harbors” shrink in wake of MP3Tunes, other red flag rulings | GIGAOM

In case you missed it, a jury this week found that Michael Robertson, CEO of defunct music service MP3Tunes, was liable for copyright infringement. The jury concluded that Robertson, whose websites permitted users to upload songs and store them in “lockers,” had turned a blind eye to piracy — meaning that they forfeited the so-called “safe harbor” protections under copyright law that normally ensure that a website is not liable for the misdeeds of its users.

The significance of the case has little to do with MP3Tunes, which has long been closed, but instead stands as a strategic victory for copyright owners. That’s because the jury found Robertson liable on the basis of so-called “red flag” knowledge rather than “actual” knowledge. The distinction may sound arcane, but it’s one the studios have fought hard to establish as part of their strategy to change the level of proof needed to prove piracy.

READ THE FULL STORY AT GIGAOM:
http://gigaom.com/2014/03/21/copyright-safe-harbors-shrink-in-wake-of-mp3tunes-other-red-flag-rulings/

by Trichordist Editor