Tag Archives: copyright

File-Sharing Darling Dan Bull Publishes Anti-SOPA Rap

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???As an internet geek, a musician, and a non-evil person, SOPA is abhorrent on several fronts,??? Dan told TorrentFreak. ???It threatens the future of the internet, which is something far more valuable both commercially and socially than the entertainment industry ever has been, or ever will be.???

Dan recognizes that everything we do is influenced by something else, and richer cultural landscapes can be achieved through remixes, mashups and sharing.

???Creativity is all about interpreting and re-imagining what you see and hear around you. The idea that creativity exists in some kind of vacuum, and that you???re not a real artist unless you can make something ???completely original??? is not only stupid, it contradicts the most fundamental axioms of how the universe works,??? he adds.

???Thirdly, the internet is an amazing new forum for free speech and holding those in power to account. The idea that governments and even private corporations can police the internet and decide what people on a global scale are allowed to say and hear is tyrannical.???

via torrentfreak.com

Deleting Music: Not content to merely delete their own catalogue???

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Both Warner Music and Sony Music Entertainment have asserted copyright ownership of things they do not have any claim to, and have gone about removing it, taking away public access to it, and attempting to profit from it through advertising revenue where it is available.

This is not an administrative oversight. This is a business strategy. They’re not just deleting their own music through neglect – they’re actively seeking and destroying everyone else’s wherever they think they can get away with it.

via deletingmusic.com

Some how the infringement by beneficiaries seems more odious, particularly when they are the boosters for more draconian enforcement for the rest of us.

Deleting Music: Copyright extension is anti-music

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this decision is not made for the benefit of songwriters, composers, audiences, music researchers or for the benefit of culture.

It is a profoundly anti-music decision.

Worse, the Musicians Union ??? a body purporting to represent the interests of their members ??? have decided to side with the BPI in their support of this copyright extension, confirming their status as pro-popstar, pro-corporate entertainment complex and pro-copyright maximisation??? but utterly anti-music, and anti-musician.

I know some good people in the MU, and I can think of good reasons to be a member. But at a public policy level, the Musicians Union has become complicit in some of the worst decisions and campaigns that are not to the benefit of their members at all, but solely for the good of the corporate record industry.

I don???t think they have been fooled by BPI rhetoric. I don???t think they???re stupid. I didn???t say ???deluded??? ??? I said ???complicit???.

via deletingmusic.com

RIAA: Someone Else Is Pirating Through Our IP-Addresses

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A few days ago we reported that no less than 6 IP-addresses registered to the RIAA had been busted for downloading copyrighted material. Quite a shocker to everyone – including the music industry group apparently – as they are now using a defense previously attempted by many alleged file-sharers. It wasn’t members of RIAA staff who downloaded these files, the RIAA insists, it was a mysterious third party vendor who unknowingly smeared the group’s good name.

via torrentfreak.com

Yeah, right. Like RIAA would accept that from any one else. Their deceit is only exceeded by their greed, stupidity and hypocrisy.

An Explanation For Why UMG May Be Right That It Can Pull Down MegaUpload’s Video [Updated] | Techdirt

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There are a few different ways that content can be taken down off of YouTube concerning copyright claims. One is via ContentID, the automated system that matches fingerprints. One is via a DMCA takedown notice. And one is via YouTube’s Content Management System. This last one doesn’t get much attention and isn’t that well known, but it’s basically halfway in between the other two (loosely speaking), granting partners the ability to spot and block videos that aren’t matched by ContentID, but without sending a DMCA takedown. If you’re familiar with the details of the system (which it appears MegaUpload and its lawyers were not), it was actually easy to tell this was a CMS block by the message that appeared on the blocked video. It said “This video contains content from UMG, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.” That’s the message that shows up on CMS blocks. DMCA takedowns say that the video is “no longer available.”

So, on that point, UMG may very well be correct in its filing, that it’s not subject to DMCA sanctions because it didn’t actually file a DMCA notice

via techdirt.com

Private contract, access has always been that under copyright.

SOPA on the ropes? Bipartisan alternative to ‘Net censorship emerges

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One promising alternative was unveiled today by a bipartisan group of 10 senators and representatives. It ditches the ???law and order??? approach to piracy and replaces it with a more limited, trade-based system. 

And the legislators behind it have put out a draft of the idea for public comment before they even begin drawing up actual legislation. (Does the Smoky Back Room industry know about this threatening behavior?)

via arstechnica.com

Alternative, or the pre-planned fall back. A comparative voice of sweet reason after the extreme first position was advanced as a stalking horse?

Swiss Govt: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal

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???Every time a new media technology has been made available, it has always been ???abused???. This is the price we pay for progress. Winners will be those who are able to use the new technology to their advantages and losers those who missed this development and continue to follow old business models,??? the report notes.

via torrentfreak.com

Superb

The Copyright Industry ??? A Century Of Deceit

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It is said that those who don???t study history are doomed to repeat it. In the case of the copyright industry, they have learned that they can get new monopoly benefits and rent-seeker???s benefits every time there is a new technology, if they just complain loudly enough to the legislators.

via torrentfreak.com

Not so much deceit as typical incumbent NPV driven behaviour.

The $500,000,000 Cost of Google???s Five Million DMCA Notices

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If I told you that the DMCA notice system at Google alone was taking $500,000,000 a year out of the already beaten down global creative community, would you say that is such a staggering sum it can???t be right?  I think you???ll find that number is actually a low estimate based on Google???s own figures.  It makes a $100 million advance for licensing to Google Music look like chump change because it is.

via musictechpolicy.wordpress.com

SABAM Knocked Out at the ECJ

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43. The protection of the right to intellectual property is indeed enshrined in Article 17(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (???the Charter???). There is, however, nothing whatsoever in the wording of that provision or in the Court???s case-law to suggest that that right is inviolable and must for that reason be absolutely protected.

via knowfuture.wordpress.com

Filter that.