http://www.dantynan.com/2008/07/21/the-riaa-vs-the-mothers-of-prevention/ includes great mini-anecdotes and the full resolution to the “baby dancing to Prince song” fiasco.
Great RIAA Post from Dan TynanArchive for the ‘Music’ Category
Great RIAA Post from Dan Tynan
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008Canada Clarifies Copyrights
Thursday, June 12th, 2008Reuters reportS: Canadians will be allowed to copy legally acquired music to their iPods and computers but would be banned from getting around any digital locks that companies might apply.
Legislation protects Internet service providers from liability for copyright violations by their subscribers, requiring them only to pass on notices of violations.
University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist complains “All these rights force consumers to read the fine print — you can shift a song or a television show, but once it’s locked down, your rights disappear and your potential liability skyrockets.”
Awwww…..they’d have to readi the fine print. Hey, read the f’in fine print and keep your ass out of jail.
Legislation doesn’t specify how the government would monitor whether people had built up personal libraries of recordings. Liberal Party member Dan McTeague criticized the bill as being incomplete. “How are you going to enforce this when existing jurisprudence doesn’t allow you to walk into someone’s home?” he pointed out.
Looks like business as usual for digital rights legislation. They just don’t get it.
Canada Clarifies CopyrightsPrince Snippet Stirs Fair Use Debate
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008The video of a 13-month old dancing to a Prince tune – 13 months, not a teenager – has opened the debate once again on what constitutes “Fair Use,” Mediapost reports.
Prince has been notorious for protecting his copyrights, but this is one video that couldn’t be a clearer example of when to leave well enough alone.
Whats your call?
Prince Snippet Stirs Fair Use DebateRIAA Sues Project Playlist
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008The Recording Industry Association of America has sued music search engine Project Playlist, claiming that the service infringes copyright by making it easy for users to find and play pirated tracks.
The company does not host files on its site, but rather provides a player that can be embedded on social networking sites.
RIAA Sues Project PlaylistDVD Jon Liberates Tunes from iTunes
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008More details to emerge, I’m sure, but this time DVD Jon, known for cracking the DVD copyright encryption, has cracked Apple’s DRM, enabling people to play their iTunes purchased music on non-Apple devices. San Francisco-based doubleTwist, co-founded by DVD Jon, is releasing the software.
Beyond computer-to-computer media-sharing, doubleTwist lets users synchronize media sitting on their computers to mobile devices they or their friends own, simply by “dragging and dropping” media files into a desktop folder that then drops copies of the media files onto the mobile devices over the Web.
This is similar functionality provided by Red Chair Software’s Anapod, which the Hobo’s Mom uses for dragging and dropping to her iPod. It also seems to mimic the functionality of Tunebite, which plays back songs in fast forward and re-records them as unprotected files.
While there appears to be little hope for DRM when users are determined to get around it, I still maintain that there is very little that people can’t do under “Fair Use” with DRM protected files.
DVD Jon Liberates Tunes from iTunesBiz Wins Over Minn. Woman
Friday, October 5th, 2007In the first illegal downloading case to make it to court, the Biz won.
A jury found that Jammie Thomas infringed upon copyrights and awarded damages of $9,250 for each of the 24 recordings cited, for a total of $220,000.
Biz Wins Over Minn. WomanRecord Industry Takes Its Case to Court Tomorrow
Monday, October 1st, 2007The music industry is taking its case to court for the first time tomorrow.
A group of record labels is suing Jammie Thomas for sharing music across the Kazaa P2P network. While most people threatened with legal action from the industry have opted to settle, Jammie Thomas decided to take it all the way.
At risk is more than $1.2 million. The recording association is seeking damages set under federal law, of $750 to $30,000 for each copyright violation, and accusing Ms. Thomas of sharing more than 1,700 songs.
Record Industry Takes Its Case to Court TomorrowSoundExchange’s Sound Decision
Friday, July 13th, 2007According to Wired’s Elliot Van Buskirk, SoundExchange will not enforce the new online radio royalty rates when they officially kick in this weekend.
Read more at Wired’d blog.
SoundExchange’s Sound DecisionHelp Save Pandora
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007Pandora, one of the best streaming music sites on the web, is being hit hard due to the increased royalty rates for online broadcasters. I’m posting the letter from Tim Westergren, their founder, in hopes that anyone who enjoys free music might help their cause.
-TDH
Hi, it’s Tim from Pandora,
I’m writing today to ask for your help. The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays and broadcast radio doesn’t pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.
In response to these new and unfair fees, we have formed the SaveNetRadio Coalition, a group that includes listeners, artists, labels and webcasters. I hope that you will consider joining us.
Please sign our petition urging your Congressional representative to act to save Internet radio: http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541
Please feel free to forward this link/email to your friends – the more petitioners we can get, the better.
Understand that we are fully supportive of paying royalties to the artists whose music we play, and have done so since our inception. As a former touring musician myself, I’m no stranger to the challenges facing working musicians. The issue we have with the recent ruling is that it puts the cost of streaming far out of the range of ANY webcaster’s business potential.
I hope you’ll take just a few minutes to sign our petition – it WILL make a difference. As a young industry, we do not have the lobbying power of the RIAA. You, our listeners, are by far our biggest and most influential allies.
As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.
-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)
Purple Rain, Superbowl Style
Sunday, February 25th, 2007I’m still amazed that Prince’s performance of Purple Rain at the halftime show of the superbowl hasn’t surfaced on any of the official download sites for sale. Prince has always been kooky about his rights – look how far he went to get out of a record deal – so far be it from this Hobo to mess with the Purple One.
That said, Prince rocked the superbowl and it doesn’t take much to share audio and video these days.
Purple Rain, Superbowl Style