Entertainmnent Industry: Yes, Please Keep Negotiating Secret Copyright Treaty To Save Our Asses

from the yeah,-that's-convincing dept

Sherwin Siy (one of the few people who actually was allowed to glance briefly at parts of the proposed ACTA treaty, though under strict NDA) has written about yet another letter sent by the entertainment industry to the government in support of ACTA. This letter includes pretty much everyone who benefits from abusing copyright laws and is afraid of the internet:

Advertising Photographers of America
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
American Society of Media Photographers, Inc. (ASMP)
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI)
Commercial Photographers International
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Evidence Photographers International Council
Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA)
National Music Publishers Association (NMPA)
NBC Universal
News Corporation
Picture Archive Council of America (PACA)
Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Reed Elsevier Inc.
Society of Sport & Event Photographers
Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Stock Artists Alliance
Student Photographic Society
The Advertising Photographers of America
The Walt Disney Company
Time Warner, Inc.
Universal Music Group
Viacom Inc.
Warner Music Group

Funny... isn't it, that all these companies and industry groups are supporting a deal that no one's seen yet? Oh wait... that's because many of them have seen it and actually have had a hand in creating it. But what's really damning is that no where in the letter do they explain why this is actually needed or how it will do anything valuable. Instead, it's a pure faith-based letter saying "if you pass this secret treaty, good things will happen." I don't know about you, but generally, I prefer there to be actual proof and evidence that restricting consumer rights around the world actually leads to some sort of real benefit.

Tellingly, they don't respond to any of the points we raised earlier. This is not a treaty to help people or the economy. It's a deal to try to sneak through a system for propping up an obsolete business model by companies who don't want to adapt.

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Update On Choruss: Universities Not Talking, Mysterious 10,000 Students Still Nowhere To Be Found

from the still-waiting... dept

We've been pretty big critics of the music tax concept, that was being pushed by Jim Griffin's Choruss along with Warner Music (who had hired Griffin to create this program). Of course, we've only been able to criticize what bits and pieces have leaked out from those who have seen Griffin's presentations. That's because, despite a busy conference schedule, Griffin never seems to publicly describe what Choruss really is. So, every time we hear some new info about Choruss, and explain why it's bad, we get angry emails from Griffin calling me all sorts of insulting names, and insisting that I've mischaracterized Choruss. So, we ask for more details, and we don't get them. Instead, we're given amorphous descriptions about how it's "an experiment." But what is the experiment? Well, it will be lots of things. As soon as we narrow in on an example, however, and explain why it's bad, we're attacked because the plan might not include that particular example. But we haven't yet heard an example that makes sense.

Griffin had agreed (as part of an angry email) to answer questions from the Techdirt community, and we obliged by sending him a long list of questions. Griffin had some personal issues to deal with over the summer, which was totally understandable, but we still haven't heard any answers. I'm beginning to wonder if we ever will.

But the biggest question I had was if he could explain who the "tens of thousands" of students were who Griffin told a conference in June would be using Choruss this fall semester. It seemed odd to find out that so many students had signed up for something when we still weren't being told what it was. As the fall semester started, we asked to hear from students who were using Choruss, and got silence -- which seemed odd. Apparently, it's because those tens of thousands of students hadn't signed up for the fall.

However, as a bunch of you have sent in, now the claim is that six college campuses will be testing Choruss this spring semester, but Griffin won't say who they are and the campuses won't admit to participating. They claim that they're afraid of backlash from folks like us -- but that makes me wonder. If the concept is so good, why not stand up and defend yourself for being a part of the program? If you can't defend the reasons for testing the program, it makes me wonder why you're doing it in the first place.

The article at the Chronicle of Higher Education provides a few new details that don't sound particularly appealing. Rather than (as some had suggested earlier, but since Griffin never made it clear, we just don't know if this was ever true) a system that would let students share files freely under some sort of blanket license, it sounds like "yet another limited music service." It will allow unlimited downloads, but you have to use the Choruss service (again, perhaps the article is wrong, but that's what it says). Similar services have been tried on various campuses and failed, so we're curious to hear what's so special about Choruss that will be different.

It still seems like Choruss is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. We're seeing more and more smart musicians put in place business models that work. They work in a way that lets fans choose to send money to the artists they want to support directly, without a big middleman. Choruss appears (from all we've heard) to be an attempt to set up a big middleman that will take big chunks of money and then use some magical process to figure out how to dole it out. But why do we need that overhead? The market is figuring stuff out. It doesn't need another middleman.

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Post Script On Edwyn Collins: Power Of The Press Gets His Music On MySpace For Free

from the no-thanks-to-warner-music dept

A few weeks back, we were one of the first publications to highlight how singer Edwyn Collins was unable to put his own hit song on MySpace for free download (as he wanted to do) because Warner Music claimed copyright over it -- even though it had no such copyright. Despite quite an effort by Collins' manager/wife, Grace Maxwell, nothing was changing. However, the story started to spread, including making it into some major media properties, such as the BBC and The Guardian... and whaddaya know, suddenly everything gets fixed. Mesanna writes in to let us know of an update post from Maxwell, where she points out that the power of the press seemed to finally accomplish what simple reasoning with both MySpace and Warner Music could not:

However, whaddaya know? After 30 odd fruitless emails, A Girl Like You is now available in full on the myspace player! So, todays lesson is simple:

THE MOST POWERFUL DEPARTMENT IN ANY ORGANISATION IS THE PRESS OFFICE.
The whole sad world runs scared of bad publicity, especially from a righteous source like Edwyn Collins.

While Maxwell says it's not worth the ridiculous effort it would take to sue Warner Music or any other major label claiming copyright over Collins' songs, she's more than willing to help out in other cases against them:

Warner Music Group has no connection with Edwyn whatsoever and yet they are still corporately arrogant enough to steal Edwyn's copyright and God knows what else from others. A guy from myspace advised me to treat their copyright department with kid gloves if I wanted a result. It didn't work. If the shoe was on the other foot they'd have been down on us like a ton of bricks. The next time a major tries to take ANYONE to court for copyright infringment, I'm volunteering my services as a witness for the defense.

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Edwyn Collins Can't Give Away His Music Thanks To MySpace, Warner Music

from the thanks-guys dept

Mesanna alerts us to a blog post from the wife/manager of pop singer Edwyn Collins discussing the hellish experience she's gone through trying to offer up Collins' most famous song, A Girl Like You, on MySpace. Collins owns the copyright and wants the music to be freely downloadable by anyone, but Warner Music claimed that it owns the copyright, even though it does not:

At the beginning of this year I noticed that Edwyn's myspace had gone bit wonky and I tried to upload the tracks back on to the music player. His most famous track, which he owns the copyright in, as he does for most of the music he's recorded in his life (preferring to go it alone than have his music trapped "in perpetuity" to use the contract language of the major record company) is called A Girl Like You. It's quite famous. Lo and behold, it would not upload, I was told Edwyn was attempting to breach a copyright and he was sent to the Orwellian myspace copyright re-education page. Quite chilling, actually. I naturally blew my stack and wrote to myspace on his behalf demanding to know who the hell was claiming copyright of Edwyn's track? Which, incidentally, he always made freely available for download on myspace, something which amazed his followers. Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it. I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't. That is because Myspace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major can claim a copyright. Warner's were one of the lead petitioners in the attempt to put those three stoner lads in Sweden in prison recently, remember.

Meanwhile, the song which Collins wants to give away, but cannot, is being sold all over the internet... but not by Collins. Instead, it's by major labels who have no right to do so, according to Collins' manager:

A Girl Like You is available FOR SALE all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him. Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they've always done.

Wait... major labels... selling a song they don't have the right to, and not giving any of the money back to the artist? That seems a hell of a lot worse than just sharing a song for non-commercial reasons, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, Collins has no problem with the sharing of bootlegs:

Andrew Loog Oldham said that getting ripped off (by the industry) was your entrance fee to the music business of the sixties, so get over it. He's right and things have not changed. We are very over it, but nonetheless aware of who the biggest bootleggers around are. It's not the filesharers. Personally, we've always loved bootlegs. Even when Edwyn was really skint at the fag end of the eighties, I remember being in Camden market and seeing some tapes of a couple of his shows on sale. I tried to buy them but the stallholder somehow knew who I was and said "free to the management." I failed to see how that guy selling tapes of Edwyn or even U2 or anybody on the list of signatories above could harm their career.

And... then at the end, she's got a nice little message for the Featured Artist Coalition and its silly petition to try to stop file sharing:

The gig's up. You might as well take a position about when you want the sun to come up in the morning. It's over. Now let's get on with working out a wonderful new way for music lovers to enjoy music for free or for a small subscription that makes it legal and easy to hear ANYTHING and allows the artist to reap the rewards of such freedom of access. Viva la revolucion!

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Only Took 9 Months, But Warner Music Videos Finally Back On YouTube

from the how-big-were-the-losses? dept

You may recall last December that a spat over how much Google would pay Warner Music for hosting its videos (for free, mind you) created a situation whereby Warner Music videos were taken off the site (there are conflicting stories over who actually made the call to take the videos down). The end result of this was basically bad for everyone -- and even Warner's own musicians got pretty pissed off at Warner -- especially as they saw other musicians use YouTube to grow their audience. It only took nine months, but it looks like Warner Music and YouTube have finally worked out a deal to allow the videos back online. You have to wonder how much harm this did to Warner artists, and to the label itself. I'd argue that the failure to leverage a rather useful promotional platform to connect with audiences was likely to have been much greater than any "harm" done from file sharing.

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That Story About Warner Music Paying For A Rappers' PhD? Well... Not So Much

from the fact-checking? dept

We keep seeing claims by newspaper people that bloggers don't fact check and that newspapers do. In fact, in a recent discussion, Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi seemed to blast bloggers for not being able to live without newspaper reporter fact checking:

"I can't imagine a world (or an internet) without the raw factual material that newspapers provide every day, but I guess the bloggers don't really care about any of that. They're mostly about themselves and their opinions, with little thought given to where they're getting their basic facts."

Fair enough. But, as we keep finding out, it seems that newspapers aren't all that concerned about where they get their "facts," either. And sometimes we "bloggers," who are mostly about ourselves and our opinions, have to step in and do some fact checking ourselves.

Case in point: last week, I wrote a post here on Techdirt about how Warner Music helped a famous 80's rapper get a PhD in psychology. The post was based on an article in the NY Daily News by Walter Dawkins. It seemed reasonable to assume that such a professional news organization had fact checked the story. Yet, even before I hit publish, some questions were raised. The article noted that she had received her PhD in psychology from Cornell -- my alma mater. And when I wrote the post up, I initially mentioned that fact (school pride is fun). Yet when I asked some people I know who also went through Cornell's psychology program and would have likely been in a position to have known (or known of) Roxanne Shante, I was told that they hadn't heard of her. Also, multiple attempts to find her dissertation in databases like PsychInfo turned up nothing. Oh yeah, and then there's this: Cornell doesn't offer a clinical psychology degree, and the article clearly states that her work is in clinical psychology.

So, I went searching, and found (first) a video interview where she claimed to have attended Cornell Medical -- which is still Cornell, but is a separate organization based in New York City, rather than up in Ithaca with the rest of the school. So... perhaps her degree was from there. But, then I came across another report claiming that she only got her masters at Cornell, and then returned to Marymount Manhattan College -- where she went as an undergrad -- for the PhD.

I thought that this made some amount of sense, and let the post go out. I figured that perhaps the Daily News reporter got confused about where she got her PhD, but he must have at least fact checked the rest? I should have known better.

After the post went up, some additional comments came in highlighting some other problems with her story, and so I decided to do some of the fact checking it appeared that the big professional reporters at The Daily News did not do. I contacted the administration at Cornell, and received the following response:

We've had everyone from the Graduate School to Alumni Affairs and Development to the Psychology Department search their databases, using every possible configuration of her names, and no one has found any evidence that Ms. Shante ever attended Cornell University.

Oops. Still, others pointed out that there were two references in two separate publications, The Cornell Chronicle and The Cornell Daily Sun, both to a conference held on campus that Shante took part in, though both seemed to be based on her own statements. The Daily Sun is independent of the university (though run by students), but the Chronicle is an official school publication. It's quite telling that the Chronicle article does not follow the established style guidelines of Cornell official publications in referring to an alum: it does not provide a year. It's typical to say things like "Ph.D. '08." That's done for others in that same article. But Shante's Ph.D. claim is not accompanied by a date, suggesting that the reporter was unable to confirm it. There's also an odd list of "Notable Cornell alum" that lists her, but the link is for "Class of '91," which she certainly didn't attend. Also, once again, her listing doesn't include a date.

From there, I contacted the administration at Marymount Manhattan College, and specifically contacted Dean Marguerita Grecco, who is named in the original Daily News article as supporting Ms. Shante, and sending the tuition bills to Warner Music. Despite multiple attempts to reach Dr. Grecco, she refused to respond at all. However, I was able to get a rather curt response from someone else in the administration, claiming that the only information he would give me is: "Roxanne Shante attended classes at Marymount Manhattan College during the fall semester of 1995." That did not answer my questions about what degree(s) she obtained (if any), and only seems to raise more questions. Did she attend classes there beyond that one semester? The school won't say.

Oh yeah, it's worth mentioning: Marymount Manhtattan College does not offer a PhD program in psychology. Only a bachelors.

So, the original article claimed that Warner Music spent over $200,000 on this woman's education. I reached out to Warner Music to ask them who they sent that money to. Admittedly, all of this happened back in the '90s, when Warner Music was owned by Time Warner. It no longer is. It's got new ownership and new management. Yet, despite the fact that folks at Warner Music aren't particularly big fans of this site (I have no clue why), they went digging through all sorts of records to see what they could turn up. From that, they sent over the following statement:

"Roxanne Shante's story is a compelling one and we wish her all success in her good works. With respect to the specifics of her recording agreement, we are not in a position to comment definitively because her agreement was with an independent record label known as Cold Chillin' Records, and the transactional file is more than 20 years old. Our examination of that file however has not revealed any evidence of any 'education clause' in any agreement. That is not a commentary on Ms. Shante's label or on the existence of such a clause. In fact, our view is that artists' compensation can be put to many good uses; if Cold Chillin' guided this artist's compensation to education expenses that would certainly be a worthy one."

So, even if there was an "education clause," Warner Music can't find any record of it. Instead, it appeared to just have a rather typical distribution deal with an indie label that she was signed to. Next up, the article claims that Shante is running "an unconventional therapy practice focusing on urban African-Americans." Unfortunately, searches of the NY database of such professionals has yet to turn up any evidence that she's listed. Admittedly, the interface for that system is not particularly user friendly, but various attempts to find her under various names (both her stage name and her birth name) turned up nothing. In searching around, I could find no business listing for her therapy organization.

Also, I could not find ways to contact her. I did try via a MySpace page that is supposedly hers, but it's not clear if it's really her page, and I have not heard back. Finally, I contacted the NY Daily News, and asked either for additional backup material, an explanation, or to let me speak with the original reporter, Walter Dawkins. As of publishing this, I have not heard from either of them.

I should note that this is yet another great example of how wonderful the Techdirt community is. It was via the comments that many of these questions were raised, and it allowed me to go in search of the details (or lack thereof). I've said before that what makes this site so much fun is the discussion we have in the comments, and this is yet another bit of proof. Update: Looks like friend of the blog Ben Sheffner was doing similar research over the past few days as well, and got Shante to admit the PhD doesn't exist, but she fails to explain pretty much anything else.

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Major Record Labels Sorta, Maybe Embracing Direct-To-Fan Projects

from the but-it's-more-than-just-the-platform dept

While we definitely knock the major record labels for their legal strategy and occasional business blunders, in the last two years or so, there has actually been some recognition within the record labels that finally they need to focus on giving fans what they want, rather than just suing them and hoping that the old CD business model magically returns to its former highs. There have been hints and glimmers of hope from the major record labels -- though, even those inside the labels who seem to get it will quietly admit that it's sometimes a struggle to get some of this through to "the old guard."

The question, though, is how much of this is real, and how much of it is the old guard putting on a show, picking up on a buzzword and insisting that this time, they've got it. A few years ago, all the talk was about "360 Deals" and how that would get the labels off of the CD revenue IV drip. But, many artists (smartly) balked, seeing such deals not as an industry adapting to change, but one looking to just get a larger piece of the pie -- and doing so without adding much value, and after decades of screwing over the artists. So that hasn't worked out so well for the most part.

It appears that the latest buzzword that the majors are picking up on is this concept of the "direct-to-fan" model. This is a bit of an offshoot of my own mantra of getting creators to connect with fans. And, for more independent artists, a number of platforms and companies have sprung up to help them more easily connect with fans, whether it's MySpace or BandCamp or TopSpin or TuneCore, or whoever else. And, of course, most of those companies also have relationships or deals with the major record labels, but it seems that the majors are realizing that they need to have a real "direct-to-fan" strategy themselves.

Just recently, we saw Warner Music sign a deal with Cisco to use Cisco's EOS platform for direct-to-fan efforts. And, more recently, Universal Music announced that it was working with Echospin to provide direct-to-fan offerings. I have no doubt that EMI and (probably way way way at the end of the line), Sony will get around to making similar announcements.

While I think it's a great thing that the labels are experimenting with smarter models that actually do focus on bringing the musicians closer to the fans and providing a much more compelling offering that goes beyond brochureware, I'm a bit skeptical that they'll really pull it off successfully in the short term. Direct-to-fan offerings is more than a platform. It's an actual business model and marketing strategy and it's unclear if the labels have actually figured that part out yet. Yes, they're adopting platforms and they're taking steps in the right direction -- so let's give them some credit. But until they really understand what fans want and how to better help musicians provide it, setting up a "direct-to-fan" platform won't make a big difference.

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Music Reviewer's Blog Suspended For Promoting Music

from the left-hand,-meet-right-hand... dept

It's really funny to watch the old record labels try to understand the whole music blogging culture. The folks in the promotions department send music bloggers mp3s and encourage them to post them, knowing that it'll get the musician attention. That's a good thing. But the folks on the legal side go the other way... often sending takedowns to the very same bloggers. Rafi Kam points us to a ridiculous situation involving Warner Music Group, who hired a firm called Gray Zone to help "deal with" unauthorized tracks being shared online. Apparently Gray Zone tracked down a song by Gucci Mane that was on well-known music reviewer Andrew Noz's website and sent an angry cease-and-desist to both Noz and his hosting company using all capital letters, including the phrase: "IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ALL LINKS, REFERENCES, DOWNLOADS, VIDEOS, STREAMING AUDIO, AND MP3 FILES ASSOCIATED WITH GUCCI MANE."

Noz didn't see the email, which his filter assumed as spam, but his hosting company did and suspended his entire site. Nice of them. When Noz contacted them, they told him that, based on the above sentence, he needed to go through his blog and remove every reference to Gucci Mane (after all, that's what letter said). Apparently, Noz had written about Gucci Mane quite a bit, so that was a lot of work. Of course, the letter is wrong. While there may be a copyright issue with downloads, it's difficult to see where there would be any copyright claim at all when it came to links, embedded videos (hosted elsewhere) or references. That's actually copyfraud by Gray Zone, on behalf of Warner Music Group, by claiming copyright on things that it does not have rights over.

Either way Noz scrambled and spent hours deleting everything on his site about this particular artist. After all of that, he spoke with a VP at Gray Zone who said that Gray Zone and Warner were really only demanding that he take down a single track. But, of course, that's not what the takedown notice said. Noz points his anger at Warner Music, asking why folks from Warner Music email him tracks all the time... but then get his entire site taken down for those very same songs? This isn't just the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, it's the right hand shaking someone's hand, and the left hand smacking that guy in the face for shaking the right hand. And people wonder why the big labels are so hated?

I actually spoke with both Warner Music Group and Noz to try to find out more about this. Noz says that he's not sure if the one particular song was actually sent by someone from WMG, but that he gets hundreds of songs a week, many of which come from WMG, and he helps promote many of those tracks, so he finds it pretty ridiculous that rather than just contact him and politely ask him to take down the song, they had his entire site taken down. WMG noted that it, as a corporate entity, wasn't directly involved with this, but that it was handled by a subsidiary, Asylum Records. Asylum then sent over a statement:

Apparently, unauthorized copies of the unfinished and unreleased track "I Got All Of That" by Gucci Mane have been stolen and sent out to certain websites by parties unknown to us. In cooperation with the artist and his manager, we instructed our third-party vendor to notify websites to take down the unauthorized track from their sites immediately. We appreciate the cooperation of sites that recognize that this unfinished song does not represent the artist's complete vision and may have been obtained illegally.

Of course, that doesn't really address the issue. The complaint from Gray Zone didn't just target that one song, but all content related to this artist, and because of that, it forced the guy's blog offline -- all the while he's receiving plenty of songs directly from the record label. You can understand where there might be some confusion there. At the very least, someone should have just contacted the guy directly with a friendly request, rather than sending the immediate ALL CAPITALS cease-and-desist threat.

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Recording Industry Helps Rapper/Single Mom Get A PhD, Though It Tried To Weasel Out

from the see,-sometimes-they-do-some-good dept

Update: Further reporting on this suggests that almost none of this story is true. The Daily News appears to have done no fact checking whatsoever.

Michael sends in this excellent story of a major record label actually doing right by one of its (former) artists... though, the story really doesn't reflect that well on Warner Music. It's the story of Roxanne Shante, one of the first female hip hop stars, who came out with a hit song in the 80s (when she was 14-years-old), leading the way for other female rappers. Of course, like so many other artists, she found out that the big record labels weren't so great after all. After two albums, when she realized that her label was basically stealing from her, she called it quits from music. At age 19, however, she remembered that Warner Music has put a clause in her contract, promising to "fund her education for life." She figures they put that in as a "throwaway, never believing a teen mom in public housing would attend college." But, attend college, she did. She didn't just get a bachelor's degree, but went all the way through to a PhD. in psychology.

Of course, Warner Music, already having done plenty to try to cheat her out of her contract, worked hard not to pay. But the dean at, Marymount Manhattan College, where she attended for some of both her undergraduate and graduate degrees, read over the clause and simply kept sending bills to Warner Music. Warner (so nice of them, as per usual) ignored the invoices until Shante threatened to go public with the story of Warner Music Group not living up to their contract promises on something so basic as funding her education. In the end, Warner Music had to pay up around $217,000 for Shante's education, and she's put the doctorate to good use, launching a therapy practice focused on urban African-Americans, experimenting with new ways to get them over the taboo associated with therapy. It's nice to see how Warner Music actually did some good in the world, even if it had to be dragged there kicking and screaming.

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Copyright Conundrum: Was 'Public Domain' Music Silenced On YouTube?

from the it's-in-the-recording... dept

Mark Guertin writes in with an interesting situation that he's dealing with, which I think highlights some of the problems with copyright law today. Guertin put together a YouTube video of some swimming pugs as part of a promotion for a charity he's involved with. Knowing that music on videos is a potential copyright issue, he went to Wikipedia to find some public domain music, and chose Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries to accompany the swimming pugs.

Except... he got blocked. YouTube's content ID system told him that the song was owned by (who else?) Warner Music Group, and thus the soundtrack was muted. Guertin filed a counternotice, and the music was reinstated, but then muted a second time as apparently someone (Google/Warner?) didn't agree with the counternotice. Without knowing the details, my guess is that the situation has to do with the different types of copyright coverage. While the song Ride of the Valkyries is public domain, each individual recording of it is covered by copyright. It seems likely that whatever recording was used is still under copyright.

Guertin is reasonably upset about the situation, especially the whole concept of having the music blocked until WMG has a chance to weigh in on it, noting that "guilt before innocence" seems incredibly unfair.

But the bigger issue may be how this (once again) shows how out of sync copyright law is with what people think is reasonable or fair. If you found out a piece of music was in the public domain, it's natural to assume that a recording of that same piece of music is in the public domain. And to make things more confusing, that's absolutely true (in the US at least) of a photograph of a public domain painting. But making a new recording of a public domain song? Bam. A new monopoly created.

Unfortunately for Guertin, the track he used probably is not in the public domain, even if the music is (yes, that's confusing). That's why, these days, it's probably more reasonable to search out Creative Commons-licensed music than public domain music -- because you can't be as sure whether the PD part covers the recording as well as the music. To some of us, that seems like a problem with current copyright laws, while others appear to view it as a feature.

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YouTube, Warner Music Spat Killing Viral Videos

from the that'll-help dept

The ongoing spat between Warner Music and YouTube over music licensing payments has already been pissing off both musicians and consumers. But apparently now it's gone too far. People are up in arms that the ongoing "silentification" of music in videos has destroyed a popular viral video involving (seriously) a cat playing a piano. There simply is no logical argument for claiming that leaving this video alone harms the music industry in any way. No one is using this video as a substitute for the music in question -- and, if anything, it helps make more people aware of the music. But, thanks to Warner insisting that any and all value comes from Warner and Warner alone -- and anyone must pay for the privilege of promoting its music... fewer people now get to hear the song and enjoy a silly viral video.

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Suggestion For Warner Music: Maybe Look At How Much You're Paying Your Execs

from the might-save-some-money dept

It's no secret that Warner Music has been struggling -- employing a highly questionable strategy of shutting down or suing all sorts of useful services that make its music more valuable, and then demanding ridiculous payment terms or equity in any company that might help them survive... all while the company slowly goes bankrupt. Following what can only be called a disastrous 2008, the company has shown a minor improvement in 2009, but it has all the indications of a dead cat bounce. The company was in desperate need of cash, and was able to get a loan of $1.1 billion last week to ease some of those concerns... but at a staggering 9.5% interest. Meanwhile, the guys over at Hypebot are wondering why WMG's top two executives were given $6.25 million in bonuses last year as the company was collapsing. And with some back of the envelope calculations, they note that the company could save hundreds of millions of dollars by dropping the bonuses and using the money to pay back the debt earlier, saving on some of the massive interest payments that are on the way.

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Can Anyone Explain Why Any Warner Music Artist Or Website Still Embeds YouTube?

from the do-they-not-know? dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the BoingBoing post about how the various YouTube videos on Warner Music Group subsidiary Sire Records are all broken due to "copyright claims" from WMG. This isn't a new story, as we've been among those covering the YouTube-Warner Music dispute since December when it became public. Plenty of Warner artists have been screwed over by this move, having their official videos pulled down because Warner demands YouTube pay it for the free service of hosting those videos. You would think, with bandwidth costs being what they were, WMG would be thrilled that a company like Google is willing to host them totally free and manage the infrastructure.

So, this particular story isn't new or surprising, and doesn't involve (as the original implies), WMG accusing itself of piracy. However, it does raise a separate question. How backwards are Warner Music and its various sub-labels that they still have taken down YouTube videos embedded on their official sites. After all, it's been more than four months since this dispute began. You would think that whoever is in charge of running these websites would have stopped using YouTube embeds a long time ago. It's really not that difficult to replace a YouTube embed with a locally hosted one. However, the fact that Warner hasn't done so pretty much makes the point, doesn't it: the company apparently doesn't have the tech talent to host its own videos. That's a lot sadder a statement than having just taken the officials videos down in the first place. Update: Ethan from Warner shows up in the comments to say that this was just an honest mistake, and the company had taken YouTube embeds off of all their sites, but somehow missed Sire Records. I'm still not sure how this goes on for four months with no one noticing it... You'd have to think that someone would visit those sites during that time and noticed.

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Not Smart: Warner Music Issues DMCA Takedown On Larry Lessig Presentation

from the this-is-going-to-hurt dept

If there were anyone out there to whom you would not want to send a random takedown notice for an online video, it would probably be Larry Lessig. Given that Lessig has become the public face for those who feel that copyright has been stretched too far, as well as being a founder of Stanford's Fair Use Project, and who's written multiple books on these issues, you would think (just maybe) that any copyright holder would at least think twice before sending a DMCA takedown on a Larry Lessig presentation.

Apparently, you'd be wrong.

Lessig has announced that Warner Music issued a DMCA takedown on one of Lessig's own presentations, in which his use is almost certainly fair use. Lessig, of course, is a lawyer, and a big supporter of fair use, so it's no surprise that he's also said he's going to be fighting this.

The thing that I can't understand is who at Warner Music would decide this was a good idea? We've seen Warner make a number of highly questionable moves over the past six months, but this may be the most incomprehensible. Warner Music may claim it was an accident or that it didn't mean to send the takedown, but that's hard to fathom as well. The DMCA rules are pretty clear, that the filer needs to clearly own the content, and previously lawsuits have said they need to take fair use into account. I'm guessing we haven't heard the end of this yet...

Update: Some people have been asking which Lessig presentation was taken down. It's been reposted elsewhere, so you can check it out, and then explain how Warner Music has any claim to a takedown.

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Amanda Palmer Asks Fans To Upload Her Anti-Record Label Song To YouTube

from the nice-going-warner... dept

You may recall (of course) that Warner Music and Google are in a fight over YouTube. Warner Music is demanding that Google pay more than Google thinks is reasonable, so now all Warner Music Group videos have been pulled from YouTube. Of course, this is actually pissing off numerous Warner Music musicians, who realize that YouTube (even if not paying directly for their videos) benefits their careers greatly. One such artist is Amanda Palmer -- who is signed to Roadrunner Records, a subsidiary of WMG. She was one of the first to complain about Warner pulling her videos from YouTube. Now she's going even further. Rose M. Welch sends in a link to a YouTube video of a recent Amanda Palmer concert where she first tells the camera operator to make sure he puts the video on YouTube so she can watch it, and then sings a song to her record label, demanding they drop her:

Yup. That decision to demand a few extra pennies from Google while pissing off your artists, sure makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

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Dear Jim Griffin: Let's Have An Open Discussion About Choruss

from the we're-waiting... dept

Yesterday, we wrote a highly critical post concerning the details around Choruss, the recording industry's latest plan to get universities or ISPs to hand over a chunk of money in exchange for "covenants not to sue." On a private email list (which has been forwarded to me by a few members of that list), Mr. Griffin responded by claiming that my "report is factually incorrect in every respect."

I certainly hope that's true!

The points I've raised are that the industry will continue suing file sharing networks, that they'll still pursue three-strikes policies, and that Choruss will be expensive, diverting a chunk of money away from other legitimate business models, which many musicians have been establishing successfully, by adding yet another middleman. Is he saying all of these assertions are false?

Actually, Griffin doesn't address or refute any of these points at all. With respect to the last one, he actually confirms it, by claiming that Choruss will be costly to run.

The only "factual" point he disputes is a rather minor one: concerning whether the program would also cover publishers and songwriters rather than just the labels. He insists that it will, noting that Warner Music owns one of the largest publishers. That's true, but hardly eases the worries. It just suggests, again, that this is a plan for Warner and its subsidiaries, rather than for building a better system for all stakeholders. And he doesn't explain how the system can cover the necessary rights at the price points being discussed. In fact, by noting how costly the program is to run, and how it will lose money at first, it certainly sounds like he's saying "this program will start out cheap, but then we'll jack up the fees."

He claims that Choruss "cannot credibly be claimed to be a money grab -- the costs will exceed the fees," but that's highly misleading on several accounts. First, as noted, it confirms just how expensive the program will be. Second, if it's a pure money loser, than why would anyone be involved with it at all? Obviously the idea, and the whole reason why Warner Music is backing it, is that it expects this to be a money maker, eventually. Claiming that it's costly simply confirms my original point, that inserting yet another costly middleman is the last thing that we need in the process. And this just suggests that any early pricing is, once again... bait and switch. The eventual prices will have to be increased once people are locked in.

That seems to confirm my initial complaints, rather than show how they're "factually incorrect."

Mr. Griffin, (on a private email list), again tries to refute the claim that they haven't included the stakeholders in the process, by noting:

"the calendar is a clear refutation: The coming week has Choruss at SXSW, a music conference in Nashville and the music educator's conference in Boston. We've done appearances and podcasts with Educause, dozens of public meetings at colleges and a keynote at Digital Music Forum."

Yes, after coming up with the plan in back rooms, without input from the actual stakeholders, Griffin has started going out and presenting the plan to others. But there's been no open discussion with those of us worried about the inevitable consequences of his plan. There's been no explanation of why this is actually needed. There's been no attempt to actually respond to the numerous questions that we've raised about the plan and no attempt to bring the actual users into the discussion:

• Why do we even need such a plan when plenty of musicians are showing that they can craft business models on the open market that work?
• How does adding yet another middleman make the music market any more efficient?
• Will the recording industry promise to stop trying to shut down file sharing systems if this program gets adopted?
• Will the recording industry promise to stop pushing for 3 strikes if this program gets adopted?
• How will the program prevent the gaming opportunities, where artists set up scripts to constantly reload/download their songs?
• Why should music be separated out and subsidized while other industries have to come up with their own business models?
• Why should those who don't listen to much music and aren't interested in giving their money to the recording industry be required to participate if their university or ISP decides to make them?

Finally, Mr. Griffin takes a personal swipe at me, saying that no "responsible professional" would write what I've been writing. I've the highest respect for Mr. Griffin, who I do believe is very capable and very smart -- and most certainly has the best of intentions with Choruss. But it's a bad plan and he seems unwilling to address the many, many questions raised about it, other than to brush anyone who disagrees with him aside, and focus on talking to friendlier audiences. If he wants to brush me off as not a "responsible professional," that's fine. I'm willing to let anyone judge me on my work, not on what Griffin says about me. But the very least he could do is actually address the points that I've raised.

To date, his form of "discussion" has been to have Warner Music PR send me a statement saying that it's "premature" to issue any criticism of his plan. That's not discussion and that's not addressing the many, many questions raised by his plan.

But, there's some good news. That "music conference in Nashville" where he'll be presenting about Choruss next week is the Leadership Music Digital Summit... which I happen to be keynoting. So, I'd love to sit down with Griffin and see if he'll actually answer some of these questions, rather than continue brushing us off as being "factually incorrect in every respect," without actually addressing the fundamental questions raised.

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Choruss' Music Tax Plan: Bait-And-Switch

from the ah-the-fine-print dept

Back in December, when we revealed how Warner Music, through consultant Jim Griffin and his new organization "Choruss," were quietly pushing a music tax on universities, Warner and Griffin snapped back angrily, telling us it wasn't fair to criticize the plan, because it was still being "discussed." Yet, as we then asked: where is that discussion and why isn't it taking place with the actual stakeholders? To date, the answer has been a near deafening silence. Despite having reached out to both Griffin and Warner Music directly, neither has shown any interest to actually engage in any form of conversation.

Now we're beginning to learn why.

While we discussed, in detail, why any such music tax is problematic, the details coming out make it clear that this is much worse than originally imagined. In fact, it's so bad that it can be described accurately as a bait-and-switch program designed to make people (1) pay lots of money (2) believing they're now free to file share and then find out that (3) file sharing systems will still be sued out of existence and (4) the users themselves, despite paying, will still be liable for massive lawsuits. It's basically a plan to give the record labels tons of money, handed over by universities (so users have no chance to opt-out) without actually changing anything.

After months of silence on what he was working on behind closed doors and in backrooms, Griffin recently gave a prepared speech supposedly revealing some "details" on the plan -- but as IP attorney Bennett Lincoff points out, what Griffin and Choruss are proposing is to pull the wool over universities and the public's eyes. The plan, as we originally pointed out, isn't a license: it's merely a covenant not to sue -- and that leads to all sorts of problems.

First, considering that the RIAA has been cutting back on lawsuits, that's not particularly meaningful. It'll still pushing for 3 strikes policies that will cut users off from the internet, even if they've paid up through Choruss. Furthermore, as was made clear in the speech, the RIAA won't stop trying to shut down file sharing systems. So, people who think this is a good idea because it will let them use The Pirate Bay or Limewire may discover after getting locked into this program that the lawsuits continue and those services keep getting shut down. Next, since it's just a covenant for the labels not to sue, rather than a license, it doesn't cover all of the other rightsholders, such as songwriters and the music publishers -- meaning that those who file share will still be wide open to lawsuits from those parties.

This is quite a scheme that the record labels and Griffin may pull off:

• Convince universities to buy into the program with no input from students. Universities will buy into it because they think they're "helping" deal with the "problem" of file sharing... and to avoid Congress forcing them into such agreements
• Universities pass the cost on to students (of course), so students are forced to pay for this
• Record labels get a big chunk of money for no good reason
• New expensive bureaucracy (Choruss) gets set up to siphon more middleman cash away from musicians
• Record labels don't do anything different, since they already have started moving away from suing individuals (sorta)
• The public thinks that file sharing is now legal
• Record labels continue to sue and shut down favorite file sharing networks, leaving only crappy, limited and expensive "approved" systems
• Individuals who paid up start getting sued by other rightsholders not covered by this agreement and not getting any money from it

And most of the press will eat it up as a revolutionary agreement whereby the record labels "legalize" file sharing.

Now can you understand why Griffin and Warner Music aren't open to any real conversation and will slam anyone who actually offers to take part in a conversation? A real conversation might bring out these issues, and that's the last thing the record labels want. They want everyone to believe they're working to make file sharing legal, when all they're doing is constructing a massive wealth transfer from people to the labels providing almost no benefit to consumers at all.

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REM Copyright Suit Against Danish Band May Backfire, Since The Dane's Song Came First

from the oooooops dept

Last year, the lawsuit between Joe Satriani and Coldplay got lots of attention, as Satriani accused Coldplay of ripping off one of his songs. Of course, Satriani's claims were greatly weakened when people turned up other songs from well before Satriani's that sounded quite similar as well.

It looks like REM and Warner Music may be in a similar situation. Michael Scott points us to the news that Warner and REM are suing the Danish pop band Hej Matematik, claiming that the band's song Walkmand copies REM's 2008 song Supernatural Superserious. There's just one (somewhat major) problem. Walkmand is a cover song. The original was by another Dane, Michael Hardinger, and was called Walk, Mand!!, and was recorded in 1981... seventeen years before REM's release. In fact, Hej Matematik got permission from Michael Hardinger before doing their version. I'm guessing REM did not. Feel free to compare all three songs below:

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Neil Young (And Warner Music) Should Learn To Respect YouTube... And Music Fans

from the this-is-getting-tiresome dept

After Warner Music got greedy and demanded money from YouTube that the company is under no legal obligation to pay (safe harbors, people), Google and YouTube demonstrated to Warner Music how little leverage the record label has by taking down all Warner Music videos. This is making plenty of Warner musicians quite angry with Warner Music for pissing off their fans and in some cases breaking the artists' own websites. So, rather than back down and admit that it overplayed its hand, Warner Music is pulling out the old school strategy it has used for years to win such arguments: trot out some well-known musician to whine about how it's just not fair that he's not getting the "respect" he deserves.

This time around, it's Neil Young, who has taken to his own website to claim that he and Warner Music aren't getting the proper respect from YouTube, and that YouTube needs to pay up to provide that proper respect. And what about all the musicians who Warner Music's policy is harming right now? What about all those musicians whose fans are pissed off that they can't see videos with the music they like? The problem isn't that YouTube isn't respecting Warner Music -- it has no legal obligation to do so. The problem is that folks like Neil Young and the execs at Warner Music don't respect their fans at all, and fail to realize they want to access their music through YouTube, and doing so provides those musicians with a great benefit in terms of better connecting with their fans and opening up new opportunities to create valuable relationships that will pay much more money in the long run.

In the meantime, when you look at the actual statement on Neil Young's site, it seems like a a pretty blatant copy of the NY Times. We're guessing he didn't pay the NY Times anything. So why isn't anyone demanding that Neil Young "respect" the NY Times?

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The Chilling Effects Of Warner Music's YouTube Takedowns

from the it's-about-chilling-effects,-not-lawsuits dept

The EFF is reporting on the chilling effects created by Warner Music's regular takedowns of videos of things like kids singing "Winter Wonderland" on YouTube. Due to liability issues, it's a very scary thing to contest a DMCA takedown -- as it could leave you open to paying statutory damages (up to $150,000 per song) and the recording industry's attorney's fees. Some entertainment industry lawyers think this is no big deal at all because Warner Music hasn't actually filed any lawsuits against anyone concerning these videos. But that misses the point (by an astoundingly huge margin). The chilling effects by such takedowns are huge, and are clearly inhibiting creativity -- the very thing that copyright was supposed to encourage. Saying that it's no problem because Warner hasn't filed any actual lawsuits (just takedowns), is the sort of thing that only an entertainment industry's logic could allow.

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