Showing posts with label copyright reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label copyright reform. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

A Cheat Sheet for Copyright Reforms: Radio Royalties, Simplified Licensing and More; Billboard, 2/17/15

Ed Christman and Glenn Peoples, Billboard; A Cheat Sheet for Copyright Reforms: Radio Royalties, Simplified Licensing and More:
"The complex issue of copyright reform took center stage during the Grammy Awards telecast on Feb. 8 when Recording Academy chief Neil Portnow urged Congress to ensure that "new technology [pays] artists fairly." His comments echoed some of the contents of a 250-page music-licensing report issued just three days earlier by the U.S. Copyright Office. Congress may or may not enact some of those recommendations into law -- but if it does, the ramifications are enormous."

Monday, July 14, 2014

Six Suggestions for Not Screwing Up Copyright Reform (Guest Post); Billboard, 7/9/14

Craig Havighurst, Billboard; Six Suggestions for Not Screwing Up Copyright Reform (Guest Post) :
"Craig Havighurst is a music journalist and media producer in Nashville with a public policy M.A. from Duke's Sanford School. He's followed intellectual property issues since covering the music business for The Tennessean in the 2000s.
Far too late and amid far too much partisan dysfunction, Congress has revived efforts at modernizing copyright law. But if recent hearings are an indication, we’ve launched a fight over slices of a depressingly diminished pie rather than a debate about first principles and solutions that could grow the creative industries again. This critical reform effort deserves better.
So what would wise and lasting copyright reform look like? Without getting into the weeds of PRO consent decrees and royalty courts, here are six ideas anyone can understand that would ensure a fair framework for creators and consumers. They propose a system that would license intellectual property in thousands of small ways that are missed entirely today. My focus is music, because that’s what I know best, but the principles could apply to photos, video clips and other works."

Thursday, February 13, 2014

College & Research Libraries News; Last sale?: Libraries’ rights in the digital age, February 2014

Jennifer Jenkins, College & Research Libraries News; Last sale?: Libraries’ rights in the digital age:
"In July 2013, the Department of Commerce released a “Green Paper”8 on copyright that solicited comments on digital first sale. In response, the Library Copyright Alliance expressed concern about the “proliferation of licensing” and advocated “restrictions on the enforcement of contractual terms that attempt to limit exceptions to the Copyright Act such as first sale or fair use.”9 Why? Because copyright’s exceptions are as important to its scheme as the exclusive rights themselves. Many librarians are concerned that digital technology has upset the balance between users’ and owners’ rights. In effect, we are back to 1908, except that now the notice that the publisher inserted in that book would have legal force, and would be accompanied by more restrictions.
What would legal reform look like? A farreaching option would be the introduction of a digital first sale right that cannot be waived by contract. Short of this, Congress could grant libraries specific rights allowing them to lend, preserve, and archive electronic materials. Courts might continue to allow fair use to shelter beneficial activities. Finally, private initiatives, such as the Digital Public Library of America and related academic projects, could step in to offer their own solutions to preserve libraries’ freedoms. These efforts to restore balance are important: publishers’ concerns are legitimate, but the cultural freedoms that first sale protects should not depend entirely on a licensor’s whims, either in 1908 or today."

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Lessig dispute shows value of ‘fair use’ of copyrighted songs; Boston Globe, 9/16/13

Editorial, Boston Globe; Lessig dispute shows value of ‘fair use’ of copyrighted songs: "...Liberation Music, spotting the “Lisztomania” samples in Lessig’s lecture, told YouTube to take down the video in late June. The company later caved in. Lessig, aided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, still plans to fight the takedown in US District Court in Boston, where Liberation Music had filed a complaint. He and the foundation plan to sue for damages incurred by the video going offline. It’s doubtful there’s much money involved, but Lessig’s tough stance puts copyright holders on notice that they have to consider fair use before trying to force material off the Internet. These questions will only get more complicated, as amateur users express their enthusiasm for songs by posting unauthorized remixes and videos on the Internet — and as the spontaneous sharing of materials through YouTube and social media becomes the primary way in which musicians and others find new audiences. What’s needed is a system that recognizes a copyright holder’s general ability to control material it owns — without chilling legitimate forms of expression."

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Divergent Approaches To Copyright Reform Emerge In Europe; Intellectual Property Watch, 8/3/12

Dugie Standeford, Intellectual Property Watch; Divergent Approaches To Copyright Reform Emerge In Europe:

"Two very different views of copyright reform emerged this week, one from a report commissioned by the UK government, the other from a French citizens’ advocacy group. The former envisions an intricately linked system of digital rights exchanges and databases to streamline copyright licensing, the latter broad, “non-market” sharing of protected works between individuals, among other things. Whether either approach is feasible remains to be seen, and, as always, the devil’s in the details, lawyers say."

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

A Push in Law Schools to Reform Copyright; New York Times, 12/1/09

Nazanin Lankarani, New York Times; A Push in Law Schools to Reform Copyright:

"Since 2007, U.S. university students have been a prime target of a litigation campaign by the Recording Industry Association of America, or R.I.A.A., the music industry trade group that has found university campuses to be hives of file-sharing activity.

“The music industry is acting like a digital police force,” Charles Nesson, a Harvard law professor who defended Mr. Tenenbaum at trial with the assistance of law students, said in a phone interview from Boston. “Academia must get involved, to bring fairness to the process.”...

A report in June by the analysis firm Forrester Research said that 27 percent of peer-to-peer, or P2P, network music sharers in the United States last year were in the 18 to 24 age group and 43 percent in the 25 to 34 age group. File sharing, a largely clandestine activity, is hard to measure, but Forrester said that, based on admitted cases, it estimated the number of file-sharers, as a percentage of all Internet users, to be two to three times greater in Europe than in the United States.

“Downloading is so easy, and there is so much free content on the Internet, it is hard to distinguish between illegal downloading, streaming free content and copying from a friend’s laptop,” said Rana Nader, a recent law graduate of Université Panthéon-Assas, in Paris, who also has a law master’s degree in multimedia and information technology from Kings College in London.

“When the product is digital, it does not feel like stealing,” said Ms. Nader.

In the past decade, peer-to-peer technology companies have mutated endlessly and rapidly in cyberspace, becoming increasingly difficult to police.

In the 10 years since Napster first offered its P2P service, the ability to create, access and swap music in user-friendly MP3 format has revolutionized the music industry for a generation of musicians, producers and consumers.

But along with ease of access has come legal uncertainty and risk.

“Internet has helped develop new forms of amateur entertainment,” said Mr. Nesson. “You no longer need a ‘label’ to put out a good song. Soon, we will not be able to tell what is copyrighted and what isn’t. That is why defining the limits of copyright and public right is fundamental to the development of cyberspace.”

Law school teachers are active participants, in classrooms, in the courts and before legislative assemblies, in the debate on how to reform laws often dating from the age of vinyl.

“File sharing is the way music is accessed today,” said Daniel Gervais, professor of international intellectual property law at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. “Our students ask, ‘Why can’t we continue to do it, but pay for it?”’

Last August, Mr. Gervais, who is also affiliated with the University of Ottawa in Canada, received funding from the Ontario Province government to propose changes to Canadian copyright law to meet the needs of users of copyrighted material. Fifteen students are helping him to complete the project.

“We are making ourselves heard by the legislature and the courts,” Mr. Gervais said.

For law students, digital copyright has become a hot topic. “Since 2008, our annual seminar on music and digital copyright has been more than full,” Mr. Gervais said. “Students all file-share; they are all on Facebook and Twitter. Copyright is connected to their own reality.”

One idea under study is to assess a global license fee, to be collected and paid by the Internet service provider, permitting unlimited media usage. This approach “has wide support here,” he said.

The fee would be levied by the service providers as a voluntary flat tax, payable by customers who accessed music online via file-sharing networks, and would be earmarked for artists or other rights holders, replacing royalties. Effectively, that would turn the service providers into the online equivalent of royalty-collection societies like Broadcast Music Inc., a U.S. music performing rights organization, or its British, Dutch, French and German counterparts, which for years have collected fees for artists from radio stations, bars, clubs and other performance venues.

“If you add all the monthly fees collected in all major music markets, you could get a total above $20 billion a year, which added to other revenues from ticket, merchandise and other sales would match or surpass the music industry’s best years,” Mr. Gervais said.

Yet, if some academics and lawmakers are looking at ways to legalize the sharing of copyrighted digital material for noncommercial use, others prefer the opposite tack of more draconian punishment for “music piracy.”

French lawmakers have opted in particular to criminalize music file-sharing.

“To impose a global fee is problematic,” Frédéric Pollaud-Dulian, a professor at University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and a specialist in media law, said in a telephone interview. “Not all Internet users download copyrighted material. Also, to allow open access to copyrighted material deprives the copyright holders of control over their own work.”

The prevailing view in France, Professor Pollaud-Dulian said, remains that existing law should not be overhauled simply because new customs and practices, however widespread, do not fit. So, copyright laws should not be adjusted simply because people are using new technology to access music.

“We teach our students that illegally downloading music is a threat to creativity,” Professor Pollaud-Dulian said. “The work of an artist has monetary value. Being a musician is not a hobby.”

In October, the French Constitutional Council cleared the way for a controversial bill, known as Hadopi II, that empowers French courts to temporarily cut off the Internet access of copyright infringers or of individuals who fail to protect their broadband access line against illegal downloading.

“When you violate driving laws, your car is taken away,” said Mr. Pollaud-Dulian. “If you do not abide by hunting rules, your rifle is taken away. To say that depriving a user of Internet access infringes on a fundamental right is pure fantasy.”

Others view the loss of Internet access rights as an excessively punitive measure that violates a basic right, and a trademark of repressive regimes.

“In a democratic society, you need Internet access to participate in the sociopolitical process,” said Mr. Gervais. “Without it, you have less active and less informed citizens.”

According to Andrew Murray, a reader in law who specializes in cyberregulation and information technology law at the London School of Economics law department, the British government is consulting with law professors on a different version of the “three-strikes law.”

“We are looking at a measure where Internet access would be filtered or the user’s bandwidth cluttered to prevent downloading of copyrighted material,” said Mr. Murray, who also acts as an advisor to Creative Commons, a licensing organization created by Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law School professor, that allows copyright holders to extend licenses to users.

Meanwhile, Mr. Nesson and his team of law students are preparing to appeal the judgment against Mr. Tenenbaum. — up to the Supreme Court if need be.

“If you are selling water in the desert and it starts to rain, what do you do? Go to the government and get them to ban rain, or do you sell something else?” Mr. Nesson said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/business/global/02iht-riedmedia.html?scp=1&sq=copyright%20reform&st=cse