Grooveshark Shuts Down to Settle Copyright Infringement Suit; New York Times, 4/30/15

Ben Sisario, New York Times; Grooveshark Shuts Down to Settle Copyright Infringement Suit:

"Add Grooveshark to the list of music websites that have been sued out of existence over copyright infringement.

On Thursday, Grooveshark, a free streaming site that once had 35 million users and advertising from the likes of Mercedes-Benz — but which drew the ire of major record companies for failing to receive permission for hosting music — agreed to shut down, ending a series of lawsuits stretching back four years.

In a statement posted on its site, Grooveshark said, “We started out nearly 10 years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. But despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service. That was wrong. We apologize.”

Grooveshark said it had also agreed to “wipe clean all of the record companies’ copyrighted works and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.”"

Library Associations Spearhead New Copyright Coalition; Library Journal, 4/30/15

Lisa Peet, Library Journal; Library Associations Spearhead New Copyright Coalition:

"A group of technology companies, trade associations, and civil society organizations have joined forces to form Re:Create, a national coalition to advocate for balanced copyright policy. In the wake of recent proposals to amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as well as constant advances in the field of knowledge creation, coalition members are calling for responsive copyright law that balances the interests of those who create information and products with those of users and innovators, providing robust exceptions as well as limitations to copyright law in order that it not limit new uses and technologies.

Particular attention will be paid to the concept of fair use, considered a “safety valve” within U.S. copyright law and an important reinforcement of the First Amendment right to freedom of expression. This emphasis is particularly timely, as on April 29 register of copyrights Maria Pallante announced at a House Judiciary Committee hearing that the U.S. Copyright Office would launch a Fair Use Index—a searchable database listing court opinions pertaining to fair use...

Partners from all sectors will be working together toward Re:Create’s agenda: ALA, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Media Democracy Fund, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, and the R Street Institute. According to its website, Re:Create will be “Supporting a Pro-Innovation, Pro-Creator, Pro-Consumer Copyright Agenda.”"

Periscope Piracy Sets Up Grudge Match: Hollywood vs. Twitter; Variety, 5/3/15

Andrew Wallenstein, Variety; Periscope Piracy Sets Up Grudge Match: Hollywood vs. Twitter:

"Forget Mayweather-Pacquiao. There’s a more interesting fight brewing between Twitter and Hollywood.

The piracy of Saturday’s welterweight boxing championship enabled by Periscope, a livestreaming app recently acquired by Twitter, is setting up a conflict that could be just as brutal.

HBO and Showtime, which partnered on what will likely be the most popular boxing pay-per-view event ever, took a one-two punch of their own Saturday. First, they watched multiple pay-TV distributors experience technical problems transmitting the fight, which probably cut into their sales total.

But what made matters even worse is that countless people who did pay for the fight used their smartphones to re-transmit the fight to users of Periscope and, to a lesser extent, rival app Meerkat. Each stream reached hundreds or thousands of non-paying fans with a picture quality that was shaky and pixilated, yet still quite adequate."

Why the U.S. Copyright Office Wants to Run Away From Home; National Journal, 4/30/15

Kaveh Waddell, National Journal; Why the U.S. Copyright Office Wants to Run Away From Home:

"A federal office that has taken on the role of digital custodian and is now in charge of such 21st-century regulatory activities as approving mobile-phone jailbreaking and setting royalty rates for Internet radio says it needs out of its 19th-century home.

The U.S. Copyright Office has been part of the Library of Congress since 1897, and the office's director, Maria Pallante, told a congressional panel Wednesday it's time for a change, saying her office's hands are often tied as a part of the Library of Congress.

"The office's current organizational structure is under strain because the copyright system has evolved and because digital advancements have changed the expectations of the public," Pallante said in a written statement. She asked the committee to codify the Copyright Office's independence.

In many ways, an independent Copyright Office would operate much like it does now, Pallante said. Although part of a legislative-branch entity, the Justice Department has recognized that the Copyright Office behaves like, and should be treated like, an executive-branch agency.

In its current form, the office's uncertain legal status and subordination to the Library of Congress can create problems. A Government Accountability Office report last month found that the library's IT services, which the Copyright Office relies on, are stuck in the past and are detrimental to its work. And Pallante says it's difficult for her to hire the staff her office needs because of the conflicts between the mission—and the budget—of the Copyright Office and that of the Library of Congress."

Less Noise but More Money in Data Science; New York Times, 4/28/15

Steve Lohr, New York Times; Less Noise but More Money in Data Science:

"There is an apparent contradiction between the buoyant job market for big data practitioners and Gartner’s judgment that, on the perception scale, big data has moved from high expectations to what Gartner calls the “trough of disillusionment.” But, in fact, it fits a familiar pattern of technology absorption and use. Significant new technologies always take time to move into the mainstream as people and organizations learn to exploit them. It takes years.

The classic study of the phenomenon, “The Dynamo and the Computer: An Historical Perspective on the Modern Productivity Paradox,” by Paul David, an economic historian at Stanford University, was published in 1990. In it, Mr. David noted, the electric motor was introduced in the early 1880s, but its real payoff in productivity was not evident until the 1920s. It took that long for businesses to reorganize work around the industrial production line, the efficiency breakthrough of its day, made possible by the electric motor.

Similarly, it took a while for personal computers and the Internet to deliver big gains. And so too for big data, which harnesses computing, modern digital data and the software tools of artificial intelligence.

A report this week from Forrester Research described the challenge ahead. “Businesses are drowning in data but starving for insights,” the report began. “Worse, they have no systematic way to turn data into action.”"

Google Reaches Out to European Publishers, With $165 Million in Hand; New York Times, 4/28/15

Mark Scott, New York Times; Google Reaches Out to European Publishers, With $165 Million in Hand:

"Less than two weeks after the European Commission filed antitrust charges against Google for abusing its dominant position in online search, the company said it would spend 150 million euros, or $165 million, over the next three years to help European publishers and newspapers adapt to the digital world.

And by announcing the plan, the Digital News Initiative, Google was trying to assuage fears from many European newspapers, including Axel Springer of Germany, that the search giant held too much control over how Europeans access online content, analysts said. Google has a roughly 90 percent market share across the 28-member bloc, more than its stake in the American market.

The creation of Google’s program also comes before new potential problems for the company in Europe, including potential changes to Europe’s copyright rules."

The Man Who Broke the Music Business: The dawn of online piracy; New Yorker, 4/27/15

Stephen Witt, New Yorker; The Man Who Broke the Music Business: The dawn of online piracy:

"Napster lasted barely two years, in its original incarnation, but at its peak the service claimed more than seventy million registered accounts, with users sharing more than two billion MP3 files a month. Music piracy became to the early two-thousands what drug experimentation had been to the late nineteen-sixties: a generation-wide flouting of both social norms and the existing body of law, with little thought for consequences. In late 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America, the music business’s trade and lobbying group, sued Napster, claiming that the company was facilitating copyright infringement on an unprecedented scale. Napster lost the lawsuit, appealed, and lost again. In July, 2001, facing a court order to stop enabling the trade of copyrighted files, Napster shut down its service.

That legal victory achieved little. Former users of Napster saw Internet file-sharing as an undeniable prerogative, and instead of returning to the record stores they embraced gray-market copycats of Napster, like Kazaa and Limewire. By 2003, global recording-industry revenues had fallen from their millennial peak by more than fifteen per cent. The losing streak continued for the next decade.

The R.I.A.A. tried to reassert the primacy of the industry’s copyrights. But civil suits against the peer-to-peer services took years to move through the appeals courts, and the R.I.A.A.’s policy of suing individual file-sharers was a public-relations disaster. To some at the music labels, Congress seemed disinclined to help. Harvey Geller, Universal’s chief litigator, spent years futilely petitioning legislators for better enforcement of copyright law. “Politicians pander to their constituents,” Geller said. “And there were more constituents stealing music than constituents selling it.”"