Category: Copyright

The EU decided to retroactively extend copyright from 50 to 75 years, with no evidence that this was needed or useful. There has been very little discussion of the harm this causes, and what discussion there has been has focused on the world of rock and pop music. But it has an even more negative impact on classical music, especially old recordings of classical music.

See the theguardian article: the festival bubble and the music copyright extension.

Late last week, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced a bill that would make the unauthorized streaming of copyrighted material a felony.

Under current law, “reproducing” and “distributing” copyrighted works are felony charges and covered under peer-to-peer transfers and Web downloads. But streaming has been considered “public performance” rather than “distribution” – and holding a public performance without a proper license is not a felony. This bill, S. 978, adds “public performance” to the list of felonies.

Online streamers can now face up to 5 years in prison and a fine in cases where:

• They show 10 or more “public performances” by electronic means in any 180-day period and
• The total retail value of those performances tops $2500 or the cost of licensing such performances is greater than $5000

 

The music industry thinks LimeWire should pay $75 trillion in damages for their copyright infringement claim. The judge in the case, Judge Kimba Wood, has called this request “absurd”.

The current US GDP is about 14 trillion, less than 1/5th the damages requested. In fact, the GDP of the entire world is somewhere between $59 and $62 trillion in US dollars. So the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is, to quote Judge Wood, “suggesting an award that is more money that the entire music recording industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877.”

As overall recording sales continue to fall, 8% last year according to IFPI, the IFPI and other lobbying groups are trying to raise what were secondary sources of income, royalty payments from performance rights. Payments from performance royalties rose 16% last year, and the IFPI is lobbying hard to double performance royalties.

A recent copyright settlement in Australia now results in 50 cents per nightclub customer being paid to the PPCA, and is scheduled to double ($1.05) soon. The PPCA argument is “if there was no music, there would be no nightclub”. The PPCA is now going after fitness clubs, wanting much larger royalties from them for playing music in their classes. And they have tariffs for nearly every conceivable situation, from playing music video clips in electronics and hi-fi stores for demonstration purposes to the music that is played to telephone callers on hold. No matter what your business, if you are making money, and recorded music is involved in any way, they want a slice of your pie.

These kind of royalties don’t exist in the US yet. But there is extensive lobbying going on to try to get it started, and congress may pass some kind of performance rights bill by the end of this year. Radio stations in the US pay royalties, but only to the songwriter, the record company and the performers don’t get royalties. There are plenty of people who would like to change that. A bill sponsored by Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat, Michigan, would result in radio stations paying royalties to record companies and the performing artists.

Meanwhile, some Australian and european nightclubs are threatening to play only American recordings, with American musicians, in order to avoid paying the royalties.
Whatever the final shakeout in these royalty battles, it looks like big changes in royalty payments and maybe even performances themselves, will result.

Here’s an article on Wired about how the DMCA prevents fair use of DVDs, with the result that making a copy of a DVD you own is technically against the law.

As usual, the situation is complicated and the status is in doubt, depending on how the lawsuit against ReadNetworks turns out.

Santa Clara University Law School had a conference last Thursday in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 1909 Copyright Act. It was the first copyright act to protect works upon publication with notice, without prior registration; the first to recognize the right to make derivative works; and the first to recognize public domain. Since the 1909 law was in effect for almost 70 years, it had a profound impact on our society and a significant influence on the copyright law of today. Mike Masnick posts a fascinating discussion of some of the things that were talked about at the conference on Techdirt.

Read the debate at InfoWorld.

Ohio University bans all P2P file sharing.

They offer different reasons: it could overwhelm the network, it could also expose the university to viruses, spyware, etc. (Of course, so can regular e-mail and the web). But finally they get to the real reason: pre-litigation letters from the RIAA(Recording Industry Association of America).

This is an interesting problem related to the automatic renewal and extension of the copyright period.

An “orphan” is a work whose author is difficult or impossible to find and is no longer published or available because it’s not considered commercially viable. Under current copyright law, these works are illegal to use without the author’s consent, but there is no one to contact to get that consent. This is a direct result of changing copyright from an opt-in to an opt-out system. Two archives (libraries are the traditional caretakers of the orphaned works) have filed suit asking that the statutes that extended copyright terms unconditionally be ruled unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

The basic argument is that the Copyright Renewal Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act prevent, or severely impede, the constitutionally intended acquisition by the public of these works.

Despite the obvious truth of the claim, it appears to be an uphill battle. The District Court in California granted the government a dismissal of the case. They then appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court.

The Ninthe Circuit ruled against Kahle and in the governments favor. A simply amazing, poor decision. There will perhaps be an appeal to the full Ninth Circuit.

Get the details from Stanford CyberLaw.

Simply amazing. The 9th Circuit ruled against Kahle and says that no constitutional review of the Copyright Act of 1976 is necessary.

From 1790 until 1976, to copyright a work you would have to register your work, print copies with a copyright notice, potentially renew your copyright later, etc. You had to take action, in a fairly clear manner, to have a work copyrighted (an opt-in system).

After the 1976 Act, all works are copyrighted, without registration, without notice, without renewal. Protection is automatic. You must take action, but not very clearly laid out, in order to renounce your copyright and give your work to the public domain (an opt-out system).

For the court to rule that this fundamental change doesn’t even deserve review for constitutionality? Just plain weird.

To me, that seems just the same as if Congress had said, “From now on, plaintiffs are guilty until proven innocent. The burden is no longer on the prosecution to prove you did it, but upon you to prove you didn’t.” Someone brings suit, arguing that it should be reviewed for constitutionality and the court says, “Sure Congress can do that, they didn’t take away your right to a fair trial. It’s still staying in the standard court system. It’s not like they’re deporting you to secret, foreign prisons with no trial. There’s really nothing here to review.”

Well, anyway, here’s the info at the Stanford CyberLaw.