I’ve been having some interesting discussions in the backblog about piracy and related issues, yet the one thing we haven’t fully defined is “What is piracy?” This is not an idle question, nor is this post going to answer the whole question. What should be an easy answer becomes mired in a series of “What ifs?”
What is piracy?
Read the entire entry …
The recording industry has been waging war against Russian-based music websites for years. While the industry has successfully litigated most file sharing networks out of existence, they haven’t had much luck stopping sites like MediaService’s AllofMP3. Despite the RIAA’s best efforts AllofMP3 continues to sell digital downloads to music lovers around the world, while technically complying with Russian copyright laws and licensing agreements.
While complying with the laws of your country may seem like a loophole here in the United States, it makes perfect sense to a company that’s based in Russia. Unfortunately for MediaServices that the loophole is about to be closed. There are signs the Russian government is planning to crack down on grey market download sites like AllofMP3 in an effort to gain admission into the World Trade Organization.
Regardless of what you think about the legality of AllofMP3, there’s no denying that MediaServices has created one of the most innovative and consumer friendly digital music services around. AllofMP3 is so well done that the “legitimate” recording industry could learn quite a bit by studying it. Hopefully the major labels will take a long look at AllofMP3 before it gets shut down.
Here are a few lessons the music industry could learn from AllofMP3:
So we here at Medialoper have a friend named Joe. It’s not that Joe is a Luddite, but he’s maintained for years that this whole Internet thing is a fad. He’s warned us — oh, has he warned us! — not to get too comfortable with this whole online culture. Nothing good can come from it.
Then Joe discovered YouTube and a treasure trove of classic rockabilly videos (or whatever they were called before they were called videos). At least one ‘loper mother is sending her son links to old Buck Owens recordings. And so it goes. A lot of filmed material, stuff that formerly sat on the shelf, gathering dust, is being released into the YouTube wild.
Read the entire entry …
Just when you think that major record companies couldn’t get any meaner and any stupider, one of them proves you wrong. In this case, the record company is EMI, an acronym that apparently stands for Evil Motherfracking Idiots.
Apparently, a guy named Clayton Counts put together a mash-up that combined The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band & The Beach Boys Pet Sounds. Why did he do it? On his website, he says that it was a work of satire, which is generally protected speech.
Whether or not you believe that, it is true that Mr. Counts didn’t make a single penny from his creation. And soon after word got out about it, he got a cease-and-desist from EMI. But with a twist!
Wanna know the philsophical underpinnings of some of our posts here at Medialoper? (I’ll pretend you said “yes.”) The following books have helped me work out some of the concepts that infuse nearly everything that I write about what we are calling the “new media.”
Here they are, alphabetical by author:
The Boy Scouts of Hong Kong are at it again. Last year they began awarding merit badges for copyright proficiency, and now they’ve enlisted their entire membership to scour the web for signs of piracy. Nothing says summer fun for kids like firing up the laptop and searching the internet for intellectual property violations.
It’s not just the Boy Scouts either. According to the New York Times 200,000 children Youth Ambassadors, will be actively involved in the program.
In a bit of good news for censorship foes, a Federal judge in Denver has ruled that retailers who were “sanitizing” films by removing all of the good parts prior to selling them to a probably-witting niche were also violating copyright laws.
This case has been in motion since 2002, when CleanFlicks tried to twist the First Amendment by claiming that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to these films prior to sending them out to the public. The judge, however, saw right through that bullshit:
An Open Letter To Tom Petty,
Tom, you still don’t know me, but earlier this month I asked you to not sue the Red Hot Chili Peppers for their purported plagarism of your song “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”
And once again, you’ve provided another example of your ongoing menschdom (menschiosity? menschitude?) by telling Rolling Stone that suing is the furthest thing from your mind:
According to at least one major label, they are both!! It just depends on whether you’re an artist or a consumer . . .
I know that it’s old news that Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers are suing Sony over download royalties: a while back, Kassia did an excellent analysis on it.
The other day, however, I came across a posting on P2Pnet.net (love that name!) that discussed this very topic. The posting had an excerpt from an article in the Internationl Herald Tribune that reminded me just how two-faced the record companies really are when it comes to this issue, and why you have to take it with a grain of salt when they say that they’re (all together now) “just trying to protect the artists” with their draconian download restrictions.
Yesterday, you may recall, I discussed the RIAA sending cease-and-desist letters to the people who upload videos of themselves lipsynching to popular songs.
But that’s just the beginning: we’ve learned who they are targeting next, and in a Medialoper Multiverse Exclusive, are revealing it to you today.
Medialoper is dedicated to making the future of digital media safe for consumers everywhere.
Why not let us send Medialoper right to your inbox? It's free and we promise not to share your email address with anyone else.
Show The Man who's boss. Wear a Medialoper t-shirt to your next business meeting or industry conference. Available exclusively in the Medialoper Company Store.
Explore these links for a deeper understanding of the Medialoper Universe.
If you're lucky, you learn something every single godsdammed day of your life. In this case, I learned that the extra level of hilarity to that classic skit was that parrots weren't supposed to be indigenous to Norway. Bet that it had lovely plumage.
Expect a marked increase in product placement.
Unless, of course, you choose to control your data by not joining any of these sites. But, by now, you should know that the first rule of privacy on the web is that there is no privacy on the web. It's kind of like walking out of your house every morning.
Because sometimes you need inexpensive, build-it-yourself furniture in your virtual world.
And kids (plus more than a few adults) rejoice.
While there was much love for Billie Piper's Rose around the 'loper household that distributes the Dr. Who DVDs to the rest of the other households, we also kinda love Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones, who even made Torchwood kick up a notch. Also? Sigh.
Net neutrality now! What more proof do you need than the beginning of this official statement: "Cox allows the use of file-sharing and peer-to-peer services..." That word "allows" speaks volumes.
Still need to get around to reading this.
All we can ask (get it?) is that they don't somehow ruin the ease of dictionary.com, a site we use on what seems like at least a daily basis.
As a happily married heterosexual 'loper, I say "Whoo hoo!" and assure the world that the sanctity of my marriage is not affected in any way by this ruling.
We quote from the lead: “Give the customers what they want” was the message at Digital Book 2008, the annual conference sponsored by the International Digital Publishing Forum, held yesterday at the McGraw-Hill auditorium in Manhattan.
This week, CBS is all about the crazy new media deals.
Interesting, especially in light of other studies that suggest the numbers of legal downloads are rising. Of course, it doesn't help when some labels continue to make the process hard and cumbersome.
Wait, it gets better. They're called "crazy rasberry ants". The only known cure seems to be upgrading to Windows Vista -- they won't go near it.
Thank god that there is nothing else wrong with the country that a United States Senator can call for a massive investigation because the Patriots may have done his football teams wrong. Amazingly enough, he's not up for re-election, because this is just that shameless.
Awwwww, how cute! Cootchie-coo, Baby Supernova, cootchie-coo! Ma and Pa Supernova must be so proud of you, following in their footsteps at such a young age.
As rumored, but now there's actual film footage. It's nice to see Woody Allen using his powers for good instead of evil.
IO 9 posted a trailer for noted hack David E. Kelley's remake of "Life on Mars." Oh no. Oh gods no.
Wow, where to start? Good programming, not gaming the TiVo by starting and ending at quirky times, shorter hiatus periods, and so much more.
Obviously it didn't succeed.
RSS
