When is the last time you heard of someone getting a really “big break” in the music industry through any contest, other than perhaps American Idol? That’s because most artists and songwriters are not discovered through contests, they are discovered through relationships in the industry.
Yet, there are literally hundreds of such contests out there promising [...]
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There is a great deal of talk these days about the concept of “freeconomics,” spurned by the fact that most teenagers and college students are still ripping music and sharing it online. Most recently, the major record labels commissioned a study from two think tanks, The Leading Question and Music Ally, which resulted in a [...]
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You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world . . .
You say you’ve got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We are doing what we can
But if you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can [...]
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The concept of “fair use” is a very misunderstood concept. The first common misunderstanding that people espouse is that the concept of “fair use” is a right or privilege granted by copyright law. It is not. Secondly, many people mistakenly believe that so long as they do not make any money from an infringing use [...]
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I received a call from one of my readers to address the topic of whether a songwriter has the ability to restrict the use of his or her composition in the instance it is being used in advancing a cause opposite to that espoused by the songwriter. This was spawned, of course, by the recent [...]
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New York Times technology columnist and Emmy-award winning CBS news correspondent David Pogue is featured in this YouTube video singing a fun diddy about the digital wave of media on the Internet, ending with a humorous take on the RIAA and its wave of litigation against college students nationwide. Enjoy
Technorati Tags: digital copyright law online [...]
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U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut Justice Janet Bond Arterton, handed down a very pointed and decisive opinion hammering the R.I.A.A. for its boilerplate style of pleading in the nationwide wide campaign against illegal file sharing. Justice Arterton was appointed by President Clinton in 1995. The full decision is here: Decision. At several [...]
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The U.S. House of Representatives introduced a 69-page bill entitled the “Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007.” The legislation is significant in that it increases civil penalties for copyright infringement, expands criminal enforcement, and creates both a new federal agency and a new division of the Attorney General’s office of the [...]
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Posted in Copyright, Digital Downloads, Entertainment Law, Internet Law, Music Industry, Music Law, tagged Copyright royalty board, mechanical royalty, music publishing, NMPA, RIAA, statutory rate on January 29, 2008 | 2 Comments »
On Monday, January 28th, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) began what will be four weeks of hearings. The CRB will hear testimony from interested parties on both sides of issues which will ultimately determine the statutory mechanical rates for songwriters and music publishers. The CRB sets these rates periodically, but these particular hearings are more [...]
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You don’t tug on Superman’s cape,
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Jim
These lyrics from Jim Croce’s classic pop song You Don’t Mess Around with Jim have evolved into pop culture expressions used by people the world over. Before his [...]
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