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 [...]
Read Full Post »
A major debate is being spawned by a recent article entitled “Should You Invest in the Long Tail,” written by Anita Elberse, an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. The debate concerns the accuracy of Chris Anderson’s long tail theory, set out in great detail in his 2006 book, The Long Tail: [...]
Read Full Post »
I was surfing around yesterday and discovered that my interview with DigiMusicTV.com, recorded in 2007, was recently posted on brightcove. Here it is in all it’s glory:
Read Full Post »
One question clients often asked me is whether an idea can be protected. The question frequently arises when a client has an idea for a screenplay, or an outline for a story, or a unique title for a song or book, and wishes to submit or “pitching” that idea to a major movie house, publisher [...]
Read Full Post »
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 [...]
Read Full Post »
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 [...]
Read Full Post »
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 [...]
Read Full Post »
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 [...]
Read Full Post »
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 [...]
Read Full Post »
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 [...]
Read Full Post »
