Another GOP Candidate Indirectly Promotes Bernie Sanders By Not Getting Music Cleared With Artist

from the free-advertising dept

This is apparently going to keep happening. A while back, we discussed the situation in which Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President (while making comments that torpedoed a bunch of his vaunted business interests) and used the music of Neil Young without the artist's permission. As I noted at the time, Trump was legally allowed to use the music, since the venue had paid the required ASCAP license, but failing to go the extra step and clearing it with Young allowed the musician to generate headlines all to do with his support of Democrat Bernie Sanders. Since candidacy announcements are generally not done to generate name recognition for one's opponents, I suggested that, hey, just go get the whiny artist's permission first, mmkay?

Bobby Jindal didn't take my advice. Jindal used the music of Buckwheat Zydeco during his presidential announcement and, well, ol' Buckwheat was not pleased.

Buckwheat's music was among several songs that played at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner before Jindal and his supporters took the stage, Gambit Weekly reported while live tweeting the event. The zydeco musician replied to Gambit on his own Twitter page and said that Bobby Jindal using the music of Buckwheat and his band is "not cool at all."

Again, we'll go ahead and assume that the music was properly licensed because that always ends up being the case, but what's the point of letting the discussion of your presidential bid get side-railed because you chose to use the music of some guy who doesn't support you? All the campaign would have to do would be to clear the use with the artist and then all this doesn't happen. Is that really so hard? I mean, sure the musicians are being childish and petty (and have no legal claim), but that's the reality. If you don't want to give extra promotion to opponents, maybe find musicians who actually supports you.

And it's also the reality that all angry-musician-roads lead to Bernie Sanders, apparently.

He had much kinder words for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who strutted on stage to launch his presidential bid with Buckwheat's "Make A Change" playing in the background.

He said Sanders' use of the song was "tres bien."

And so we now have two separate GOP candidate announcements generating publicity for Bernie Sanders. To avoid a third, candidates need only take my advice on clearing the music they use with the artists.

Filed Under: bernie sanders, bobby jindal, buckwheat zydeco, donald trump, license, music, support

Comcast Deeply Offended By Claims It Pays People To Support Its Merger

from the pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain dept

Comcast has consistently crowed about the volume of individuals and organizations that support the company's $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable. Of course the company has just as consistently failed to mention how much of this "support" is from people paid to regurgitate pretty much any Comcast dreck-filled missive that comes stumbling down the road. Want funding for a new events center or a "closing the digital divide" photo op? Just leave independent thought at the door and send lawmakers a pre-written form letter with your name or organization's logo on it.

It doesn't take much sleuthing to uncover the money trail, because Comcast (and the politicians and groups beholden to it) usually (with some think tank exceptions) don't bother hiding it. They just outright deny that the money impacts policy positions whatsoever. For example, take reports this week that clearly highlight how Comcast can effectively buy a media sound wall of merger support, then pretend there's nothing untoward about an army of "consultants," minority groups, and fauxcademics all paid to effectively be glorified parrots:

"Increased Concentration Does Not Equal Anticompetitive Effect,” Mr. Manne wrote last August, summarizing his submission. He separately wrote pieces in Wired magazine, extolling the virtues of the deal, and through a separate advocacy organization he helps run, called TechFreedom, wrote a blog post that appeared the same day that the deal was announced early last year. Each time, he praised the transaction. But nowhere in these statements does Mr. Manne directly disclose that Comcast is among a small group of donors that finances his nonprofit group, a fact that Mr. Manne confirmed in response to a question late last week. "We are no value to our donors or ourselves unless we maintain our independence and academic rigor,” he said, before adding that “maybe there is some subconscious thing there."

Yes, surely Comcast's cash comes associated not with an expectation that you'll give automated and artificial justification to what's frequently very anti-consumer and anti-competitive policies, but that you'll exercise your "independence and academic rigor" and tell Comcast to piss off when you're approached to help "correct perceptions" about the latest Comcast PR campaign. You see there's nothing untoward going on here -- because we say there's nothing untoward going on here. We're all just healthy American patriots busy expressing our First Amendment rights, after all.

That logic was mirrored by Comcast's top lobbyist David Cohen -- who calls himself the company's "Chief Diversity Officer" to help skirt lobbying rules (I bring that up every time I write about Cohen because to me it just never gets old). Cohen says he's "offended" by the very idea that Comcast has to pay for its policy support:

"He did not dispute that many of the voices supporting the deal received donations from Comcast. But he said he was offended by the suggestion that their endorsements had been made in return for the financial help. "We have never provided financial support to an organization in exchange for support in a transaction,” he said. “Our support is based on the quality of the work they do in the community."

Now I'm sure that somewhere there exists a person that actually believes that, but I'd recommend not putting them in charge of your finances (or even lawn care). In Mr. Cohen's head, this is just another conspiracy contributing to the unfair overall "atmospherics" of anti-Comcast sentiment:

"The atmospherics around our customer service clearly stir some antipathy among some consumers," Mr. Cohen said. "And it does provide a basis for opponents of the transaction to gin up three-sentence, nonsubstantive communications to the F.C.C. saying that they don’t like Comcast or they don’t like Time Warner Cable."

That's a company with arguably the worst customer satisfaction ratings in any industry -- one that manufactures support for bad policies out of thin air -- trying to claim its horrible reputation is somehow manufactured. It's still not clear if regulators plan to deny the merger (or approve it with something vaguely-resembling meaningful conditions), but whatever happens it will spell the end of some fantastic entertainment that easily tops anything in Comcast's channel lineup.

Filed Under: advocates, astroturfing, david cohen, merger, payments, shills, support
Companies: comcast, time warner cable

Internet Comes Through For Developer Of Key Email Encryption Tool

from the reasons-we-love-the-internet dept

Yesterday, we reposted Julia Angwin's article from ProPublica about how the guy behind GPG, a key tool for email encryption, Werner Koch, was basically broke, and that attempts to crowdfund money to keep going hadn't been all that successful. The story seemed to resonate with lots of people, and the donations started flowing. After getting a grand total of just about €34,000 in 2014, he's already well over €100,000 this year, with most of that coming yesterday after Angwin's story went up. On top of that, Stripe and Facebook each agreed to fund him to the tune of $50,000 per year (from each of them, so $100k total), and the Linux Foundation had agreed to give him $60k (though, Koch admits that the deal there was actually signed last week).

Either way, this is great to see, though it's unfortunate that it had to wait until an article detailing his plight came out. We've seen this sort of thing a few times now, such as when the Heartbleed bug made everyone realize that OpenSSL was basically supported by volunteers with almost no budget at all. Thankfully, the attention there got the project necessary funds to continue to keep us safe.

It really is quite incredible when you realize how much of the internet that you rely on is built by people out of a true labor of love. Often, people have no idea that there even is an opportunity to support those projects, and it's great that Angwin was able to highlight this one and get it the necessary funding to keep moving forward.

Filed Under: crowdfunding, encryption, gpg, privacy, security, support, werner kock

Comcast Continues To Pretend To Support Net Neutrality With Misleading Claims

from the because-of-course-it-says-that dept

We've mentioned in the past how Comcast has been pretending to support net neutrality, with ad campaigns stating that it does -- clearly in an attempt to confuse the public. Yesterday, Comcast even put a thing on its own front page claiming that the company is "committed to an open Internet and Net Neutrality." That links to a blog post from David Cohen, Comcast's chief lobbyist / government relations guy, whose job it is to convince lawmakers to rubber stamp any of Comcast's big plans; from killing (not preserving) net neutrality to letting it acquire Time Warner Cable. Cohen, who has ridiculously and cynically been given the title "Chief Diversity Officer" (by which we assume means the guy who gives money to minority groups to have them repeat Comcast's talking points), tries to make the argument that Comcast supports net neutrality.

Again, as we've noted in the past, this is not actually true. Comcast supports the 2010 open internet rules that were painfully weak and didn't really limit Comcast in any meaningful way. And Comcast supports them because it's legally obligated to support those rules as part of the terms of its last big merger, with NBC Universal. But that agreement runs out in a few years and Comcast has, in the past, shown a willingness to compromise on net neutrality issues, and as it gets bigger that seems likely to continue. Many of Cohen's claims are outright laughable:

We don’t interfere with our customers’ ability to access lawful content online.

Well, unless that lawful content you want to access online is from Netflix, and Netflix hasn't paid up at the Comcast tollbooth. As a reminder, here's the wonderful chart that the Washington Post put together of Netflix's download speeds on various broadband networks. See the black line as it drops and drops before suddenly darting upwards? That's Comcast purposely letting its border routers clog up until Netflix paid the toll, and Comcast went in and hooked up a few more ports (a trivial exercise it could have done quite a while ago if it actually cared about its customers' ability to access lawful content online.) So, uh, yeah, Comcast does interfere. And, of course, it's done so in the past as well, such as the time it throttled all Bittorrent traffic, whether it was "lawful content" or not. Or how about more recently when it came out that Comcast is using packet injection to insert its own ads over other company's websites?

As today’s actions show, the availability and access to lawful content and websites online is ultimately up to the provider of that specific content.

Until they get big like Netflix, and then it's up to how much that provider is willing to pay Comcast to stop letting their traffic purposely degrade.

We continue to be committed to delivering the same high-quality, high-speed Internet service that our customers rely on each and every day.

Committed... right up until the point Comcast feels it can shake down a company to pay extra just so Comcast's consumers can actual reach them with the bandwidth those customers already bought.

Of course, the meat of the post is that Comcast really, really, really hates the idea of reclassification under Title II. You can practically hear Cohen screaming "don't do it!"

What we don’t support is reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II because it would harm innovation and investment. It would harm the very thing we love about the Internet – the speed at which it can change, adapt, and innovate. And a Title II reclassification is simply not necessary.

Except Comcast is not exactly viewed as a particularly innovative or adaptable company. Comcast totally tried to mislead the FCC by misrepresenting a Fortune listing of "most admired" companies (Comcast was way, way, way down the full list, but at the top of a very, very small list of "cable and satellite providers" all of whom were not particularly admired). And should we really forget that Comcast regularly wins the "world's worst company" award from Consumerist? Comcast hasn't exactly shown its ability to be particularly innovative under the existing regime.

In fact, if history has shown anything, it's that greater competition leads to innovation, not greater consolidation. But, remember that Comcast is actively trying to buy one of the biggest competitors in the space, Time Warner Cable. And while both companies and their supporters point out that the two companies don't compete head on for customers, they do compete in other areas, such as in how they can buy third party services. And, of course, just think about how much more leverage a combined company would have in shaking down internet companies in the future...

At Comcast alone, we have invested tens of billions of dollars in our network and continue to invest more every year.

Yes, and that won't change under the FCC's regulations... unless there's no competition. Investment follows competition.

We want our customers to continue to enjoy their favorite videos, web applications, shopping, news, and whatever may come next.

Unless, of course, those favorite videos come from Netflix, and Netflix hasn't paid the toll taker.

Light touch Open Internet regulations should be a part of that.

Because it allowed us to shakedown Netflix, and Comcast now has its eyes on others as well...

Again, if there were a truly competitive market, perhaps this wouldn't matter. But there isn't, in part because of efforts by companies like Comcast to block out anything that might lead to real competition. Comcast isn't supporting an open internet. It's supporting whatever puts it in the best position to shakedown internet companies.

Filed Under: claims, david cohen, net neutrality, open internet, support, title ii
Companies: comcast

Taylor Swift's View Of The Future Of Music Is Actually Not That Far Off

from the not-that-crazy,-actually dept

It seems like a bunch of folks collectively rolled their eyes at the news that superstar singer Taylor Swift (or the people she hires to do these kinds of things) had penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about the "future of music." Of course, there are few artists out there that inspire rolling eyes like Swift does these days -- and there are some nutty claims in her opinion piece (and the writing is... stilted, at best). The main problem with the article is highlighted nicely by Nilay Patel over at Vox, who points out that she doesn't understand basic economics. And that's clear from this bit:

In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.

In recent years, you've probably read the articles about major recording artists who have decided to practically give their music away, for this promotion or that exclusive deal. My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet…is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.

Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It's my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album's price point is. I hope they don't underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.

This is, as Patel notes (and I've been discussing for over a decade), a very, very naive view of economics. Based on this, the more you spend putting into the album, the higher you should price it, and the world should reward you for that. That, of course, is not even close to how the world works. You don't get rewarded based on effort. You get rewarded by providing a product that people want at a price they're willing to pay. Sometimes, perhaps, pouring more "heart an soul" into the product may help, but plenty of artists put their heart and soul into lots of works and get basically nothing for it. Sometimes it's because that heart and soul isn't enough and the product sucks. Sometimes it's because no one hears the music. Swift is lucky that she has the core of the traditional recording industry and all its marketing muscle behind her. I would imagine that the singer sitting at home in his or her garage pouring their heart and soul into a new recording and hoping to have it heard might find that they'd actually do much better giving the work away for free to get some attention for it.

That said, most of the rest of Swift's piece is actually a pretty good look into where the music world is these days, in which the focus needs to be on connecting with fans and giving them a unique experience that isn't easily copied. On connecting with fans, she notes:

There are always going to be those artists who break through on an emotional level and end up in people's lives forever. The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships. Some music is just for fun, a passing fling (the ones they dance to at clubs and parties for a month while the song is a huge radio hit, that they will soon forget they ever danced to). Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past.

However, some artists will be like finding "the one." We will cherish every album they put out until they retire and we will play their music for our children and grandchildren. As an artist, this is the dream bond we hope to establish with our fans. I think the future still holds the possibility for this kind of bond, the one my father has with the Beach Boys and the one my mother has with Carly Simon.

This is like Kevin Kelly's concept of "true fans." Of course, it's weird that Swift would mock the idea of giving away works for free -- when it's possible that giving away such works might actually help artists build those bonds, enabling those true fans to look for ways to support them later.

From there, Swift discusses how giving unique experiences is key to the future of music:

I think forming a bond with fans in the future will come in the form of constantly providing them with the element of surprise. No, I did not say "shock"; I said "surprise." I believe couples can stay in love for decades if they just continue to surprise each other, so why can't this love affair exist between an artist and their fans?

In the YouTube generation we live in, I walked out onstage every night of my stadium tour last year knowing almost every fan had already seen the show online. To continue to show them something they had never seen before, I brought out dozens of special guest performers to sing their hits with me. My generation was raised being able to flip channels if we got bored, and we read the last page of the book when we got impatient. We want to be caught off guard, delighted, left in awe. I hope the next generation's artists will continue to think of inventive ways of keeping their audiences on their toes, as challenging as that might be.

Exactly. There, she's recognizing the value of a unique experience that can't be copied or "pirated," and which people have to pay to experience. And, once again, it seems odd that she'd knock the concept of free music, when that very same free music can help drive a lot more fans to want to go to these unique and special shows in which she "surprises" her fans.

The op-ed comes off a little silly in places, but the overall view of where the future of music is actually is pretty much spot on. Connecting with fans and giving them a unique and valuable experience. It's almost like something some of us have been saying for many years now. Yeah, the part about free music is a bit off, but the overall vision seems very much in line with reality.

Filed Under: connect with fans, economics, fans, free, music, reason to buy, support, taylor swift, unique experiences

RIAA Claims That It Is 'Standing Up For' Older Musicians That It Actually Left To Rot

from the wtf? dept

The RIAA is not exactly known for its positive treatment of musicians. If you're at all familiar with the art of RIAA accounting, you'd know about how they structure deals to totally screw over musicians, doing everything possible to make sure they never get paid a dime. Yes, many are given advances, but those advances are "loans" on terrible terms in which the labels add on every possible expense that needs to be "paid back" before you ever see another dime. Very few musicians ever "recoup" -- even after the labels have made back many times what they actually gave the artists. For the most succinct example of how the labels make out like bandits, profiting mightily while still telling artists they haven't recouped, here's Tim Quirk, who a few years back explained how it worked with his band, Too Much Joy (TMJ):

A word here about that unrecouped balance, for those uninitiated in the complex mechanics of major label accounting. While our royalty statement shows Too Much Joy in the red with Warner Bros. (now by only $395,214.71 after that $62.47 digital windfall), this doesn't mean Warner "lost" nearly $400,000 on the band. That's how much they spent on us, and we don't see any royalty checks until it's paid back, but it doesn't get paid back out of the full price of every album sold. It gets paid back out of the band's share of every album sold, which is roughly 10% of the retail price. So, using round numbers to make the math as easy as possible to understand, let's say Warner Bros. spent something like $450,000 total on TMJ. If Warner sold 15,000 copies of each of the three TMJ records they released at a wholesale price of $10 each, they would have earned back the $450,000. But if those records were retailing for $15, TMJ would have only paid back $67,500, and our statement would show an unrecouped balance of $382,500.

In other words, musicians don't get paid anything in most cases, while the labels can earn a tidy profit for years and years, still insisting the band hasn't recouped. It's why a band can sell a million albums and still owe $500,000.

I bring this up, because of the latest ridiculousness from the RIAA, claiming that it "stands behind" artists who aren't making enough money. We've already written about the latest lawsuit against Pandora, in which the RIAA/Soundexchange are saying that Pandora isn't paying pre-1972 artists (despite the fact that the RIAA itself refuses any attempt to put those recordings under federal copyright law, which would mandate compulsory licenses). We've also covered the ridiculousness of the RIAA releasing bizarre statements from artists like Steve Cropper, pretending that programmers still get paid for code they wrote in 1962.

But now it's reached truly ridiculous levels. musicFirst, a lobbying group put together by SoundExchange and the RIAA (potentially violating some laws), has put out an astoundingly ridiculous blog post, in which it discusses these lawsuits over pre-1972 sound recordings, by arguing that it is standing up for pre-1972 artists and not letting them "fade away" (a weak reference to a Buddy Holly song).

What a shady move. Fans will go to record stores to pay for this timeless music, but billion dollar corporations won’t pay a dime. And these services sell those same fans stations like the “60s on 6” and the “Buddy Holly station” yet refuse to give one dime of subscribers’ payments to the artists that made the music on those stations.

No matter what the outcome is in courts of law, Sirius XM and Pandora will pay a hefty price in the court of public opinion and in Congress. We love and respect our pre-72 artists and we will stand up for them. We will not let them fade away.

Oh really? You won't let those artists fade away? Then I assume you'll be going back and paying all of those artists you screwed over for decades, right? Let's start with Lester Chambers, for example, who got some attention a couple years ago, for how the RIAA totally fucked him over and let him fade away: Of course, it wasn't the RIAA, SoundExchange or musicFirst who helped him out. It was the internet, led by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, who helped Chambers raise over $60,000 on Kickstarter for a fantastic new album (it really is great, if you haven't yet heard it) -- and that money went to Chambers, not to a label who then refused to pay royalties. Or how about all of those artists who are seeking to take back their copyrights thanks to the copyright termination clause, which the RIAA is fighting tooth and nail against -- the same copyright termination clause that the RIAA's number two guy tried to secretly delete from copyright for musicians, while he was a Congressional staffer (months before taking his $500,000 salary at the RIAA, where he's remained until today).

So, whether or not Pandora and Sirius XM are right or wrong in how they handle the streaming royalties on pre-1972 works, the idea that the RIAA is somehow out there "protecting" older artists and not letting them fade away is a sick joke.

Filed Under: artists, lester chambers, musicians, royalties, support
Companies: musicfirst, pandora, riaa, sirius, soundexchange

No, Government Computers Won't Suddenly Be Vulnerable To Hackers On April 8; They Already Are

from the this-is-reporting? dept

The Washington Post has an article about how, even though it's long been known that Microsoft is sunsetting support for Windows XP on April 8th of this year, about 10% of US government computers still run XP. Because of this, the article declares that government computers running Windows XP will be vulnerable to hackers after April 8. While technically true (they will be vulnerable after April 8th) what would be a hell of a lot more true is to actually note that they're extremely vulnerable to hackers today and have been just as vulnerable for years. Microsoft sunsetting its support doesn't change that one way or the other.

What's incredible, is that for all the FUD being spread around by government officials about "cyberwar," "cyberattacks" and "cybersecurity," you'd think that getting the government's own house in order would be more of a priority. Outgoing NSA boss General Keith Alexander keeps claiming that he needs more access to private networks to protect them from foreign hackers (yeah, right), and yet this report notes that all sorts of classified government material is sitting on Windows XP computers.

That includes thousands of computers on classified military and diplomatic networks, U.S. officials said. Such networks have stronger defenses generally but hold more sensitive material, raising the stakes for breaches if they occur.

Given how sophisticated the NSA's abilities are to infiltrate just about any computer out there, as revealed by multiple documents leaked by Ed Snowden, you'd think that the NSA would be a bit more proactive in helping to shore up our own defenses by doing things like no longer using Windows XP.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, security, sunsetting, support, us government, windows xp
Companies: microsoft

Final Fantasy Fan Film Kickstarter Project, Apparently With Square Enix's Tacit Approval

from the good-signs dept

Video game giant Square Enix has never had a great track record when it comes to opting for lawyers over any kind of fan-created works built off of its properties. In fact, far from even making any attempt to encourage its fans, Square instead seems to enjoy the sledgehammer approach. Whether it was shutting down a fan-game set in the enormously popular Chronno Trigger universe, or a similar effort to create an OpenCarmageddon, the trend you'll notice is that these legal moves are made against some of the most rabid fans of some of the most beloved game franchises around.

So what would Square do if someone wanted to build off of what is almost certainly its most beloved franchise, the Final Fantasy games? Well, apparently the company will quietly okay it. At least, that's the case with the Kickstarter project for Final Fantasy 7: The Web Series, which has reportedly secured some of the necessary rights from Square Enix to move forward.

Today the team launched a Kickstarter to raise $400,000 for the project, which is now a 5-6-episode webseries based on Square's popular role-playing game. They say they've got the blessing of series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi—and the rights to use music from Final Fantasy VII.

"We have been in contact with SE for several months, and have attained full music rights," producer Dan Purcell told me in an e-mail today. "We have not however been endorsed or backed by SE. We have passed all necessary steps, including Kickstarter's review process."

Now, this doesn't explicitly say that the company, Square Enix, has given everyone involved the go-ahead for the project, but it's hard to imagine the film creators going through the steps of securing music rights, contacting Sakaguchi, and then leaving it all to risk of the game developer's lawyers. In addition, the Q&A on Kickstarter indicates that the filmmakers have been reaching out to Square, that Square's general counsel is definitely aware of the project, and that the trailer for the series has even appeared on Square's website. I would guess that there has been at least some assurance made that nobody is going to get sued over this and, before anyone rushes to point out that the fans went the route of securing rights, that's only true of the music and no project of this kind is going to be able pay the kind of massive costs rights-holders have previously required. From all appearences, it looks like Square is playing nice.

And if that has indeed happened, it's a huge step forward for Square, and a step that might just be becoming a trend. The company recently went a little more lax when OCRemix, famed video game music organization, wanted to pay tribute to Final Fantasy 6, and Square gave its blessing. If it was now to give a muted nod to this fan film project building off of one of its most popular games ever, it might just be an indication that the company is rethinking its legalistic ways. And that'd be good for all fans of the game, because the web series looks fantastic. If the films are as good as the trailer, they're a big old kick in the crotch to all those that decry fan-generated content. Not to mention a boon to those of us that go all teen-girl-at-a-Bieber-concert for anything related to Final Fantasy 7. I'll be keeping an eye on this to make sure Square doesn't poop the bed, but so far it looks like the company is probably going to play nice.

Filed Under: fan films, final fantasy, support
Companies: square enix