I think his point has something to do with the trickle-down theory of music economics: he practices singing in the shower, and as the water trickles down, he imagines he's been discovered by a record label and was handed a big fat advance. He might just go buy himself a shiny new Corvair with it... art needs inspiration, you know.
Re: #2 above, I meant to say that the only person with standing to sue under 17 US § 512(f) would be the alleged infringer. In this case, since the review wasn't user-uploaded content, it would be the review's publisher, the New York Times Company, which owns About.com. I'd say the chances of the NYTC suing the BPI or Universal over something like this are pretty slim. If it were affecting news articles on nytimes.com, maybe the story would be different.
You refer to "jail time", "those found guilty", and "committing a crime". Issuing a false takedown is not, per se, a crime for which one can be charged (accused of) by the government in criminal court, with fines and incarceration as potential outcomes. Rather, the DMCA only provides for a civil penalty for a false takedown notice. That is, the issuer can be sued by someone who has suffered harm as a result of the ("knowingly"-issued) false takedown, and then perhaps in court found liable for damages, if the case even goes to trial. The potential outcomes may involve owing a large sum of money to the plaintiff, but do not include jail time.
1. There's arguably no harm done (financial harm, I mean). Info about a negative review disappeared from one search engine's index. So what? A counterclaim is filed, they figure out it's a false positive, eventually it reappears in the search results, problem solved.
2. If there was harm, the person who was harmed has to be the one to file the lawsuit. Who would that be? Not the users of the search engine. The writer of the review? They were probably paid a flat fee already; they haven't lost anything. The publisher of the review? I'm skeptical they could say that Universal getting one of their pages deleted from Google search results could be tied to a dollar amount worth pursuing in court.
3. There's no way to prove the false takedown was issued "knowingly", which the DMCA requires for action to be taken against the issuer. Just because the takedown had the effect of censorship doesn't mean Universal knew the takedown was bogus. Maybe discovery would reveal some internal memos saying "we gotta get these bad reviews to stop showing up in Google's search results", but by the time you get to that phase, you've committed to an expensive litigation process.
(Universal would also probably argue it was an honest mistake, and that the bad review itself wasn't censored, only its appearance in one search engine's index—and thus it isn't really censorship.)
I wonder if Demand Progress mentioned its strident support of Wikileaks when issuing this call to the Democratic and Republican parties. Regardless, I'd be surprised if either party crafted any kind of message defending the freedom of sites like Wikileaks, or whistleblowers in general.
Over on Hypebot, commenters have pointed out that very little of Keating's catalog is actually available on Spotify, nor does she promote her Spotify presence. This should be taken into account when interpreting the numbers.
I don't know about Paley, but Masnick's business info is linked right there at the bottom of every page on Techdirt. One can infer from it that his income comes from his management salary and part ownership of Floor64, which in turn derives revenue from (perhaps among other things) ads here on Techdirt, and from consulting for corporate clients who need blogging platforms, tools and content.
In other words, he gives away captivating content for free, yet still makes a boatload of money off of it.
To be clear, this is a breakdown of the sales and streaming portion of her overall income. She also gets income from live performances (and perhaps other sources?) not accounted for in this report.
People have long been able, with various ad-hoc systems, to stream their own selections of unlicensed music to each other, via so-called 'pirate web radio' or whatever ... so obviously there's a niche to fill with ever-more convenient legal services to enable this kind of interpersonal music sharing. And along comes this company, actually doing the labels' work for them, providing people with a service that made it really easy to stream fully licensed music to each other in little temporary, non-download webcasts. Clearly this would provide yet another revenue stream for the labels, and a legal alternative to piracy where there was none before, at least for this type of 'hey listen to this music I picked out' situation.
And lo, the service has to shut down because the major labels are run by morons who can't just be like "great!", treat it like a prototype or future acquisition target, and all the while be getting a simple percentage of revenue. No, they need certain minimums or it's not worth their while. What a crock. Why should anyone even bother trying to go legal with their music sharing, or provide legal services for others? Seriously, why bother? The industry will provide you with no support whatsoever, so why should we feel like we owe them anything? If you want to play specific selections of music for your friends, just play it for them, any way you can.
I can predict the response from the shills: "it's not for the tech industry to dictate licensing terms" ... perhaps legally true, but ignoring reality. People are already (and always have been) sharing content among themselves using all the technology available to them, and they're going to keep doing so, with or without license. The music industry insists on shooting down every opportunity to derive revenue streams from this activity. When companies like this come along and develop the services that will enable the labels to effectively compete with piracy, why can't they ever get behind them and what they can to help these services succeed?
No, the real problem is that your completely off-topic post has nothing to do with topic at hand, which is that the Internet Archive, a clearinghouse for public domain and Creative Commons works, has added torrents to its mechanisms for downloading said content.
Ah, OK, I see what happened. I was going by Dr. Joel Hartman's document in the timeline at ucouldfinish.com. It says "The application accesses myUCF by logging into your personal account very frequently" and spells out various policies that were violated. However I didn't see the whole document. It actually starts out referring to another student's app, Knight Tracker, which had the same functionality as ucouldfinish. At the end of the document, it then talks about ucouldfinish, which was indeed using the public interface, as you say: "The ucouldfinish Website logs into MyUCF every 15 minutes and rus searches on every course using a guest search capability [...] Each search takes the system 14 minutes of processing, which means that ucouldfinish.com is almost constantly scanning every course in the catalog. That means it is placing a significant load on our PeopleSoft portal." Sorry about the confusion.
Huh? The data accessed by the app isn't public; it requires a student account to access. Even if the money were laundered off-campus, his account would still get blocked and he'd still be on the hook for alleged DDoSing.
Thanks for pointing out those examples of transparency, but they do seem to be exceptions. I don't see any constitutional or legal basis for mandatory public disclosure of the negotiating text for the TPP, let alone public input into the process. Trade agreements are notorious for irritating whichever segments of industry, labor, and the public benefit from the status quo. If the negotiators have something to gain by making it public, they'll make it public. If they consider public awareness a risk, they'll keep it private.
On the post: Court: Fining Jammie Thomas $9,250 Per Song Infringed Motivates Creative Activity
Re: Re: Re: Re: It motivates me...
On the post: The Content Industry Keeps Penalizing The People Who Actually Pay
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On the post: Universal Music Uses Bogus DMCA Claim To Take Down Negative Review Of Drake's Album
Re: Re: Please
On the post: Universal Music Uses Bogus DMCA Claim To Take Down Negative Review Of Drake's Album
Re: Please
On the post: Universal Music Uses Bogus DMCA Claim To Take Down Negative Review Of Drake's Album
Re: Re:
On the post: Universal Music Uses Bogus DMCA Claim To Take Down Negative Review Of Drake's Album
Re: Please
1. There's arguably no harm done (financial harm, I mean). Info about a negative review disappeared from one search engine's index. So what? A counterclaim is filed, they figure out it's a false positive, eventually it reappears in the search results, problem solved.
2. If there was harm, the person who was harmed has to be the one to file the lawsuit. Who would that be? Not the users of the search engine. The writer of the review? They were probably paid a flat fee already; they haven't lost anything. The publisher of the review? I'm skeptical they could say that Universal getting one of their pages deleted from Google search results could be tied to a dollar amount worth pursuing in court.
3. There's no way to prove the false takedown was issued "knowingly", which the DMCA requires for action to be taken against the issuer. Just because the takedown had the effect of censorship doesn't mean Universal knew the takedown was bogus. Maybe discovery would reveal some internal memos saying "we gotta get these bad reviews to stop showing up in Google's search results", but by the time you get to that phase, you've committed to an expensive litigation process.
(Universal would also probably argue it was an honest mistake, and that the bad review itself wasn't censored, only its appearance in one search engine's index—and thus it isn't really censorship.)
On the post: Both Republicans And Democrats Considering Supporting Basic Internet Freedom Principles With New Platforms
On the post: Next TPP Negotiation Session Has Only 3 Hours Allotted For Negotiators To Talk To Public Interest Advocates
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On the post: Indie Musician Zoe Keating Defines Transparency; Breaks Down Exactly How She Makes A Living
On the post: Google Caves To Hollywood Pressure: Will Now Punish Sites That Get Lots Of 'Valid' DMCA Notices
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On the post: Indie Musician Zoe Keating Defines Transparency; Breaks Down Exactly How She Makes A Living
On the post: Indie Musician Zoe Keating Defines Transparency; Breaks Down Exactly How She Makes A Living
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In other words, he gives away captivating content for free, yet still makes a boatload of money off of it.
OK, now it's your turn.
On the post: Indie Musician Zoe Keating Defines Transparency; Breaks Down Exactly How She Makes A Living
Re: Re:
On the post: Indie Musician Zoe Keating Defines Transparency; Breaks Down Exactly How She Makes A Living
On the post: Another Music Service Shuts Down, Blames Ridiculous Licensing Fees
And lo, the service has to shut down because the major labels are run by morons who can't just be like "great!", treat it like a prototype or future acquisition target, and all the while be getting a simple percentage of revenue. No, they need certain minimums or it's not worth their while. What a crock. Why should anyone even bother trying to go legal with their music sharing, or provide legal services for others? Seriously, why bother? The industry will provide you with no support whatsoever, so why should we feel like we owe them anything? If you want to play specific selections of music for your friends, just play it for them, any way you can.
I can predict the response from the shills: "it's not for the tech industry to dictate licensing terms" ... perhaps legally true, but ignoring reality. People are already (and always have been) sharing content among themselves using all the technology available to them, and they're going to keep doing so, with or without license. The music industry insists on shooting down every opportunity to derive revenue streams from this activity. When companies like this come along and develop the services that will enable the labels to effectively compete with piracy, why can't they ever get behind them and what they can to help these services succeed?
On the post: Internet Archive Enables Over 1,000,000 Torrents Of Books, Music And Movies
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On the post: UCF Student Makes Class Registration Easier; Receives Academic Probation For His Troubles
Re: Re: Re: Sanctions
On the post: UCF Student Makes Class Registration Easier; Receives Academic Probation For His Troubles
Re: Sanctions
On the post: Ohio University Says No File Sharing Allowed
Re: HTTPTUNNEL
On the post: TPP Text On Fair Use Leaks; US Proposals Are Really About Limiting Fair Use, Not Expanding It
Re: Transparency
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