Follow the money. This extension is being orchestrated by the record labels that want to continue to collect performance royalties forever. Music is culture and at some point you have to allow it to enter the public domain where the people own it.
I wouldn't assume Warner Bros. knows what it's doing in relationship to Korea. Heads of companies make boneheaded decisions, and that's why eventually all Presidents and CEOs are booted out.
If 50% of the population is downloading movies off the Internet, then 50% of the population is not doing that and that would be your market. 50% is better than pulling out totally.
I've always believed that the actual movie shouldn't be the product the studio sells, since the movie will soon be free on cable tv until the end of time. The studios should sell a value-added product with the DVD like a gift card, or a collectible poster, or a figurine. Something cool. George Lucas, for instance, made more money from collectibles than he ever did from the actual Star Wars movie grosses.
Hollywood needs to be more aggressive with their retail sales rather than slapping out a disk, shoving it in a plastic sleeve and shipping it to stores. They need to offer something "cool" with their movies!
What the RIAA won't tell you is that while CD sales are back to where they were in 1995 (gee, there wasn't any Internet downloading back then to speak of), DVD music sales has been increasing each year! One recording company recently posted a 10% increase in sales because people are switching from buying CDs to buying music DVDs. The RIAA plays fast and loose with its statistics. These are the same people who complained that music radio stations would hurt LP sales (why buy the song when you can hear it on the radio?), while the exact opposite happened.
The Recording Industry likes to say that artists are being hurt by downloading, but it's really the Recording Industry that's being hurt. I haven't heard of any artists receiving any money from the "royalties" the industry is collecting from online broadcasters. The industry calls it "performance royalties," but what it is is a royalty for the "recorded" performance, i.e. the CD track owned by the record. The royalties all go to the record company. This is why the Recording Industry has been uninterested in going after bootleg live recordings. There the industry feels it's up to the artist to go after the bootleggers. Most artists don't because live recordings bring more people to their concerts, and therefore makes the artists more money.
The Recording Industry and the other media companies are afraid that their business may go the way of the dinosaur. That's why they're pushing copyright legislation so hard. Who needs to buy CDs when artists can sell their own music from their own Websites such as Prince and other artists are doing? Who needs to buy DVDs when Netflix will stream movies to you? Who needs to buy a book when you can grab it online and display it on your Kindle? Suddenly, everyone who is a "publisher" is on the endangered list.
The various "old" media industries are going to try to hold onto what they own for as long as they can. The length of copyright is now is 95 years. They're going to try to hoard their possessions while trying to battle and stifle competition from the Internet. The consumer is in the middle of this battle and the lines are being constantly redrawn. For example, it's OK to record analog TV shows on VHS, but there are no VCRs with digital tuners that allow you to record a digital TV show on VHS. The old media wants to push those boundaries back even further. To try to stop all recording.
The only salvation will come if it pushes the boundary of the law so hard that the law becomes meaningless and no one enforces it.
I'm not sure what the point of this story is. The GD could have said no. Is that better than asking for NPR to do a story on them? You have GD fans dying off, and the younger kids don't know who the GD are. It sounded like they're just trying to get a little free publicity. And what's wrong about asking for a favor when you're asking a favor from them?
Also, they might have been open to negotiation. Maybe they would have settled for a five-minute piece? Plus an interview with Bob Weir would have fit right into All Things Consider's format. They interviewed Artie Lange of MadTV and Howard Stern fame! He's not exactly a pop icon. Why not a piece on the GD's legacy?
Just because you asked permission doesn't mean everyone you ask is going to say yes. And you don't have to whine about it either.
In this day and age, the law doesn't mean much. Rather the winners seem to be the lawyers who can come up with the most creative arguement. That seems to be the case here. If one Andy Griffith show is copyrighted, they all are copyrighted? That's a pretty good argument. The same with the play being copyrighted. If the movie has one line of dialogue from the play, then the movie is copyrighted? Strange logic.
But this sort of thing has been used before. RKO Pictures got the rights back to It's a Wonderful Life, which had fallen into the public domain, by finding out that the music was still under copyright, and they used this technicality to take the public domain versions off the market.
Another example is Tarzan. The early books are in the public domain, but the character is trademarked. Therefore, public domain publishers can't feature the character on the book cover or in any illustration. They skirt the issue by showing a picture of a jungle or an abstract logo, making the public domain book harder to market.
But there are plenty of other examples. For example, an unborn baby doesn't have any rights until it's born, so a mother can have an abortion right up to the time of birth. However, the newest twist is if a criminal kills a pregnant woman, he's then charged with two homicides. Suddenly the unborn baby has rights.
Likewise some social services departments have been able to have women locked up for abusing the health of their unborn babies if the women are taking drugs or are not taking care of themselves, yet the women can legally have abortions and not be considered murderers.
The best one was where a husband was found guilty of statutory rape because his legally married wife got pregnant. She was 15 and he was 16, and the parents gave permission for the marriage, and it was legal in the state. But the DA argued that birth of the baby proved she had had sex when she was a minor. And minors can't consent to have sex. So therefore, she was raped. The husband was found guilty and got locked up for a year, couldn't provide for his family, who then had to go on welfare. The argument won over common sense.
Light falls off at a rate of the square of the distance. So at 2 feet, the light is 1/4 as bright as from 1 foot away, at 4 feet, 1/16 as bright, at 8 feet, it is 1/64 as bright. After about 10 feet, ambient room light swallows up any light from a flash bulb.
However, just as you can see stars at night, but can't read a book from their light, so too do the flashbulbs going off annoy the musicians while doing nothing illuminate the photo.
Well, VOIP should use less bandwidth than people downloading files, so are the airlines really trying to ban free phone calls from the air so they can push their more expensive in-flight phone services?
Maybe they could develop a little network monitor app that shows the amount of bandwidth being used, so if there aren't too many people using the connection, you could sneak in a quick phone call or download a file.
Ever since Michael Moore made $100 million on Fahrenheit 9/11 and Al Gore made $30 million with A Inconvenient Truth, no one wants to give away their film, video or sound clips without being hugely compensated.
But on the other hand, there's a lot of documentary makers who just splice together a bunch of media clips, put a narration track under it (usually bashing Bush) and call it a documentary.
I think documentary makers need to go back to their roots of actually going out, interviewing people, and shooting their own footage. Frederick Wiseman, for example, has never used a clip from somebody else in his entire career.
I think a lot of commenters missed the point. People are using USB drives to fileshare in Asia, Africa and South America where Internet access is expensive or not available. So the RIAA hears about this and their immediate reaction is to sue someone. Yes, it's crazy, but the RIAA has been able to bully people into making extortion payments to it, such as the fees and restrictions on DAT tapes and recordable "music" CDs. The RIAA killed both formats. And it's been somewhat successful in getting colleges to rat out on their students who are file-sharing. It's been less successful with computer and MP3 makers.
I guess this is a question of what is going over the line. Anyone has the right to do an encyclopedia or reference book on just about any subject they want. It's not just fair use, but an actual protected part of the copyright laws. Information cannot be copyrighted
But from the press descriptions, apparently, instead of writing his own entries, he used J.K. Rowling's own words for the entries.
If this is true, I think this is a big difference and probably why J.K. Rowling is angry enough to spend big bucks to sue him and his publisher. He should have written his own entries and not extensively quoted Rowling.
However, I do agree with some folks who say the judge is trying to avoid a ruling on this because he's afraid of establishing a "line in the sand" reference point over how much quoting is allowed or not allowed in such a work. And Rowling doesn't need the extra cash from a proposed profit split. She can fight this as long as she wants to.
If you recorded the lecture, the professor would own the copyright and you couldn't distribute it, but your notes are your copyright.
Also the copyright law gives a huge exclusion to information being used for the expressed purpose of learning. All academic research uses the works of others as its foundation. Einstein's laws of relativity, for example, came about because of the work of Newton, Kepler and those whoo came before.
In 20 years, you may be repeating what your professor lectured to you as you lecture to a new generation of students. That's how knowledge advances.
You are certainly free to show your comrades your notes. There's noo law against it.
The RIAA put through a retroactive royalty increase a few years ago that drove a lot of music sites off the Web, and this looks like the same tactic to get the rest of them: close up shop or pay the royalty increase. I would say this is aimed at Live365, Pandora, Mercora and others that were just hanging on.
I feel for the 1(dot)fm guy who posted above. If a real FM station had only 32,000 listeners at any given time, that would make it a very small market station which probably only generates a 6-figure income a year. I guarantee they're not paying $3.6 million a year to the RIAA! Why can't Internet stations be treated the same as terrestrial radio stations? Obviously, the RIAA is trying to help Clear Channel and Entercom to eliminate competition.
On the post: Once More, With Feeling: Copyright Is Not A Welfare System For Musicians
Follow the money...
On the post: Warner Bros. Make Up Your Mind: Are You Competing With Piracy Or Not?
Don't assume...
If 50% of the population is downloading movies off the Internet, then 50% of the population is not doing that and that would be your market. 50% is better than pulling out totally.
I've always believed that the actual movie shouldn't be the product the studio sells, since the movie will soon be free on cable tv until the end of time. The studios should sell a value-added product with the DVD like a gift card, or a collectible poster, or a figurine. Something cool. George Lucas, for instance, made more money from collectibles than he ever did from the actual Star Wars movie grosses.
Hollywood needs to be more aggressive with their retail sales rather than slapping out a disk, shoving it in a plastic sleeve and shipping it to stores. They need to offer something "cool" with their movies!
On the post: Music Industry Squanders $69 Billion Worth Of Free Promotions In 2007
DVD sales increasing
On the post: Copyright Has Stretched So Far That It Has Broken
Copyright laws protect Companies not Artists
The Recording Industry and the other media companies are afraid that their business may go the way of the dinosaur. That's why they're pushing copyright legislation so hard. Who needs to buy CDs when artists can sell their own music from their own Websites such as Prince and other artists are doing? Who needs to buy DVDs when Netflix will stream movies to you? Who needs to buy a book when you can grab it online and display it on your Kindle? Suddenly, everyone who is a "publisher" is on the endangered list.
The various "old" media industries are going to try to hold onto what they own for as long as they can. The length of copyright is now is 95 years. They're going to try to hoard their possessions while trying to battle and stifle competition from the Internet. The consumer is in the middle of this battle and the lines are being constantly redrawn. For example, it's OK to record analog TV shows on VHS, but there are no VCRs with digital tuners that allow you to record a digital TV show on VHS. The old media wants to push those boundaries back even further. To try to stop all recording.
The only salvation will come if it pushes the boundary of the law so hard that the law becomes meaningless and no one enforces it.
On the post: Grateful Dead Label Demands NPR Feature Story To Blog A Grateful Dead Song
Well, they could have said no
Also, they might have been open to negotiation. Maybe they would have settled for a five-minute piece? Plus an interview with Bob Weir would have fit right into All Things Consider's format. They interviewed Artie Lange of MadTV and Howard Stern fame! He's not exactly a pop icon. Why not a piece on the GD's legacy?
Just because you asked permission doesn't mean everyone you ask is going to say yes. And you don't have to whine about it either.
On the post: How Do You Infringe The Copyright Of Public Domain Works?
Lawyers Can Argue Anything
But this sort of thing has been used before. RKO Pictures got the rights back to It's a Wonderful Life, which had fallen into the public domain, by finding out that the music was still under copyright, and they used this technicality to take the public domain versions off the market.
Another example is Tarzan. The early books are in the public domain, but the character is trademarked. Therefore, public domain publishers can't feature the character on the book cover or in any illustration. They skirt the issue by showing a picture of a jungle or an abstract logo, making the public domain book harder to market.
But there are plenty of other examples. For example, an unborn baby doesn't have any rights until it's born, so a mother can have an abortion right up to the time of birth. However, the newest twist is if a criminal kills a pregnant woman, he's then charged with two homicides. Suddenly the unborn baby has rights.
Likewise some social services departments have been able to have women locked up for abusing the health of their unborn babies if the women are taking drugs or are not taking care of themselves, yet the women can legally have abortions and not be considered murderers.
The best one was where a husband was found guilty of statutory rape because his legally married wife got pregnant. She was 15 and he was 16, and the parents gave permission for the marriage, and it was legal in the state. But the DA argued that birth of the baby proved she had had sex when she was a minor. And minors can't consent to have sex. So therefore, she was raped. The husband was found guilty and got locked up for a year, couldn't provide for his family, who then had to go on welfare. The argument won over common sense.
On the post: Musicians Whining About Fans With Mobile Phones
Re: Re: Re: No Cameras Allowed
However, just as you can see stars at night, but can't read a book from their light, so too do the flashbulbs going off annoy the musicians while doing nothing illuminate the photo.
On the post: Will Self-Control Work For In-Flight Internet Access?
No Free Phone Calls
Maybe they could develop a little network monitor app that shows the amount of bandwidth being used, so if there aren't too many people using the connection, you could sneak in a quick phone call or download a file.
On the post: Is Copyright Law Killing The Documentary?
Michael Moore ruined everything
But on the other hand, there's a lot of documentary makers who just splice together a bunch of media clips, put a narration track under it (usually bashing Bush) and call it a documentary.
I think documentary makers need to go back to their roots of actually going out, interviewing people, and shooting their own footage. Frederick Wiseman, for example, has never used a clip from somebody else in his entire career.
On the post: Will The RIAA Sue USB Drive Makers Next?
USB sharing is big in Asia
On the post: Neil Gaiman On JK Rowling, Fair Use And The Flattery Of Derivative Works
Going over the line
But from the press descriptions, apparently, instead of writing his own entries, he used J.K. Rowling's own words for the entries.
If this is true, I think this is a big difference and probably why J.K. Rowling is angry enough to spend big bucks to sue him and his publisher. He should have written his own entries and not extensively quoted Rowling.
However, I do agree with some folks who say the judge is trying to avoid a ruling on this because he's afraid of establishing a "line in the sand" reference point over how much quoting is allowed or not allowed in such a work. And Rowling doesn't need the extra cash from a proposed profit split. She can fight this as long as she wants to.
On the post: Are College Lectures Covered By Copyright?
Re: Class Lectures are copyrighted and should be
Also the copyright law gives a huge exclusion to information being used for the expressed purpose of learning. All academic research uses the works of others as its foundation. Einstein's laws of relativity, for example, came about because of the work of Newton, Kepler and those whoo came before.
In 20 years, you may be repeating what your professor lectured to you as you lecture to a new generation of students. That's how knowledge advances.
You are certainly free to show your comrades your notes. There's noo law against it.
On the post: Are College Lectures Covered By Copyright?
Re: I side with the professor
On the post: Are College Lectures Covered By Copyright?
Re: Can't stand this
On the post: RIAA Pushes Through Internet Radio Royalty Rates Designed To Kill Webcasts
RIAA Did This On Purpose
I feel for the 1(dot)fm guy who posted above. If a real FM station had only 32,000 listeners at any given time, that would make it a very small market station which probably only generates a 6-figure income a year. I guarantee they're not paying $3.6 million a year to the RIAA! Why can't Internet stations be treated the same as terrestrial radio stations? Obviously, the RIAA is trying to help Clear Channel and Entercom to eliminate competition.
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