Amazon might not be the best test case for whether you need a license to let people listen to their own music. A standard part of on-line music sales licenses is that Amazon only allows people to download music it sells once. Therefore the question is whether Amazon is violating its contract with the labels when it lets users download music more than once from the locker. It sounds like there might be a couple of other pesky little contract issues, so the decision to pay up might be based more on contracts than on copyright. Of course, if Amazon pays up for any reason I am sure that the labels will cite the Amazon Cloud as setting a precedence for the need for cloud storage streaming licenses.
The big media companies can't create something like Zine because when they set out on a project like that they put the innovators on a committee and then appoint two blockers to the committee for each innovator. Or worse, they don't put blockers on the committee, but they give them veto power.
The blockers don't see themselves as blockers. They are there to protect existing parts of the business and their job is to make sure innovation does not threaten their vested interests in any way. But in the end they block innovation.
Companies like Apple and Google have less of this problem because they still have creative people at the top of the organization who enable the innovators. Most of the large media companies have CEO's that are interested in maximizing short-term profit and who are more interested in licensing deals and acquisitions than innovation. CEOs tend to enable the blockers because they rely on them to the revenue streams coming in for the next quarter. And of course, most companies are now actually run by attorneys who are the ultimate blockers.
There was just an update on the reason for the delay of the first meeting. Apparently Obama had to miss the original meeting so he could attend a celebration of the spagetti harvest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdQqh9jvB6w&feature=related The video isn't for this year, but it was the closest link I could find. There is a more recent one, but I think it was on one of the domains seized by ICE.
The real question is not about why the media isn't paying attention. The real question is why the media companies and their investors aren't paying attention. It is their business that is on the line, and they are spending a lot of political and financial capital promoting a system that won't help their companies survive.
First off, thank you AC for posting a substantive comment. Most of the AC comments of late have degenerated to picking on topic selection and insulting other posters with comments on the intellectual level of "so's your mama." A substantive comment is very refreshing.
You are correct that a lot of courts have held that IP addresses are not sufficient. Yet, ACTA, Hadopi, and most laws proposed by the the industry rely entirely on IP addresses and logs of IP addresses. The legal notices that universities are required to pass on to students and cutting off students from the Internet are based entirely on logs of IP addresses. IP addresses don't identify individuals, and logs are often wrong. Yet the industry wants to use them as sufficient evidence to assess very real penalties.
Yet the industry persists on wanting laws to cut off entire households and businesses based on nothing more than accusations based on IP addresses. In fact, the laws do not even require that much proof, just an accusation based on whatever basis the accuser wishes to use. At least some of the posters under the AC banner seem to think that just reading TD or posting her would be sufficient evidence of piracy; at least they have tossed around the accusation freely here.
>>No added value? Who are you kidding. Take a look and most of the online newspapers in the country and then compare them to the NYT. They don't hold a candle to it.
Correct. No ADDED value. It is already a great paper. But I haven't seen anything that says a penny of the $40 million is going to do anything that makes it better. In a competitive market like news, if you are not getting better you are getting worse.
>>I've been reading the stories here about the paywall, so I decided to go see it myself. Apparently I have accidentally messed something up and cannot get to the paywall no matter how many stories I click on.
Right now the paywall is only active in Canada. If you want to check it out you can bounce your request off a Canadian proxy server.
The telling thing to me is that with all of that investment they have not added anything new that is of value to the subscriber.
Microsoft did that and called it Windows Vista. Everything they added was something that either MS itself wanted or one of its business parters wanted. They made it prettier, but otherwise added nothing of value to customers. When you think you have a monopoly or guaranteed audience you lose focus on producing things that your customers want. Instead you just think up ways to shoot yourself in the foot.
The problem that the NYT only thinks it has a guaranteed market.
Picking a fight with a blogger like Shojaee seems like a particularly stupid move. His blog was taken down for a few hours, and now they have an irate investigative reporter to deal with. They have also given Shojaee a pretty solid defamation case of his own.
Steve Jobs is on record as using "app stores" to refer to offerings by Google and Microsoft, even though they had not been routinely using the terms themselves. Pluralizing the term and using it to refer to a generic type of business might very well be fatal to Apple's case.
There ought to be two different standards in trademark law. When a company takes a common word and uses it for a trademark it should be very clear that they do not own the word itself. There should be a bit more ownership for unique words.
Monster Cable is the poster child for trying to take over the word "monster." For example, if I open a company and call it "Pepsi Trucking" people might reasonably assume that the company is a subsidiary of Pepsi/Frito Lay and that it hauls around sugar water and salty corn chips. On the other hand, if I name it "Monster Trucking" it isn't reasonable to assume that I carry around overpriced cables and cease and desist orders.
>>It is an emotional campaign driven by the rage of seeing people enjoy something they did not pay for.
Moral outrage may explain the feelings of the artists involved, but I don't think it explains the industry exec's position. I think continuation of the campaign can be attributed to a couple of things. For the music recording industry, they desperately need something to blame for declining sales. They don't want to address the real issues, so they blame piracy for all of their woes. For both the recording industry and the movie industry (which is still doing relatively well by many measures) it is a problem of repeating their own FUD for so long that they now believe it. The myths about private infringement have become embedded in the corporate culture, and if you want to advance in the industry you must recite the "piracy is killing us" mantra.
Piracy has never been the main issue the labels should have worried about
The title of the article is wrong. Infringement in terms of private copying has never been the main issue the industry should have been worried about. The should have been trying to figure out new ways to make money by capitalizing on the Internet rather than trying to keep forcing people to pay exorbitant prices for shiny plastic disks.
On the post: Will Amazon Cave In And Get Licenses For Its Streaming Player?
Other problems Amazon must deal with
On the post: Why Didn't Media Companies Create Their Own Zite?
Innovators and Blockers
The blockers don't see themselves as blockers. They are there to protect existing parts of the business and their job is to make sure innovation does not threaten their vested interests in any way. But in the end they block innovation.
Companies like Apple and Google have less of this problem because they still have creative people at the top of the organization who enable the innovators. Most of the large media companies have CEO's that are interested in maximizing short-term profit and who are more interested in licensing deals and acquisitions than innovation. CEOs tend to enable the blockers because they rely on them to the revenue streams coming in for the next quarter. And of course, most companies are now actually run by attorneys who are the ultimate blockers.
On the post: Movie Studios Add Another Window: The $30 Dollar Rental
Re: Re: I have said it before
So that is when the young hipster hits bittorrent.
On the post: YouTube's Reply In Viacom Case Demolishes Each Of Viacom's Key Arguments
Higher Court
On the post: Obama Secretly Accepts Transparency Award...
Re: Re: Spagetti Harvest
The worst thing about April 1 is trying to figure out who is being sarcastic and who is just clueless.
On the post: Obama Secretly Accepts Transparency Award...
Spagetti Harvest
On the post: Why Hasn't The Report Debunking Entire US Foreign IP Policy Received The Attention It Deserves?
On the post: Danish Supreme Court Sets High Bar For Evidence In File Sharing Cases
Re:
You are correct that a lot of courts have held that IP addresses are not sufficient. Yet, ACTA, Hadopi, and most laws proposed by the the industry rely entirely on IP addresses and logs of IP addresses. The legal notices that universities are required to pass on to students and cutting off students from the Internet are based entirely on logs of IP addresses. IP addresses don't identify individuals, and logs are often wrong. Yet the industry wants to use them as sufficient evidence to assess very real penalties.
Yet the industry persists on wanting laws to cut off entire households and businesses based on nothing more than accusations based on IP addresses. In fact, the laws do not even require that much proof, just an accusation based on whatever basis the accuser wishes to use. At least some of the posters under the AC banner seem to think that just reading TD or posting her would be sufficient evidence of piracy; at least they have tossed around the accusation freely here.
On the post: The Emperor's New Paywall
Re: Added Value
Correct. No ADDED value. It is already a great paper. But I haven't seen anything that says a penny of the $40 million is going to do anything that makes it better. In a competitive market like news, if you are not getting better you are getting worse.
On the post: The Emperor's New Paywall
Re:
Right now the paywall is only active in Canada. If you want to check it out you can bounce your request off a Canadian proxy server.
On the post: The Emperor's New Paywall
No value added
Microsoft did that and called it Windows Vista. Everything they added was something that either MS itself wanted or one of its business parters wanted. They made it prettier, but otherwise added nothing of value to customers. When you think you have a monopoly or guaranteed audience you lose focus on producing things that your customers want. Instead you just think up ways to shoot yourself in the foot.
The problem that the NYT only thinks it has a guaranteed market.
On the post: Righthaven Sues Reporter Who Wrote About Righthaven For Including Image From Its Lawsuit
Civil rights are subservient to copyright and existing business models. Ask anyone in the Obama administration.
On the post: Jawa Threatens Blog That Accused It Of Cramming, Gets Blog Taken Down By ISP
On the post: Federal Courts Afraid Your Smartphone Might Be A Bomb
On the post: The Great Language Landgrab... A Result Of Misunderstanding Trademark Law
Coffin Nail
On the post: The Great Language Landgrab... A Result Of Misunderstanding Trademark Law
Lower protection for common words
Monster Cable is the poster child for trying to take over the word "monster." For example, if I open a company and call it "Pepsi Trucking" people might reasonably assume that the company is a subsidiary of Pepsi/Frito Lay and that it hauls around sugar water and salty corn chips. On the other hand, if I name it "Monster Trucking" it isn't reasonable to assume that I carry around overpriced cables and cease and desist orders.
On the post: Drop In P2P File Sharing Due To Limewire Shutdown A Pyrrhic Victory For The Recording Industry
Re: Was there a jump in music sales?
Moral outrage may explain the feelings of the artists involved, but I don't think it explains the industry exec's position. I think continuation of the campaign can be attributed to a couple of things. For the music recording industry, they desperately need something to blame for declining sales. They don't want to address the real issues, so they blame piracy for all of their woes. For both the recording industry and the movie industry (which is still doing relatively well by many measures) it is a problem of repeating their own FUD for so long that they now believe it. The myths about private infringement have become embedded in the corporate culture, and if you want to advance in the industry you must recite the "piracy is killing us" mantra.
On the post: Does The NY Times Donate To Wikipedia For Being A Massive Source Of Information?
Re:
The trick to using Wikipedia is to never mention that your source of information is Wikipedia.
On the post: China Will Cut Off Your Phone Call If You Say The Word 'Protest' [Updated]
Anyone want to come to a Tea Party?
On the post: Forget Infringement, Major Labels Should Be Worrying About Having To Pay Much Higher Royalties On Downloads
Piracy has never been the main issue the labels should have worried about
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