The internet hates Chris Dodd right now.

The former Democratic Senator is a perfect illustration of a lot of what is wrong right now with greased slopes in regards to money, politics, influences and lobbies, and just a year out of the Senate himself, Dodd is now hard at work as a lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA- an organization created in the 1920s with a stated goal “to advance the business interests of its members.”

Organizations like the MPAA and the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, have been fighting for many years to inhibit technology they feel poses a threat to the ability of their respective industries to wring every last cent from copyrighted works. It’s a bit like suggesting your town shut down roads because someone might drive to your business on them and rob it, proposals like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), and naturally, users of the internet had a bit of problem with the idea that we should heavily restrict the web of the many to protect the large financial coffers of the few.

Protests were organized, petitions were signed, and at the end of the day Wednesday, more than a few lawmakers had hopped sides on the issues of SOPA and PIPA- not nearly enough, but it shows that the web action did make a bit of difference in the viability of those bills. Even PIPA co-sponsor, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, abandoned his support of the bill due to concerns raised about harming American businesses.

But Dodd and his ilk are so ballsy, so singularly focused, they have no issue with publicly stating that it’s their money alone lawmakers should consider in passing bills that are nearly guaranteed to destroy the internet. Dodd actually said this, unless Fox News is making things up out of whole cloth:

“Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

Dodd continued:

“I would caution people don’t make the assumption that because the quote ‘Hollywood community’ has been historically supportive of Democrats, which they have, don’t make the false assumptions this year that because we did it in years past, we will do it this year… These issues before us- this is the only issue that goes right to the heart of this industry.”

I think that it would be difficult to find a time in recent history where people are less sympathetic to the idea of job losses. But it’s clear to any thinking person that hobbling the free and open internet to protect the financial interests on an industry that flat out refuses to adapt at every turn is a ridiculous idea. This is not in dispute. But what should be noted is Dodd- a former lawmaker himself- would so openly speak of buying legislation that is clearly restrictive of the freedoms of American citizens to use the web for perfectly legal reasons.

Even more loathsome is that Dodd- a man who uses his inside knowledge of politics to serve corporate masters- had this to say about the fully grassroots protests occurring this week across the web:

“It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power… when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.”

Chris Dodd and the MPAA should be ashamed, and anyone who relies on the free and open web to make their living, connect with their lover, keep in contact with friends or make use of any number of legal technologies should think long and hard about financially supporting the industries who wish to kill innovation in order to keep their frankly dated business model on life-support.

MPAA’s Chris Dodd Threatens to Cut Cash to Politicians Over SOPA/PIPA Drawdown is a post from: The Inquisitr

When it comes to the music business and technology there is no other organization more moronic or totally out of touch with how the business that they are trying to protect like a mad bulldog is changing under their feet than the RIAA.

This is the trade organization for the music business that has no problem suing single mothers trying to eek out a living or grandmothers who probably wouldn’t have the clue of what a torrent is or even who Lady Gaga is. One of the more famous lawsuits that they have been involved in started back in 2007 and saw them sue Jammie Thomas-Rasset for supposedly sharing 24 songs on KaZaA and win a judgement against her of $1.5 million.

After several appeals Thomas-Rasset managed to have one judge see some semblance of sanity, even though she still lost, and said the original award was unconstitutional and reduced it down to $54,000. Well needless to say the RIAA wasn’t happy about this and have filed an appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis.

Now the RIAA is appealing the case in the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, saying that the court’s failure to classify Thomas-Rasset’s actions as a “distribution” under 106(3) of the Copyright Act wouldn’t deter her (and others, presumably) from repeating her actions and violating the Copyright Act again. The RIAA is hoping to vacate the jury’s verdict based on the interpretation of “distribution,” which would result in a third trial.

via Ars Technica

I’m sorry but this is just getting to be stupid and one can only hope that whatever judge, or judges, this comes up in front of sees this as nothing more than the vindictive action by the RIAA.

Now on the opposite side of the legal coin; and one that could have big repercussions throughout the music and online world, is the decision handed down by a Federal judge in New York that has found that cloud-based music lockers are for the most part, legal.

Of course music companies have long maintained, and argued previously, that music lockers are nothing more than companies profiting from encouraging users to violate copyright laws. As well one of their more ridiculous arguments was that playing music from these cloud-based music lockers constituted a “public performance” and as a result require a special license.

Well Judge William H. Pauley said in his ruling in the case of the music industry against MP3tunes, the cloud-based music locker founded by the perpetual thorn in the side of the music business Michael Robertson, that “MP3tunes did not promote infringement”, a cornerstone of the music businesses claim against MP3tunes.

While part of the ruling didn’t go entirely in Robertson’s favor the important part here is the decision about the legality of cloud-based music lockers.

The record companies claimed that services like these duplicate files in ways that violate copyrights, that they don’t do enough to stop repeat infringers, and that playing back songs from a locker constitute a “public performance,” which would require a license for the material. The judge rejected all these claims, finding that MP3tunes is protected as a service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The plaintiffs also argued that works recorded prior to 1972 were not protected by the DMCA, but the judge overturned this charge as well.

The record companies alleged that MP3tunes was responsible for 33,000 copyright violations, but Judge Pauley’s ruling reduced that number by 99% to only 350 works. The violations are specific, involving MP3Tunes’ technical failure to distinguish authorized copies of some songs, given away during “viral” marketing campaigns, and unauthorized copies that were still protected. The ruling found that these arrangements “contributed to the unauthorized use of EMI’s copyrighted works,” though MP3tunes founder/CEO and main defendant Michael Robertson says MP3tunes is “prepared to continue battling for the last 1%” of works cited in the case.

via ReadWriteWeb

Two tales of the music landscape, one cool and the other moronic is a post from: The Inquisitr

Many of the so-called pirate site owners believe that as long as their site isn’t hosted on US based servers that they are pretty safe from retribution by the entertainment industry and their trade groups, the problem is that if ICE has their way this may not be the case.

This is a lesson that Richard O’Dwyer, a computer undergrad studying at a university in northern England, is learning as the US authorities are trying very hard to extradite him to the US to face charges of being the admin of the TVShack site that was seized by ICE in mid-2010.

It doesn’t matter that O’Dwyer is a UK citizen or that TVShack is extremely similar to another site called TV-Links which has already been deemed as being legal by the UK courts. As far as the US authorites are concerned O’Dwyer has broken US law and as such should face US courts.

So what basis is ICE using as grounds for the charges and extradition attempt?

Well it boils down to one simple thing – O’Dwyer used a US based domain registrar, VeriSign, to register the TVShack domain.

“The jurisdiction we have over these sites right now really is the use of the domain name registry system in the United States. That’s the key,” says ICE assistant deputy director Erik Barnett speaking with The Guardian.

The only necessary “nexus to the US” is a .COM or .NET domain for which Verisign acts as the official registry operator, Barnett added.

via TorrentFreak

The whole domain seizing operation by ICE has been fraught with questions about its legality, as well as more than a few already deemed legal sites being seized, and this situation with O’Dwyer only goes to show just how much these organizations will go to bend, or ignore, the law to get what they want.

Does your “pirate” site have a US domain registrar? You too could be extradited. is a post from: The Inquisitr

A law is being shoved ahead in California by one Sen. Alex Padilla, and the mere premise alone should chill you. Sen. Padilla is proposing law enforcement officials be allowed to circumvent the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure to “enter manufacturing plants without notice or court orders” and determine whether CDs and DVDs being created ‘might’ be counterfeit.

Of course, the RIAA makes an excellent case against protecting all Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights regardless of what industry they work in… Just kidding! They point to a completely irrelevant argument about their own profits and don’t even acknowledge that what they’re proposing is totally illegal and immoral and runs contrary to one of the very basic premises this country was founded upon:

“Last year in California, we seized about 820,000 pirated music discs,” said Marcus Cohen, the RIAA’s director of anti-piracy investigations for the West Coast. “Nine out of 10 of them come from replicator plants … and the replication capital of the country is California.”

In a piece about the controversy in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles law professor Laurie Levinson called the proposal a “huge exception” to the Fourth Amendment, which “generally requires probable cause” before cops can kick down your door and comb through your shit. Cohen hid behind the whole “if you have nothing to hide, you’re not at risk” logical fallacy:

“We’re literally talking about walking into a plant, walking up to the line and ensuring that, indeed, the discs are in compliance,” he said. “I don’t think the scope of the search is something a regulator needs to be worried about.”

Right. But each chip at these fundamental rights we have as Americans weathers the foundation, and it’s not farfetched to anticipate such legislation could conceivably influence even worse abuses of these protections.

What do you think? Does the RIAA have a right to protect its profits at the expense of every American’s constitutional protections?

Wow… wait, what? RIAA lobbies for legalization of warrantless searches is a post from: The Inquisitr

Grooveshark is often attacked for its “too good to be true” business model- after years of watching the RIAA win astronomical judgments against file-sharers and the whole Napster brouhaha, users are wary of getting their asses hauled into court for streaming a Katy Perry song.

Indeed, many people at this point are jaded about even listening to a track they haven’t paid someone, somewhere 99 cents for, and reps from the service have been attacked on social media sites for that very reason. Users have become extremely efficient at handing over rights and freedoms for fear of possibly violating those of a corporation just in principal, which is kind of sad. Grooveshark has struck back at this attitude in an open letter, asserting that their service operates legally and under DMCA protection.

In an open letter on Digital Music News, Paul Gellar of Grooveshark strikes back at the idea that if a service is convenient to music consumers and intuitive to use, it somehow must be illegal:

Yet some are confused as to how we are legal.  First, there is a distinction between legal and licensed.  Laws come from Congress.  Licenses come from businesses.  Grooveshark is completely legal because we comply with the laws passed by Congress, but we are not licensed by every label (yet).  We are a technology company, and we operate within the boundaries of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA).  Some would have you believe that those of us who use the DMCA to innovate are inherently infringers and that claiming Safe Harbor under the DMCA is as good as admitting guilt.  Not so.

(One space after periods, Gellar, one space. You’re messing up my formatting.) Gellar points to action the service has taken to prevent infringement and protect copyright as an argument against the service breaking laws willy-nilly:

We pay for our streams, and we actively negotiate with virtually every single content owner. We’ve taken down over 1.76 million files and suspended upload privileges to 22,274 users.  These are not the characteristics of a company “dedicated to copyright infringement”.  As we work with artists and labels to make more content available to our users, Grooveshark becomes more competitive as an alternative to piracy.

Gellar continues:

In light of the recent misleading press concerning Grooveshark’s application, it is important to make clear that we will defend our service, and the letter and the spirit of the law, in court and in Congress. We will defend our name and our ideals for the sake of our users who expect modern delivery systems and comprehensive access across devices, for the sake of artists and content owners who fear another decade of decline, and for other innovators who continue to bring new ideas to market through the expression of creativity in the form of technology.

The letter concludes with a plea for Google and Apple to restore the Grooveshark app to their respective app stores. It will be interesting to see how Grooveshark’s status shakes out, but sadly, it doesn’t seem the app’s team will be able to stand up to the massive corporate interests seeking to suppress the service. Do you think Grooveshark has a shot, or are they already fighting a losing battle?

Grooveshark challenges Android market removal, says “nothing illegal” about the service is a post from: The Inquisitr

Baidu, the largest search engine in China has agreed to pay the music industry millions of dollars in royalties stemming from illegally downloaded MP3s and streaming songs. The search giant announced this week that they have signed a deal with various music industry officials in regards to their music search feature.

Under the new agreement all songs downloaded and streamed will be paid royalties. In order for an artist to collect their fair share of those royalties they must first become a member of the Music Copyright Society of China.

Under the company’s new plans they will offer free downloads of MP3s on a discreet section of their website, while using advertising revenue to pay for those downloads, however at this time the amount being paid to artists per download has not been divulged.

With 75.5 percent of the search market in China and a song search section that is unparalleled in the search industry, the RIAA has called Baidu “undoubtedly one of the largest distributors of infringing music in the world.”

Baidu isn’t the only service in China to offer ad supported digital downloads and streaming services, Google with 19.6 percent of the market already has a deal in place with Orca Digital to offer such services to their Chinese user base.

At this time it sure does seem like Baidu is telling the industry what they will receive, it will be interesting to see if the RIAA and other international players can get the Chinese government to offer them a more robust compensation package for their artist work.

Music Industry Scores a Win Against Chinese Search Engine Baidu is a post from: The Inquisitr

A jury in Minneapolis has decided on a third fine for illegal downloader Jammie Thomas-Rasset- the Minnesota woman was originally fined $1.92 million for downloading 24 songs.

The RIAA has offered twice to settle the case, once for $222,000 and once for $25,000, but Thomas-Rasset rejected both offers. The RIAA again gloated in a statement over the newest exorbitant, arbitrary fee, which works out to about $62,000 per song the defendant allegedly downloaded:

“We are again thankful to the jury for its service in this matter and that they recognized the severity of the defendant’s misconduct,” the RIAA said in a statement. “Now with three jury decisions behind us along with a clear affirmation of Ms. Thomas-Rasset’s willful liability, it is our hope that she finally accepts responsibility for her actions.” 

The third time around, the fine doesn’t seem any more reasonable or proportionate to the crime of which Thomas-Rasset stands accused. (Steven broke down the fines for downloading versus those for murder or dogfighting a while back.) Thomas-Rasset’s lawyers have vowed again to fight back, and a judge in a previous case did deem the original fine of near $2m to be “monstrous and shocking.” It was then that the RIAA offered the defendant the $25K settlement, but only if she agreed to request that the judge remove the decision from the record. She refused.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset receives third judgment, fined $1.5m is a post from: The Inquisitr

Even my LG feature phone has an FM radio widget on it but considering where I live that makes as much sense as teats on a bull does. However it seems in the US that the RIAA is lobbying hard for Congress to mandate radios in all your portable devices. This of course includes your smartphones – you know .. the ones that you can access things like Pandora on.

Tagging along on this ride of outright stupidity is the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) as a trade-off for a bill coming before Congress called the Performance Rights Act which would make radio stations have to pay performance rights fees like satellite radio and web broadcasters do, but have yet not had to.

Under an argument that these performance payments would actually increase consumer choice the RIAA has basically blackmailed into accepting what is already considered a done deal in Congress on the promise of lower fees and access to larger markets that would supposedly materialize because of mandated FM radio chips in mobile devices.

Of course, as Nate Anderson at Ars Technica points out, the device makers aren’t impressed by this move

The Consumer Electronics Association, whose members build the devices that would be affected by such a directive, is incandescent with rage. “The backroom scheme of the [National Association of Broadcasters] and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity,” thundered CEA president Gary Shapiro. Such a move is “not in our national interest.”

“Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do.”

As I pointed out I have a FM widget in my older style feature phone that never gets used and I really don’t see it being any different of a situation in metropolitan areas on a smartphone. Just as every other part of the entertainment industry is changing so to is radio but forcing something like mandated FM chips into any mobile device, and even increasing the price slightly, will piss off the consumer. As consumer by the way who is already paying through the nose for their entertainment choices.

RIAA wants you to have an FM radio in your phone – even if you don’t is a post from: The Inquisitr

When I first read this over at the Recording Industry vs The People blog this morning I couldn’t stop laughing, which made it extremely hard to get my required daily dosage of coffee into me and not all over my keyboard.

Yes folks it is true. The RIAA in 2008 paid out to three lawyer firms more than $16 million in order to pursue copyright infringement claims. In return they were able to collect only $391,000 in settlements. However it gets even better than that when you look back a few years:

As bad as it was, I guess it was better than the numbers for 2007, in which more than $21 million was spent on legal fees, and $3.5 million on “investigative operations” … presumably MediaSentry. And the amount recovered was $515,929.

And 2006 was similar: they spent more than $19,000,000 in legal fees and more than $3,600,000 in “investigative operations” expenses to recover $455,000.

So all in all, for a 3 year period, they spent around $64,000,000 in legal and investigative expenses to recover around $1,361,000.

And of course they are doing all this to protect the musicians. If I was the musicians I’d be asking for a rebate and a plea to the RIAA to stop being so damn helpful.

RIAA pays $16M to get $390,000 – no wonder the record companies are going tits up is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) might have a slight bias when it comes to reporting on stuff that is happening on the web but when they have post that is basically highlighting the responses to the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator’s request for submissions regarding its Joint Strategic Plan for intellectual property enforcement it’s worth looking at. Especially when you read the obvious wishlist from entertainment trade organizations (mouthpieces) like the RIAA and MPAA.

While there are days where what comes out of these organizations doesn’t surprise me in the least (hint: ACTA) this laundry list of ways that the RIAA and MPAA want to screw the consumer even more does surprise me considering how blatant the attempt is.

Here’s the list courtesy of the EFF:

• Anti-infringement software for home computers - in other words they want the legal right to install spyware on your computer that will scan and identify infringing files – and possible delete the files automatically.
  

  There are several technologies and methods that can be used by network administrators and providers…these include [consumer] tools for managing copyright infringement from the home (based on tools used to protect consumers from viruses and malware).

• Pervasive copyright filtering – to force network operators to institute filters on their networks to filter out any infringing files.
  

  Network administrators and providers should be encouraged to implement those solutions that are available and reasonable to address infringement on their networks. [This suggestion is preceded by a list of filtering methods, like protocol filtering, fingerprint-based filtering, bandwidth throttling, etc.]

• Intimidate and propagandize travelers at the border – to be given the right to have border guards seize and search all electronic devices like iPods and laptops for ‘pirated’ material.
  

  Customs authorities should be encouraged to do more to educate the traveling public and entrants into the United States about these issues. In particular, points of entry into the United States are underused venues for educating the public about the threat to our economy (and to public safety) posed by counterfeit and pirate products. Customs forms should be amended to require the disclosure of pirate or counterfeit items being brought into the United States.

• Bully countries that have tech friendly policies – The idea here is to force countries like Canada to copy and enforce all the guidelines and laws that the US has in regards to copyright and intellectual property. This is also one of the reasons that ACTA came into being in the first as a way to end run local country laws and force draconian laws on countries that normally wouldn’t do so.
  

  The government should develop a process to identify those online sites that are most significantly engaged in conducting or facilitating the theft of intellectual property. Among other uses, this identification would be valuable in the interagency process that culminates in the annual Special 301 report, listing countries that fail to provide adequate and effective protection to U.S. intellectual property rights holders. Special 301 could provide a focus on those countries where companies engaged in systematic online theft of U.S. copyrighted materials are registered or operated, or where their sites are hosted. Targeting such companies and websites in the Special 301 report would put the countries involved on notice that dealing with such hotbeds of copyright theft will be an important topic of bilateral engagement with the U.S. in the year to come. (As noted above, while many of these sites are located outside the U.S., their ability to distribute pirate content in the U.S. depends on U.S.-based ISP communications facilities and services and U.S.-based server farms operated commercially by U.S.-based companies.)

• Federal agents working on Hollywood’s clock – the use of ‘deputized’ Federal agents, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to provide muscle during the big summertime blockbuster season because we all know those cammers out there are a dangerous bunch.
  

  The planned release of a blockbuster motion picture should be acknowledged as an event that attracts the focused efforts of copyright thieves, who will seek to obtain and distribute pre-release versions and/or to undermine legitimate release by unauthorized distribution through other channels. Enforcement agencies (notably within DOJ and DHS) should plan a similarly focused preventive and responsive strategy. An interagency task force should work with industry to coordinate and make advance plans to try to interdict these most damaging forms of copyright theft, and to react swiftly with enforcement actions where necessary.

Gee doesn’t that leave you all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that the money we spend on movies and music is being spent in such a great way .. not to mention tax-payer dollars.

RIAA & MPAA wishlist to screw the consumer is a post from: The Inquisitr

When it comes to downloadable music and movies torrent sites are almost guaranteed to attract the attention of trade group bullies like the RIAA and MPAA. It is a pressure that has been growing over the years as these trade groups will use whatever tactics they can to shut these sites down and at the same time cause as much financial pain to the consumer as possible.

Most recently we have gotten news that one of the premier NZB indexing sites has lost a court battle that was brought against them in Britain by the entertainment industry and their trade groups. Another one has been ordered by a US court to remove all offending links.

It is an on-going battle but even with all the hostilities it is great to see one torrent site hasn’t lost its sense of humor. Word from the TorrentFreak blog is that Russian torrent site Vertor.com decided to have a little bit of fun and sent out six packages to the leading anti-piracy groups that are meant to let them know that try as hard as they can these anti-piracy groups aren’t going to win in the long run.

The packages contain a local Russian braind of Vizit Overture aroma flavored condoms a long with a notes that says “We wish your parents had used it.”

The team behind Vector told Ernesto from TorrentFreaks that this was meant as a joke but the message was sincere.

The people behind Vertor informed TorrentFreak that their action is a joke, but one with a clear message. “I’m sure that every one of us would want to say something like this to these bloodsuckers, but not everyone has the opportunity to be heard,” an anonymous source from the Vertor team said.

The condom shipments were sent out yesterday are expected to arrive within a day at the anti-piracy offices.

All I can say is …. way to go guys.

Torrent sites sends RIAA condoms for the next time they want to screw the consumer is a post from: The Inquisitr

Well, that’s one way to make fines for file-sharing look even more arbitrary, astronomical and totally imaginary.

The RIAA battled single mom Jammie Thomas-Rasset in court over 24 tracks the woman illegally shared over Kazaa. Despite Thomas-Rasset’s protests that she hadn’t downloaded the tracks and that other people had access to her computer, she was found guilty and fined $80,000 per song shared over the P2P network. Thomas-Rasset, a woman of fairly modest means, was slapped with a $1.92m fine for her crimes.

Of course, the RIAA did offer to settle before the trial, for the sum of $200,000- more than houses cost in many parts of the US. And the fine ultimately decided upon was nowhere near the fiscal severity of penalties levied typically if Thomas-Rasset had stolen hundreds of CDs each of the entire albums bearing the tracks she’d stolen. But the judicial system had spoken, and the single tracks had a determined value of $80K.

Now Thomas-Rasset has been offered, and will likely decline, a final settlement from the RIAA for the amount of $25,000. Even though it’s far from $1.92M, $25,000 is still a lot of money for such a petty crime. (See Steven’s post on much more serious crimes and comparable fiscal penalties.) And the wild fluctuation in offers only seems to indicate that the damage done to record companies by file-sharing is not very quantifiable. So the case is far from over, and Thomas-Rasset is likely headed to court to further tie up judicial proceedings over the theft of 24 really awful songs.

But what I’d really like to know is whether the record companies were damaged to the tune of $200,000? $25,000? $1,920,000? Maybe a dollar? Maybe a billion? Which is it, RIAA?

[Ars Technica]

RIAA offers to settle with Jammie Thomas-Rasset for $25K is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s a noble plan.

A dozen nations meeting in Geneva on Monday to consider adopting the WIPO Treaty for Sharing Accessible Formats of Copyrighted Works for Persons Who are Blind or Have other Reading Disabilities. The proposal that is currently before a 180 WIPO members would see the ability to allow t he cross-border sharing of DRM-protected digitized books that literally tens of thousands of blind and visually disabled people read with specialized devices.

As Manon Ress, policy analyst at Knowledge Ecology International, says “This treaty would be the first one that is not done for the copyright owner, but for the user of the works – for the blind to make a copyrighted work accessible”

Well that should tell you right there who would be fighting the adoption of the treaty. We would of course have the usual suspects of software companies and entertainment trade groups but along with them is the good old U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But that prospect doesn’t sit well with American business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest lobby representing 3 million businesses, argues that the plan being proposed by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay, “raises a number of serious concerns,” (.pdf) chief among them the specter that the treaty would spawn a rash of internet book piracy.

The treaty also creates a bad precedent by loosening copyright restrictions, instead of tightening them as every previous copyright treaty has done, said Brad Huther, a chamber director. Huther concluded in a Dec. 2 letter to the U.S. Copyright office that the international community “should not engage in pursuing a copyright-exemption based paradigm.”

Echoing that concern, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry of America told the Copyright Office last month that such a treaty would “begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms.”

Source: Wired – Threat Level Blog

So thanks to the greed, protectionism and inability to realize the future we have major national and multi-national corporations along with their lap dogs like the Chamber of Commerce trying to deny what is already allowed in many countries – copyright exemptions for non-profit companies to digitized books for the blind.

Many WIPO nations, most in the industrialized world including England, the United States and Canada, have copyright exemptions that usually allow non-profit companies to market copyrighted works without permission. They scan and digitize books into the so-called universal Daisy format, which includes features like narration and digitized Braille.

The Daisy Corp. Consortium, a Swiss-based international agency, controls formatting worldwide and has some 100 companies under its direction across the globe. The largest catalog rests in the United States, in which three non-profits, including the Library of Congress, host some half million digital titles produced by federal grants and donations.

As it now stands, none of the nations may allow persons outside their borders to access these works, which are usually doled out for little or no charge. The treaty seeks to free up the cross-border sharing of the books for the blind.

“People who oppose copyright exemptions oppose exemptions on principle that there should be no exemptions of copyright law,” says George Kerscher, Daisy’s general secretary. “They should have sole right and discretion to do what they want with their intellectual property. To a great extent, the opposition to the treaty is based on that principle.”

To receive any reading materials, the blind and disabled must prove their condition, he said. In the United States, Knowledge Ecology International estimates about 5 percent of published books have been transformed to the Daisy format.

Source: Wired – Threat Level Blog

Chief amongst the opponents of course is The Association of American Publishers who is arguing basically that what is in place right now is good enough and that really the blind should be paying for their materials.

It’s so nice to see capitalism at work isn’t it…….

US Chamber of Commerce out to block treaty meant to help the blind is a post from: The Inquisitr

Technology didn’t kill radio.

Satellite radio didn’t kill terrestrial radio.

But as of today radio stands a very good chance of becoming an ever increasing wasteland to the point that we will see a massive shift away from radio stations playing music. If you think that talk radio is big now you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This is going to happen all because the very basis of how music radio works has shifted. Instead of record companies using radio stations as a way to promote new artists and new releases from established musicians the passing (with a heap of lobbying entertainment backed groups like the RIAA and musicFirst Coalition) of the Performance Rights Act radio stations will now have to pay to play that same music.

The argument put forth by the lobbyists is that this is a revenue stream that the artists are not seeing and therefor not getting paid for their work. Radio has been getting a free ride forever – getting rich off of the backs of musicians by not having to pay royalties for the music they play.

It’s a nice argument and would make sense if the musicians were actually going to see any of that royalty money. As it is they already don’t see a large chunk of what is suppose to be their money that is collected supposedly on their behalf by SoundExchange. The excuse used of course by the organization is that they can’t find the artists in order to give them the money.

So what happens with all that money?

Well the SoundEchange gets to keep it which ends up making this suppose to be non-profit very wealthy - to the tune of over $100 million as of 2007.

Now this is the group that is going to be able to collect some pretty hefty royalty money from radio stations all on the basis that it is for the musicians. The problem is that by changing the economic landscape by which radio works they are removing the incentive for any stations, other than the big conglomerates, to play new music from anyone other than the really big established musicians or bands.

Radio play has always been considered to be the biggest promotional play a musician could hope for. Even though the power of the hit lists may have lessened in our Internet world they still hold considerable power. It was advertising at it best (or worst during the payola years). That power is now gone.

As Michael Masnick at Techdirt notes

Besides, all this will do is harm up-and-coming musicians. Because radio stations will now need to pay more for playing music, they’ll play less music, and if they’re playing less music, they’ll focus just on the big name acts. Smaller up-and-coming artists should be furious with the RIAA for giving radio stations less incentive to play their works. Remember, this is the opposite of payola. While payola got new records on the air, this will make sure fewer get on the air. But it will sure put a bunch more money in the pockets of the major record labels.

This new tax revenue stream for the entertainment industry through its watchdog groups might not truly kill off radio but is sure is going to lengthen its time on life-support.

The day that radio was killed is a post from: The Inquisitr

Word is beginning to trickle out of Japan that the country’s government and music companies are trying to get a pioneering system in place that is designed to stop unauthorized copying of music on mobile phones. As well repeat offenders could find their phone’s music playing capabilities disabled.

The system would be dependant on a centralized database containing information about music that is authorized to be downloaded as well as verifying that cellphone users weren’t downloading illegal copies of music files.

According to the folks over at FreakBits the system is planned to be in service by April 2010. I bet the RIAA is getting the biggest woodie possible at the thought of being able to do the same thing here.

Play illegal music on cellphone and find it shut down is a post from: The Inquisitr

Not satisfied with just screwing people through pointless idiotic lawsuits the music industry has been trying to get ISPs around the world to block torrent sites – with The Pirate Bay being their principal target. the thinking being if they can con the ISPs into blocking them it will be a short step to getting them to block other sites the music industry has a hard-on for.

In Ireland several of the ISPs were sent letters requesting the blockage of The Pirate Bay an while UPC and BT Ireland refused lily-livered Eircom, the country’s largest ISP, bowed down to the industry lapdogs and began – as of today – to block the site.

According the the gang over at TorrentFreak people trying to access the site will see the following message, which I have copied from TorrentFreak’s post on the story (hope they don’t mind)

TorrentFreak can confirm that Eircom customers can no longer access The Pirate Bay and instead, are faced with this message when trying to access the site (body in plain text for clarity);

On the 24 July 2009, an Order was made by the High Court requiring eircom to block or otherwise disable access by its subscribers to the website ThePirateBay.org, its related domain names, IP addresses and URLs. The Court was satisfied that on the basis of the evidence presented by the record companies that the PirateBay website is a website that facilitates the exchange of copyrighted sound recordings without the consent of the copyright owners.

eircom recognises the legitimate rights of the owners of copyrighted material and believes that individuals who share or download copyrighted material without the authorisation or the permission of the copyright owner are acting illegally.

The Order further provides that should the PirateBay website content be legitimatised in the future then eircom has liberty to apply to the Court to have the Order vacated and access to the PirateBay website enabled.

eircom in compliance with the Order has agreed that access to the website the PirateBay.org, its related domain names, IP addresses and URLs from the eircom network will be blocked indefinitely from the 1st September 2009.

eircom would like to reassure customers that:

* eircom will not monitor customer’s activities at any stage, nor will it place any monitoring equipment or software on its network in order to facilitate this block.
* eircom will not provide personal details or any information relating to customers to any third party, including the record companies.

Way to Eircom.

note: the picture has absolutely nothing to do with the story other than to show that Ireland has some really beautiful women.

No Pirate Bay for those bad bad people in Ireland is a post from: The Inquisitr

There is no doubt that the RIAA deserves all the bad press and flack it gets but on a scale of utter doucebaggery they pale in comparison to a company called Digiprotect.

This company exists only to trap and sue people who download possible illegal files, music and video, from the Internet. It’s one thing to try and protect your copyrights and sue people you legitimately believe have stolen your music or movies but it is another thing to purposely set up a company that does nothing but place copyrighted material in order to encourage people to download and then sue them.

And that is Digiprotect’s business model folks.

They get the legal rights from companies to distribute these media files and because they have those rights they can sue illegal downloaders – regardless of country. As Ernesto from TorrentFreak writes in his post on the company

So Digiprotect acquires the right to distribute movies, music or games from the rights holders, which they then share on various P2P networks. All they have to do is wait for people to take the bait. If someone tries to download the file they collect the IP-address and initiate legal action through one of their befriended law firms.

That is, if it’s profitable, otherwise Digiprotect can’t afford to protect the copyright holder’s rights, as Hein explains.

“No one working for DigiProtect has a fixed salary. If we make money, everybody makes money. If we don’t, nobody does. This means the lawyers, sales people and customers. It’s all about how much money can be recouped and then sharing it.”

So in other words this amounts to nothing more than legalized entrapment meant to do nothing more than make them, and probably the original rights holders, a lot of money.

Talk about scummy.

If you think the RIAA sucks check these guys out is a post from: The Inquisitr

Remember the case of Jammie Thomas and the RIAA where Jammie got slapped with a $1.92 million dollar jury judgment against her?

Well Jesus Diaz over at Gizmodo did some calculations and found that you would be better off to be a murderer, thief, or child abductor. According to Diaz the money involved breaks down like this:

• Child abduction: Fine of $25,000 and up to three years in prison, which can be accounted as $50,233 per year (that was the median household income in 2007, probably down because of the economic crisis). Total: $175,699.

• Steal the CDs: A total of $275,000, $52,500 fine for the CDs.

• Steal a lawnmower from your neighbour: A total of $375,000.

• Burn someone’s house while playing The Doors: Another $375,000.

• Stalk a Gizmodo editor (yes, you know who you are): A Class 4 felony that will result in just $175,000.

• Start a dogfighting ring: $50,000.

• Murder someone on the second degree, a Class 1 felony: $778,495, which accounts for a $25,000 fine and four to 15 years in prison.

Ms. Thomas’ crime? She supposedly downloaded 1,700 songs.

Some-one please explain to me how in our society that this is anywhere near considered to be just.

Better to be a murderer or child abductor than pirate music files is a post from: The Inquisitr

Name any trade group that claims to represent songwriters and/or musicians and they well all tell you how they are all about making sure that the musicians are getting their fair share of money earned by their music. It’s a nice fallacy which I am sure helps record executives and trade group thugs sleep easy at night  but the truth of the matter is that money collected on their behalf very rarely makes it to them.

Lately a lot of noise has been made of a music service called Spotify and how it will let people listen to music for free as long as they don’t mind advertising mixed it; or they could pay for the service and not have to put up with the ads. The publicity around the service was that this was a legitimate that would make sure that the artist got their fair share unlike the thieves running sites like Pirate Bay.

The thing is this isn’t the case, or at least as far as Swedish artist and composer Magnus Uggla it isn’t. When he first came across Spotify he thought is was great, a free service that offers just about everything and because of the involvement of all the music labels – including his own, Sony BMG, there was a feeling that finally artists would start seeing reasonable payments for their music.

Experience has proved otherwise as Magnus says that his first earnings statement from Spotify made it quite apparent that a Busker (street musician) could earn more in one day than what Spotify and his label wanted to pay him for six months.

… Uggla was as surprised as most people when he learned last week that the major labels, including Sony, all have a stake in Spotify. A mere 30,000 kroner ($4,000) investment bought the company 5.8% of the service now valued at around 1.8 billion kroner ($251m).

Referring to the valuation, Uggla questions how this company can do so well – and comes to the conclusion that it’s at the artist’s expense. He says that Sony Music, after “suing the shit out of The Pirate Bay” is acting just like them by not paying the artists.

“I would rather be raped by Pirate Bay than by Hasse Breitholtz and Sony Music and will remove all of my songs from Spotify pending an honest service,” he says.

Source: TorrentFreak :: I’d Rather Be Raped By Pirate Bay Than Go With Spotify

The Internet might be a hard place for musicians to earn a living but at some point it has to be better than signing everything over to record companies who do nothing more than pimp out musicians and then pocket most of the money.

The farce of musicians actually getting paid is a post from: The Inquisitr

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has bankrupted PhD student Joel Tenenbaum after a Jury found him guilty of copyright infringement for downloading and sharing 30 songs over the KaZaA peer-to-peer network. The Judge then ordered Tenenbaum to pay $675,000 in damages to the RIAA, or $22,500 per song.

From Ars Technica, who have been covering the Tenenbaum vs. RIAA case for months:

When asked about the size verdict, Tenenbaum’s attorney and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson told Ars that “it’s a bankrupting award.” He also felt things might have been different had they been allowed to argue Fair Use. “We were not allowed to speak to fairness,” he told Ars. “I thought we had pretty damn good arguments on Fair Use.”

“I’m disappointed, but not surprised, but I’m thankful that it wasn’t much bigger, that it wasn’t millions,” Tenenbaum told Ars after the verdict was announced. We asked him if he regrets not settling earlier on in the process. “Ask me in a couple of months,” Tenenbaum replied. He also told Ars that he doesn’t have the ability to pay the judgment and said that he’d be filing for bankruptcy if the award stands. Although the jury found that he willfully infringed on the copyrights in question, Tenenbaum said he was “not displeased with the jury considering how the trial went.”

There were a lot of damning circumstances in Tenenbaum’s trial, not the leas of which was the fact that he admitted to deliberately downloading and distributing the music. He also admitted to lying in court documents – not something you want to be doing when dealing with a jury who can ruin your life – as Tenenbaum found out late Friday afternoon when the verdict came down after just 3 hours of deliberation.

At any rate, the RIAA has ruined Tenenbaum’s life in their bid to replace lost revenue with litigation as the music industry crumbles around them, and they just added another feather to their hat.

Let me ask you, Inquisitr readers: Do you have music on your computers or devices right now, or are you sharing songs via P2P?

If so, delete it. Now. And don’t replace it by buying the songs from an industry or artists who can and will cut your throat for being a fan.

RIAA wins $675,000 in Tenenbaum music sharing case is a post from: The Inquisitr