AP Accelerating It’s Own Demise with Misguided Plans

Today’s blogs are all afire writing about the latest twist in the AP’s comical and borderline pathetic attempts to shore up its broken and obsolete business model: charging outrageous fees to anyone looking to quote FIVE WORDS OR MORE from an AP article.

Should you read an AP article and want to quote it in a blog post you are asked to click on a “copyright use” link that leads you to this:

Now, I don’t want to guess what the AP thinks it can charge me for using this image.  The fact is, just because they charge doesn’t change the principle of “fair use” and this image is being used so that I can critique it’s absurdity.

The bigger problem, if you are the AP, is that everything about this policy is counter to the way information is consumed and shared in the modern, digital age.  The AP can bitch and moan all they want to about the “good old days” but that doesn’t make time move backwards.

As the ability for people to  both gather and distribute news around the globe grows, the question is not what will the AP do in some misguided attempt to protect its work from being shared but why do we really need the AP at all.  If the AP disappeared tomorrow news would continue to be reported and most people wouldn’t notice anything had happened.

That’s not a good sign for the AP.

Related articles by Zemanta

• I for one welcome AP’s war on links and fair use (inquisitr.com)
• By The AP’s Own Logic, The AP Ripped Off Obama (techdirt.com)
• Quote 5 Words From the Associated Press? That’ll Be $12.50 (mashable.com)

Are the Fine Arts Exempt from Copyright Lawsuits?

While groups like the RIAA and the MPAA do everything in their power to stamp out creativity in the name of protecting some glorified sense of intellectual property, it looks like painters are having no problem profiting from work that clearly borrows the images of previously copyrighted content.

A great example of this is the Crazy 4 Cult 3-D Artwork show put on by Gallery1988.  All the work in the show was based on a number of cult film favorites including “Edward Scissorhands” and “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”  Below is an example of one of many paintings based on “The Big Lebowski”

Now, there is absolutely no question that this is The Dude himself and one highly doubts that the artist, Misha, would have been able to sell the painting for $800.00 if it was just some random guy, instead.

So, here’s the question: why is this work protected but not, say, the work of musical mashup DJs?  Both are creating original work from existing content and both benefit from the public awareness of the underlying works.  Or how about the ridiculous case of J.D. Salinger suing to stop publication of a book that explores the character of Holden Caufield as an old man?

The point is that we’ve truly lost our way in terms of copyright law.  While creativity and technology have come together to allow for an exponential growth in the reach of diversity of new art the lawyers and those paying their wages are doing everything in their power to shut down the whole process.

The Music File-Sharing Dilemma Revisited

So, here is a simple example of why groups like RIAA and groups like, say, the general public, are butting heads in and out of court over the issue of “sharing” music.

Let’s rewind to, say, 1986.  I was a freshman in high school.  My buddy was trying to school me on some more alternative tunes and made me a mixtape of stuff including things like The Dead Kennedys and Captain Beefheart.  Cool stuff.  Really opened up my idea of popular music.

Now, RIAA would not have liked my friend’s behavior but because it happened in a physical exchange between two private citizens there isn’t much anyone could or would do about it.

Cut to today.  You just heard an amazing band and you want to tell all your friends about it.  You buy a copy of their album and immediately put up a link to your favorite song on your Facebook feed.  Bam!  You are now an illegal file-sharer under the eyes of the current law, at least as the RIAA would like it to be interpreted.

Far from trying to undercut record sales, you were just trying to help promote a band you love.

That’s where heads start to butt.  Where do we draw the line between the very human (and economically beneficial) act of sharing and the clearly illegal line of distributing content to which you do not hold the rights?

This is a battle we are going to see fought in the music world first, but the same discussions hold true for film, TV and even the mainstream press.

The internet has made the act of sharing, sometime with millions of “friends” as easy as pressing a button.  The thing is, most people still feel that when they do that it is just sharing and nothing more.

MacGyver Should Sue MacGruber. Right?

Considering the way that judges have been ruling lately, seemingly bending over backwards in an effort to “protect” intellectual copyrights against evil writers (see: J.D. Salinger v. John David California), musicians (see: GirlTalk) and artists (see: Shepard Fairey) I am waiting for the next law suit to be filed in MacGyver v. MacGruber.

See, MacGyver was a TV from the 80’s where a guy would somehow extricate himself from a bad jam with nothing more than a stick of gum, a ballpoint pen and his belt.

MacGruber is a Saturday Night Live skit in which Will Forte plays a guy who tries to do exactly what MacGyver did, but fails.

Now, there would be absolutely no entertainment value at all to MacGruber if it weren’t for the existence of MacGyver.  One could easily argue that the producers of MacGruber should pay the producers of MacGyver for having taken their premise and turning it into a mockery.

Of course, MacGruber is a parody and should be protected from such a law suit.

In fact, I’ll bet the MacGruber people are already figuring out how much it is going to cost.

Girl Talk Deconstructed Makes Strong Case as Original Work

Wired has created a really cool graphic that deconstructs all of the tracks sampled in a single song created by “mash-up” artist extrordinaire Girl Talk.

If the old-world gang of the RIAA et. al. would like you to believe that this combination of samples is, in fact, a copyright infringement of every single artist sampled and that Girl Talk should be stopped, sued and probably drawn and quartered.

If one can’t see how this re-use of existing materials hasn’t resulted in a wholly new piece of art then all art will have to be classified as theft.  I mean, if I use the 2×4 I got at Home Depot to build a stool, should I pay a royalty to Home Depot in addition to the original cost of the wood I rightfully purchased?

MPAA Wonders Why Public Views Them (and RIAA) So Poorly

There is a devestating post in response to comments made by Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and senior policy adviser for the MPAA at the World Copyright Summit, who said:

”The enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic, and they always talk about the need for balance.”   LINK

ZeroPaid’s Drew Wilson asks, “Gee, why would the public view them as antogonistic?” He then answers with a few possibilities:

…destroying Napster and Audio Galaxy and not creating an alternative for the get-go, raiding people’s homes because they uploaded Star Wars (not necessarily leaking it in the first place), hacking the URN hash and polluting FastTrack, hacking The Pirate Bay, having Viacom serve DMCA notices to people posting video’s of people eating in a restaurant on YouTube, suing tens of thousands of average American’s including fining one individual $222,000 for sharing a couple songs, saying that files in a shared directory is copyright infringement in court, saying that evidence is too hard to get and that the industry shouldn’t be burdened to prove their cases in court, suggesting that iPods are little more than little pirate ships…

And that’s just  a taste of the entire post.  When people of the future look back at how the massive entertainment industries of the late-20th Century crumbled, this post would be a good starting point.

Best Rebuttal Ever to the Three-Strike Internet Laws

Just a short post to point out the brilliance of Ed Felten’s satiric proposal that France should extend its online three-strike law to the world of print:

My proposed system is simplicity itself. The government sets up a registry of accused infringers. Anybody can send a complaint to the registry, asserting that someone is infringing their copyright in the print medium. If the government registry receives three complaints about a person, that person is banned for a year from using print.

As in the Internet case, the ban applies to both reading and writing, and to all uses of print, including informal ones. In short, a banned person may not write or read anything for a year.

If you haven’t been following this issue, France is on its way to signing a bill into law that would require ISP’s to ban people from the internet for one year if they are accused of downloading copyrighted content more than three times.  Yes, accused of downloading, not convicted of it.

Read the whole post here.

RIAA’s Battle Against Pirates HURTS Music Sales

It seems that a day doesn’t go by that more evidence emerges that RIAA’s battle against music piracy is both ineffective and ill-advised.

Today’s bit of news is the sort of data that just leaves me scratching my head.  According to a new study conducted by Angus Reid Strategies on Canadian music habits:

While the survey found that downloading still exceeds paid downloads, those downloading were also more likely to buy a CD (41 percent to 34 percent for non-downloaders) and more likely to have attended a concert in the past year (65 percent to 52 percent for non-downloaders).

That’s right.  The very same people RIAA wants fined and potentially jailed are their industry’s best customers!

Honestly, it makes my head hurt to think about how completely misguided RIAA and the music industry have become.

(via)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is The RIAA’s Record About To Be Smashed To Bits? (dvorak.org)

Feds Want to Jail Guns n Roses Album Leaker

In yet another completely over-zealous attempt to stop those evil pirates from destroying the music industy, the US Attory General is not satisfied with the crazy $30,000 in fines Kevin Cogill is being made to pay for leaking a copy of Guns n Roses latest album onto the internet before its official release:

The prosecutor in the case is demanding prison time, even though the probation department recommended a sentence of probation. Why? The U.S. Attorney’s Office says probation won’t adequately protect the music industry: “The recommendation does not reflect — or discuss — the gravity of the offense and will do nothing to deter other would-be leakers in this rapidly expanding threat to the music industry,” the prosecutor argued in papers filed with the court.

Let’s put aside the fact that this is a losing (or lost) battle that the Feds are fighting on the behalf of RIAA.  Instead, let’s consider how successful a similar approach against drug users and small-time dealers has been in curbing drug use.

The whole situation is infuriating.  It makes no sense that the US government is wasting tax-payer dollars trying to “send a message” on behalf of a group, RIAA, that is currently being counter-sued for lovely things like intimidation and using false evidence.  Not only that, but considering there probably isn’t an album out there that hasn’t found its way to a P2P site (often after being “leaked” by a member of the band or even of a label b/c it boosts sales) it seems unfair to prosecute Cogill in this way.

(via MediaPost)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Major Labels Struggle to Survive (beatcrave.com)
• Is The RIAA’s Record About To Be Smashed To Bits? (dvorak.org)

MPAA Claims Piracy Supports Terrorism and Other Fantasies

There is a new report out sponsored by the MPAA that claims that there is a significant link between film piracy and terrorism and that terrorist groups fund efforts via piracy.

TorrentFreak does a great job debunking this study. The biggest problem they find is that “piracy” is lumped in with “counterfeiting” and they are just not the same thing:

‘Piracy’ in this context tends to refer mostly to digitally representable items, while counterfeit goods can run the gamut from aircraft parts, to cigarettes. In France, you can’t sell certain brands of handbag on eBay easily, because they might be counterfeit. Fake aircraft parts (which don’t meet specs) are a major problem for the airline industry (also counterfeiting) and fake cigarettes are a commonly seized item at international borders. If you want another example, just look no further than your spam folder – count the number of Viagra, and other medications you are offered – all counterfeit.

It is also disheartening to see that the movie industry would still rather fund reactionary, one-sided studies that support their mythical claims than to help develop new business models that will allow them to compete and flourish in the digital age.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sources: AT&T;, Comcast likely to help RIAA foil piracy (news.cnet.com)
• If Piracy Is Destroying The Movie Business, Why Is The Box Office Surging? (techdirt.com)