So here’s the latest and greatest from the EFFluviati—“sign the petition” says the link you find on various webpages:“EFF is the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world. Sign the petition to stop the RIAA lawsuits!” Well you don’t say, I thought. How high minded and pure souled. And I’d be […]

I must confess that it is a happy day for me when I get through 24 hours without hearing anyone say “the long tail”, reading yet another lionization of copyright pirates in Wired Magazine (See: “Shawn Hogan, Hero“), hearing the words China, India and advertising used in the same sentence as “save our industry”, or […]

A group of leading entertainment and technology companies have announced the “UGC Principles” that they wish to follow as industrywide standards. Absent—of course—is Google. There are many principles that the group of companies, including Microsoft, have agreed to follow. These companies—we might call them the Principled Group—adhere to one basic tenant, from which all others […]

“We really need the content community to work with us,” [the YouTube man] said. “We need them to help us help them.” YouTube is launching its video filtering tool and apparently the use of this tool requires copyright owners to upload videos, their entire libraries in fact, to Google’s database. Note the possessive in that […]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=479791&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source= Here’s a real-world example of the great “rise of the amateur” we hear so much about (debunked by Andrew Keen in the wonderful book The Cult of the Amateur). A musician downloaded free software and made a recording on his computer that according to one of those insane websites that thinks they can use […]

The recent New York Times piece about Rick Rubin has stirred discussion of the wisdom of subscription services. Unfortunately, that’s not the really important part of the article—the most profound discussion was Rick Rubin’s approach to making records. That part of the article should be required reading for every A&R person and also every record […]

I’m actually quite amazed by the number of people who come up to me around the country and encourage me to keep writing this blog. Most often these are independent artists, owners of small labels, independent publishers, managers and attorneys who work with new artists, the people who have always kept the music business alive. […]

If you are in the group of copyright owners who have not licensed YouTube (and your numbers are legion), think about this when a YouTube licensor (such as CBS Television or CNN) wants a license from you. YouTube has yet to come up with the way that they are going to account to copyright owners. […]