A recent blog post on The Trichordist has sparked some debate about how much artists can control advertising on pirate sites that rip off their work.  This post will consider contract rights that artists have and how these rights to approve advertising can achieve that end.  A particularly important topic raised by Ari Emanuel at the recent […]

I did an interview this week with Amy Vallancourt-Sal of Classical Revolution PDX (Portland, OR) about the current state of classical music and also about Amy’s post regarding Amanda Palmer’s employment relationship with some of her musicians.  That story was moving faster than either of us thought–the day I posted the interview, Amanda Palmer “found the money” […]

Digital Music News has an interesting story about the op-ed by Ray Hair, president of the American Federation of Musicians, calling out Tim Westergren’s latest lobbying trip to Washington (this week).  For the benefit of the Valley Boys, the AFM is a union, you remember those?  Those are the things you don’t have in Silicon […]

When the European Commission’s Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia first started settlement discussions with Google regarding its dominant position and bad behavior toward competitors in Europe, he expressed a preference for a settlement over a “Statement of Objections” (essentially a finding by the Commission that Google likely violated the European antitrust law and ought to change its business). He said: […]

WASHINGTON, DC  –  Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) spoke today about a destructive illegal escort service app. Google listened, and then did the right thing, removing the app from the Google-hosted Android marketplace. Earlier today, Congresswoman Maloney was notified about an app marketed under the name “Utoopi”, designed to be used for locating escorts using mobile […]

Attention MSM: This is what journalism looks like. Redstate’s Breeanne Howe went after Google yesterday and blasted the company for distributing the Utoopi app.  Today, Google got triangulated when Firedoglake’s Jane Hamsher covered the Utoopi story.  Hamsher brought the story to the attention of Representative Carolyn Maloney who earlier this year co-signed with Representative Marsha Blackburn a letter […]

Recall the Android Market “Utoopi” app that we wrote about recently–the one that was clearly labeled “JOIN THE SEX CLUB“? Breeanne Howe writing in Redstate (“Google Profits From Sex Trafficking“) reported on the story and added some highly relevant additional facts: In response [to a formal letter from Reps. Marsha Blackburn and Carolyn Maloney about Google-supported sex […]

I’ve been reading some of the coverage on Amanda Palmer’s efforts to tour.  (Frankly, I have never listened to her music which could be great.  Update: I watched her latest video which was really cool visually.)  What’s funny about all this to me is that no one has said that what’s happening is a symptom of what […]