Originally posted on The Trichordist:
Artists have taken note of the recent legislative activity in the European Union regarding “orphan works”. The European Union defines these works as “works like books, newspaper and magazine articles and films that are still protected by copyright but whose authors or other rightholders are not known or cannot be located…
Month: December 2012
Originally posted on The Trichordist:
We at the Trichordist are expecting another push at so-called “orphan works” legislation in the U.S. Congress during the upcoming legislative session. We take a dim view of the “orphan works” theory–it seems to be yet another way of undermining copyright through a back-door safe harbor. If the last effort…
The MTP Top Posts of 2012
How Do Spotify and Other Revenue Share Services Calculate Royalties? The Future for Television or Google Wants to Burn Your Remote: More Google Union-Busting The next time you are asked to play for free… Smoke on the Water Part 2: What’s in a “locker”? A Good Deal To Do: Pandora Doubles Down Against Creators, Now Strikes At Songwriters But it’s […]
The Piracy-Pandora Connection: Can the Super Bowl, Oscars and Grammys Move the Needle on Brand Supported Piracy?
The Seattle Weekly’s Chris Kornelis has a thoughtful article today asking why artists came together to oppose the so-called Internet Radio Fairness Act but haven’t consistently been a united front against the unprecedented levels of online theft we’re all too familiar with (read “It’s Time for Artists to Fight Piracy as Vigorously as They’ve Challenged […]
Cramdown Part 3: War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength and Search is Neutral
The hoopla over the FTC investigation of Google frames one of the most important questions for consumers: Does Google hardwire search results? Google’s explanation for this has gone all over the map over several years. Eric Schmidt denied that Google cooked the books in his testimony before the US Senate Antitrust Subcommittee (that the Senators did not believe); Google […]
Cramdown Part 2: Thanks to State AG’s, “Looks Like Google Might Not Be Getting That Sweetheart Deal From the FTC”
According to All Things D, it “Looks Like Google Might Not Be Getting That Sweetheart Deal From the FTC” after all. That headline says it all, but the big news outlets are confirming the story from the New York Times to the Washington Post, to even the usually docile tech reporters at Politico. After reading […]
Cramdown Part 1: Google Attemps to Use FTC “Non-Settlement” As an Antitrust Cramdown for Unrelated State Cases
This story is evolving, but Google is desperately trying to force the FTC to close–as in closed and never to return–one of the long standing investigations into Google’s more odious business practices by the end of this week. And here’s the kicker–not with a consent decree imposing terms on the rogue company, but with a “letter” […]
FTC Treats Google With Kid Gloves and No Transparency
According to MLex, the Federal Trade Commission is preparing to allow Google to submit a non-binding letter that will describe a few things Google is willing to do to get out of the pesky FTC investigation into its business. Bowing and scraping to Google…well, maybe not scraping…the FTC is taking an unprecedentedly lax approach that […]
10 Minutes for Creative Commons: After 10 Years, It Still Seems to Cost A Lot of Money for Google-Backed Creative Commons to Give Things Away for Free
[Editor Charlie sez: This post from 2012 is worth revisiting.] Creative Commons Corporation is celebrating its 10 year anniversary with a 10 day celebration–Lessig declares 10 days of bread and circuses, panem et circenses for the Commoners. So how are they doing? MTP readers will recall the rather extraordinary flaws in the Creative Commons Corporation “license” from mischaracterizing […]
Tax Dodger Amazon Now Fighting Justice in the UK, Small Bookseller Mounts Change.org Petition Drive
Eric Schmidt referred to the New Tech Oligarchs as the “Gang of Four”: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and, of course, Google. With the exception of Apple, all of these companies play a commoditization game and use their lobbying and litigation muscle to run roughshod over anyone–including governments–that get in their way. We’ve seen this time and […]
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