Month: October 2016

Written by Chris Castle

Librarian of Congress Fails to Alert Oversight Committees of Massive Abuse of Copyright Loophole by Google and Amazon to Use Songs Without Paying U.S. or Foreign Songwriters 

The Librarian of Congress? You may ask what in the world does the Librarian of Congress have to do with the music business? The answer is–more than you might think, mostly due to the fact that the U.S. Copyright Office is under the direct and total control of the Librarian. The recently installed Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, seems more than willing to look the other way when crony capitalists with Obama Administration influence come calling.

Written by Chris Castle

And Your Little Dog, Too: The Librarian of Congress Gives Us A Lesson in Constructive Termination

Remember when the Librarian of Congress issued a press release about how Maria Pallante was being promoted from the Register of Copyrights to something that sounded awfully functionary–and not a promotion.  I don’t know how the Librarian runs things, but it’s not exactly industry standard to lock someone out of their email account when you’re […]

Written by Editor Charlie

@musictechpolicy Revisited: Welcome to State Sponsored Theft: Iceland is Becoming a Pirate Utopia (from 2013) — Artist Rights Watch

This MusicTechPolicy.com post from April 28, 2013 may be worth reviewing given the news that Lessig is about to take over the Icelandic government through his Pirate Party vehicle. The latest Wikileaks release shows the contempt in which Lessig is held by leading progressives and the Clinton Campaign (not to mention Lessig pal Zephyr Teachout) […]

Written by Chris Castle

Google and Amazon Leverage Copyright Loophole to Use Songs Without Paying Songwriters

Two vastly wealthy multinational media companies are exploiting a copyright law loophole to sell the world’s music without paying royalties to the world’s songwriters on millions–millions–of songs. Why? Because Google and Amazon–purveyors of Big Data–claim they “can’t” find contact information for song owners in a Google search. So these two companies are exploiting songs without […]

Written by Chris Castle

Save the Date! Oct 13 in LA MUSIC 2020 Panel at @AIMPorg

I’m looking forward to participating on a great panel on fixing our future in the music business, moderated by the brilliant Dr. Gigi Johnson, founder and executive director of the UCLA Center for Music Innovation. Music 2020: Recreating Music’s Future will be a lunch time panel held on October 13 in Los Angeles under the […]

Written by Editor Charlie

Big Tech’s Latest Artist Relations Debacle: Mass Filings of NOIs to Avoid Paying Statutory Royalties (Part 3) — Music Tech Solutions

As we saw in parts 1 and 2 of this post, New Boss companies like Google are playing on a loophole in the Copyright Act’s compulsory license for songs to shirk responsibility for song licensing from the songwriters or other copyright owners, get out of paying royalties and stop songwriters from auditing. Not only have […]

Written by Chris Castle

YouTube Will Drive Lyor Crazy

Lyor Cohen is going to run YouTube Music. My prediction is that in a year, he will not have been able to accomplish much of anything. This is not because of Lyor who is one of the best we’ve had in the music business. It’s because of the way Google operates and who is really in control. And that will drive Lyor crazy.