It’s been an interesting few months for Big Tech’s safe harbor protections under copyright law and the antonymous Communications Decency Act. These safe harbors are important to protect Big Tech’s income transfer also known as the “value gap,” but an often overlooked precursor to the effectiveness of safe harbor are the compliance requirements clearly spelled […]
In the end, what every incumbent wants is another term. And if they already struggle to field a winner as does the Pirate Party that may well face declining relevance and a situation where they lose their one seat in the next European Parliament election, who knows what compromises may get made and who knows what in-kind donations may surface.
Congressional Candidate Zephyr Teachout appears to have quietly resigned from controversial anti-artist lobby shop rather than answer questions from constituents. A weak start to her election campaign.
According to the Canalys research outfit, Google has taken the lead over Amazon for the first time in the acquisition of biometric identifying data–aka “smart speakers”. It should come as no surprise that Google is vastly more interested in acquiring voiceprints by which to identify users and track them through a variety of means.
We’ve all experienced the sneering smugness of the executives at YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Amazon looking down their noses at artists and labels (especially independents). (Never a problem with Apple in my experience, by the way, gee I wonder why.) But the ontological definition of smugness is often found in the smuggest of the smug–former […]
[This interview is one of the best statements of what signing and breaking a songwriter or an artist is all about. When I was reading Jody Gerson’s interview I remember when I asked David Anderle once why we didn’t do bidding wars at A&M. He said quite simply that A&M helped compelling artists make […]
Senator Mark Warner has released (or leaked) a comprehensive plan to combat fake news and foreign manipulation of the American electorate through Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, however appealing or appalling some of Senator Warner’s proposals are, it’s likely that he may just be expanding the game of whack-a-mole that Silicon Valley loves so much. We’ve seen […]
Since the earliest days of MTP, we’ve been pushing what has come to be called the “value gap”–the margin of profit that Big Tech makes from playing games with the DMCA safe harbor (and the Section 230 safe harbor in the Communications Decency Act). In 2006 we called this “The DMCA is Not an Alibi” […]
SoundExchange’s CEO says it’s time radio starts paying all music creators fairly for their work. On Monday, a group of radio broadcasters penned a letter in support of the National Association of Broadcasters’ (NAB) push for deregulation of the $14 billion radio industry. Their letter was based on the NAB’s petition to the FCC this […]
David Crosby was in this band called The Byrds which covered “Mr. Tambourine Man” aka Bob Dylan’s first #1 hit as a songwriter. Then he was in another band called Crosby Stills Nash & Young. He’s done a lot of other things, too, but I mention those two bands because each of those bands were […]
Music Technology Policy 
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