Petition against Copyright extension.

If you are involved in any way with the music business, I can not stress the importance of this petition.
If you know what its on about, sign it.
If you don't know - read up here, & then sign it.

To explain in simple terms.
Current copyright for music in the UK is for 50 years.
Long enough for the artist to profit from their work.
The 'industry' wants to extend this to 95 years.
Why is this bad? - because music is a tangible part of a society.
If you excessively limit its use, it is detrimental to those who follow.
Why do you think you never hear the song 'Happy Birthday to you' in films? Its copyrighted to an American owner who charges excessively for its use.
Surely a piece of music so ingrained into our culture, should, after a reasonable amount of time, make its way into our shared pool of culture.

The Machine is using us.

A nice video explaining Web 2.0 and some of the implications.
Yes - I know its geeky - but since your connected to it, you may as well understand some of whats going on.

Another detailed, but much less amusing video here.

Thanx David

Trent Reznor and Saul Williams Show the Music Industry How to Release an Album Online

Journos and music fans from all corners fawned over Radiohead for their bold release strategy for In Rainbows. After breaking with the majors, Trent Reznor and his parter-in-crime Saul Williams are taking that strategy and stepping it up to the next level of awesome. Saul's new Trent-produced album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust is now available two ways: Free or $5.

Digital Downloads

Canadian Study: Piracy Boosts CD Sales

University of London researchers, Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz surveyed a large group of Canadians to find out what the effect of piracy is on music sales. The results are surprising, at least, for the music industry.

Torrent Freak

Jammie Thomas: her story in her own words

Ive blogged about this before, and I'm so glad Ms. Thomas has had an opportunity to tell her side of the story.
The RIAA has been indiscriminately suing people for Copyright infringement, using some very dubious practices, and a high disregard for Judicial Process.

I was found liable of copyright infringement without the plaintiffs having to prove I downloaded anything, without having to prove I was aware of any file sharing taking place on my computer or within my home, without having to prove I owned a copy of KaZaa, without having to prove any files were shared with anyone from my computer and without having to prove who was on the computer the night of February 21, 2005.

Jamie Thomas p2pnet.net

MediaDefender Emails Disprove MPAA Claims

Brokep, one of the Pirate Bay founders told TorrentFreak earlier that they decided to file complaints because they want to make these big media companies aware of their own wrong doings: “I want them to take their crappy methods and stop their wrong-doing. They are going around accusing the pirate community for doing immoral stuff, when they do illegal stuff,” he said.

It will be interesting to see how this case develops. One thing is for sure, it will be hard for these media companies to deny their involvement with these emails as evidence.

Torrent Freak

Most Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking

Online privacy is vastly overestimated, as ad networks and marketers track surfers, study reports.
Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld

P2P anonymity

P2P researchers: use a blocklist or you will be tracked!

The old cliché "You're not paranoid if they really are out to get you" turns out to apply quite nicely to the world of P2P file-sharing. A trio of intrepid researchers from the University of California-Riverside decided to see just how often a P2P user might be tracked by content owners. Their startling conclusion: "naive" users will exchange data with such "fake users" 100 percent of the time.

Ars Technica

Major Act defecting from the Majors

Following on from my post about the Yahoo Music Exec telling the Majors to stuff DRM, we have news of Major Acts such as RadioHead & NIN being quite happy with no Record Company involvment.

DRM is an insidious technology that restricts your ability to do what you wish with the things you have bought. Some companies actually remove rights you had purchased when they ... er ... update you.

Lets hope that the Major Record companies (& other interest) learn from this debacle and realise that not treating your customers like criminals can be beneficial to business.

"Radiohead's management says that the free-download experiment is working out very well so far, driving an 11-fold traffic boost to the band's Web site and converting plenty of those hits into sales of premium boxed sets for £40 a pop."

Yahoo exec tells Majors to stuff DRM

Finaly, some one in the business stands up to the majors & tells them to stuff it!

I'm here to tell you today that I for one am no longer going to fall into this trap. If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I'm not interested. Do what you feel you need to do for your business, I'll be polite, say thank you, and decline to sign. I won't let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don't have any more time to give and can't bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value. Life's too short. I want to delight consumers, not bum them out.

Yahoo Music to record execs: No more DRM, ever


UPDATE - Madonna also quits the majors
Music Industry Launches Four-Pronged Effort to Destroy Itself

Record Companies stiff woman over mp3s

The RIAA has won its court case against an American woman for making mp3s available across the net. (Kaazaa).

Copyright law is, as Berkeley law professor Pam Samuelson points out, way too verbose; it's now swollen to an unbelievable 200 pages long. It's complex, incomprehensible, designed to favor large copyright holders over defendants, and thoroughly out of touch with reality.

[Link]

Update - Juror aparently has never been on the Internet - Opens up questions about the trial.

Pirate Bay pwns Media Defender

Not that I fully condone Pirate Bay, but I condone less the actions of the American Media companies putting strangleholds on technology for their own ends.

Background - A few days ago - somebody - ahem - discovered a large portion of mail belonging to a company called Media Defender.
Media Defender are hired by the majors to disrupt P2P & other file sharing networks, and these mails detail the downright illegal methods of doing this.
Subsequently, the Pirate Bay has taken it upon themselves to (counter) sue Media Defender for their illegal activities in Sweden.

I have a feeling that this ain't over yet !

[Link]

Good Back Ground Article from Torrent Freak

Cory discuss' Piracy

Cory Doctrow now writing a tech column for 'the Guardian' UK newspaper.

Just as the industrial economy wasn't based on making it harder to get access to machines, the information economy won't be based on making it harder to get access to information. Indeed, the opposite seems to be true: the more IT we have, the easier it is to access any given piece of information — for better or for worse.

[Link]

US copyright database

Well - something to do with the theme of this blog. Apparently the US copyright database is copyrighted, and costs money to access.
That's really going to encourage innovation.

[Link]

Madchester Documentary

What looks like a good documentary about Madchester & the indominatable Anthony "H" Wilson.

[Link]


Note to self - must find the other part of this.

This Film is Not Yet Rated

If you have any interest in Intellectual Property & Copyright Law, then this film is a must see. A look at the inner workings of the MPAA - the people who decide what is healthy for you to watch.

[Link]

And for a quick follow up.

[Link]

Video Interview with The Pirate Bay

An interesting & coherent interview with Brokep, a founder member of The Pirate Bay.

[Link]

Interview with Ubuntu Founder

Rather fantastic & in depth discussion with the founder of the Ubuntu Foundation.

[Link]

Important British Copyright Issue

It would seem a number of MPs have taken it upon temselves to sign an an Early Day Motion calling for extension to current copyright protection.
Which is a shame as the Gower Report & the EU have already mulled it over and recommend keeping the current terms.

Simply put
Current UK copyright law permits you rights over your creation for 50 years.
After that , the work enters the public domain.
The theory being that 50 years should be adequate for you & your family to profit from the work, but after that it becomes in the public interest to have the work freely available.
A case can be made for extensions in certain cases, however, what is being proposed here is a blanket, retrospective extension up to 95 years.
The problem with a blanket ban is that only a few works benefit. 90% percent of old material will languish on unsafe storage mediums, & eventualy be lost to future generations.
I agree that in the light of modern communications major reforms of copyright are required, but these reforms need to be balanced between benefits to the artist AND the larger communtiy, not rushed through by lobbyist pressure on MPs that are blatently ignorant of all current thinking on this matter.

[Link]

A good Backgrounder at Wired

EU Slams the Idea

Frank Zappa on Crossfire

Strangely dated, yet frightningly relevant. Frank Zappa gives some old duffers a run for their money during a censorship debate.

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