The Devils in the Details: Ghostwriter Sues

DETROIT (AP) - A Michigan composer has filed a copyright claim for music used for episodes of the TV   programs "Xena: Warrior Princess,""Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and "Young Hercules." Dan Kolton, 43, of Ferndale, (Michigan) was a ghostwriter for Oakland County resident Joe LoDuca. The music lists LoDuca as the only composer.

Now Kolton wants credit, legal copyright and the right to collect royalties on the music he wrote. Kolton said Wednesday that when he began working on the TV shows, it wasn't  clear that he would be a ghostwriter and would not be credited. He was paid for his work, he said, but there was no written agreement about compensation. "I didn't realize until fairly recently that I had a legal way to deal with what  I thought was right in the first place," Kolton said. "I didn't realize there was anything I could do about it." (more...)

11:05:05 PM    

Well Janis, Here's Your Proof

I've always respected Janis Ian for her talent, brains and her family devotion, long before she took the music industry on with her article called "THE INTERNET DEBACLE - AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW," which she wrote of the niche trade Performing Songwriter Magazine, in May 2002.

The article proved to the rest of the world, Janis Ian is an intellegent voice for the independent music industry as well as the older or seasoned talent who rarely gets airplay. She isn't the only professional musician and songwriter I know whom I have personally heard this from before. Janis' articles and the way she has conducted herself in this debate has also proved to me that Janis, like a number of seasoned music business folks, has more than her share of common sense.  That makes you a jewel in this world Janis!

Yesterday Dave mentioned in Scripting News: The "SJ Merc interviews Janis Ian. "She credits Napster and its progeny with sparking renewed interest in her music, at a time when she can't be heard on contemporary-hit-obsessed radio stations. And she says her decision to offer free music downloads had done the opposite of what the industry predicts it would do: It caused a 300 percent spike in merchandise sales."

Well I'm not surprised. However it was difficult to prove. Or the recording industry called it a freak accident. Well is appears it isn't.

Today I hand you the proof Janis is right-- Bill Rose and the crew over at Arbitron and the Edison Media Research group has released the news that they have just completed a study which shows as broadband connections grow, the number of people who listen to Internet Radio is increasing. Those listeners are buying more CD's per year-- nearly double.

I don't know about you, but this type of proof makes the recording industry look more and more customer unfriendly.

More on this later. 

2:22:21 PM    

The Devil is In the Details

CARP Sticks a Fork in Internet Radio.

Tonight it came to my attention that Kurt Hanson has been tracking the number of webcasters and internet radio stations going offline since the Final CARP Decision made by the Library of Congress on June 20, 2002. This decision issued a determination on proposed performance royalties webcasters will be forced to pay record companies and artists for the right to stream their music on the Internet. It is a fact of life that this royalty rate is so high that it will bankrupt the independant and college stations you have listened to in the past.  

Here is the list of silenced stations by CARP as of July 11, 2002 (source Kurthanson.com)

Public Stations now off line: KWJC-MO; WRSU-NJ; WERS-MA; KTSW-TX; WSUM-WI; WSTB-OH; WONB-OH; WXOU-MI; WZIP-OH; WUTK-TN; KDIC-IA; KETR-TX; WSBF-SC; WRMC-VT; KSDS-CA; WNYU-NY; WSUW-WI; WEVL-TN; KRCL-UT; WSRN-PA; KXCI-AZ; WUVT-VA; KSJS-CA; KDHX-MI; WPTS-PA; KBCS-WA; WMHW-MI; KBVR-OR; KXRJ-AR; WDWN-NY

Silenced iM Network affiliates: Zydeco to the Bone; Nuevo Wave-O; Jazzeteria; Altrok.com; Celtic to the Bone; Extra Smooth Symphonie; Melancholia; Qawwali-On-Demand; 60s RnB to the Bone; Just Classic Rock; All Top40 Hits; Piecemeal; Swing Central; Cafe Twilight; Jazz to the Bone; Drone Sickness; Gospel to the Bone; Truly Cool, Cool Jazz; 400 Years of Hits

Jazz to the Bone; Hot Bubblegum 100; Dream Chamber; Modern A Cappella; African to the Bone; Hillbilly Radio; Cajun N Country to the Bone; X-tra Energy Dance; World Intensity; New Orleans to the Bone; Modern Rock Hits; Rastaman's Reggae

MainLine Rock; Latin to the Bone; House Party; Love Field; Planet Musiquarium; The Breakbeat Jungle; Succubus; Bollywood; Club Reggae; Hyperspace; Murder, Betrayal and Redemption; Top RnB Hits; ChitrapatSangeet; Resonant Radio; Sweet Revenge

Female Voices; Old Dawg Country; EnginesOfReagan; Lovecats; Muddy Channel; Movie Music; Adventures In Radio; Truly Alternative; Alt Songsters to the Bone; Spacerant; Trance-ilvania; Vox Radium; 50s RnB to the Bone; Box O Bone's; Digitalis; darcade; Not AA Radio; Busted Heart Radio; Shuaku No Bi; Hillbilly Radio; Kickin' Kountry; Cyberspace Sonata; Solvent Loud Radio.

What can you do? 

Congress leaves for Summer Recess July 26, the Senate leaves August 2, 2002: so time is short. A group of webcasters and industry trade groups have formed VOW Voice on Webcasters. The site is a common ground for people to gather information from a supposed central source. At the moment the site is lacking a considerable amount historical information prior to the CARP Decision, however it does have one jewel worth following--

It allows anyone to fax their U.S. Congressmen and Senators a letter regarding the silencing of Internet Radio for free. Pass this information along to your friends and associates, please.

3:53:48 AM    

CARP: Radio Stations Appeal Internet Royalty Decision

Reuter's is reporting that the Radio stations have asked a federal appeals court to rule that they do not have to pay musicians and recording companies when they play music on the Internet because they do not pay royalties for regular over-the-air broadcasts.

The ball is now officially in play. The appeal was filed by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB,) and Bonneville International Corp., Clear Channel Communications Inc, Cox Radio Inc, Emmis Communications Corp, Entercom Communications Corp and Susquehanna Radio Corp. None of which has a record label, I believe.

The webcasters have not joined this appeal. Nor have they filed their own court case-- yet. I suspect it's coming very soon. RIAA has made no comment yet.

It is going to be a hot summer in the Court House this summer!

1:29:33 PM    

The Devil's in The Details: Intellectual Property and the Internet

This is a collection of what's been happening over the past several days in the Intellectual Property - Internet World.

1. US Dept of Commerce: "On July 17, 2002, the Technology Administration will host a Public Workshop on Digital Entertainment and Rights Management. This Workshop will bring together leaders from the information technology and content industries to address the status of technical standards that provide the framework necessary to enable legitimate digital media distribution and the present state of strengths, weaknesses and availability of current and imminent technological solutions to protect digital content, barriers that are inhibiting movies, music and games from coming online. In preparation for this workshop, the Technology Administration invites public comment." We need to get the REAL PUBLIC to comment on this now.
   
   
2. The Final Rule and Order of the Library of Congress Copyright office on the Determination of Reasonable Rates and Terms for the Digital Performance of Sound Recordings and Ephemeral Recordings was submitted to the Federal Register on Monday. As Doc says: "Here's the tea. There's the harbor. Have at it."  All I can add is: Amen.
   
   

3. Rep. Rick Boucher chided the music industry in his keynote speech from Jupiter's PlugIn conference. He spoke about multiple anti-customer initiatives, CD protection, DMCA, copyright extensions, etc. He rightly pointed out that all the technical and legal efforts are actually only serving to push people toward free file-sharing services.
   
   Of course, Hilary Rosen, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America disagrees. Why am I getting the opinion Rosen is so disconnected from the artists and the customers, she is hopeless? Or is she a victim of her own PR?  Jenny's got a good opinion on the situation here.

4. Doc has asked the question: Do these webcasting fees only apply to acts signed to RIAA labels?  The answer to this is actually not well known, but something I "found" during the Town Hall Webcast on CARP-- Sound Exchange was formed by the RIAA as a non-profit agency of the RIAA to act as a designated "agent" for the industry. Sound Exchange/RIAA made some arrangement with the Library of Congress to be named (designated) Agent to receive the CARP funds for all artists. It was also stated that Sound Exchange would be charged with the mission of trying to find every artist or their estate who was entitled to received the fees. This included artists who were unsigned with any record company/label,  minus a percentage for handling the transaction, of course.
   
   This leads me to ask two questions: 1. How much effort will Sound Exchange make to "find" the unsigned artists? 2. How long will the LOC allow Sound Exchange to sit on undistributed fees (earning interest of course) before they get to keep it? Or give it back to the LOC?

5. As I reported earlier Time Warner Cable in NYC is sending nastygrams to cable customers who are sharing their WiFi with their friends and neighbors. Who in the hell appointed AOL/TW god this month? Oh yeah, these are the wizkids who told us it was "stealing" to not watch the commericals when we Tivo shows. Tell 'em to go to hell. [See Mary Lu bite the hand that feeds used to feed her.]

John Robb's quote: Did a Time Warner VP really say this?

"By having an open transmission, it leaves you really vulnerable," Digeso said. "If you have a Wi-Fi connection in a public park, what would stop, God forbid, a child pornographer or, God forbid, a terrorist using that network?

Yep. And AOL used to get worried to when Steve Case opened his mouth in public, because it would come back to bite them in the butt. Looks like they have something new to worry about. 

2:45:23 PM    

Vivendi Universal To Allow Music File Burning
And the music companies said they weren't interested in allowing customers to burn their own CD's...

Even as media conglomerate Vivendi Universal struggles with its corporate issues, the company's music arm announced that it would work with its digital music operation to offer subscription music downloads, reports Reuters.

Universal Music Group, the world's largest music company, said it would offer the content of about 1,000 of its albums, primarily from its back catalog, through EMusic.com, a unit of Vivendi Universal Net USA.

The titles from Universal Music would be integrated into EMusic's service, which offers unlimited access to over 200,000 songs in the standard MP3 format for anywhere from $9.99 to $14.99 per month.

EMusic subscribers gain full rights to burn the files they have downloaded onto CDs or to transfer them to portable music players, as opposed to some other subscription music services, which place restrictions on how and where the files can be transferred and used.

1:39:45 PM    

On the Lighter Side of Content Control:

The Peanut Gallery's reporting: "On a side note, this little item at Restoration Hardware is very popular. "

Hoist on Their Own Petard: Record industry unveils music format that can't be played in any computer. From urbanreflex.com [Over the Edge]

 No lie. This one's even analogue! I hate to mention this but the Thrift Shop over at the hospital Doug works at has three or four of these beauties for sale for less than $25.00.

4:04:37 AM