Friday, May 24, 2002

Sony Music Lobbies for Ban on Markers - By Brian Briggs Washington DC - Ralph Hughes of Sony Music testified in the Senate today urging lawmakers to enact legislation which would ban felt tip markers. "These innocuous looking writing instruments are the scourge of our society," he said holding up a Sharpie. "Not only can this black stick of death be used to violate the DMCA, but it could also be used to write the instructions to incubate the anthrax virus." Didn't I warn you this was going to happen?  12:00:57 AM

	Thursday, May 23, 2002

CARP: It is Not Over Yet While Doc, David and everyone are doing the happy dance on LOC CARP Order. The reality check is: the party isn't over folks! CARP is not dead yet. CARP is in the hands of the Registrar of the Library of Congress, Mary Beth Peters, and the IP lawyers of the LOC. Their mission is to use the "Wisdom of Solomon" and write a fair and reasonable version of what the webcasting rates should be. Furthermore, I do hope Peters understood the webcaster's message at the Roundtable Meeting, and she is able to separate the passion from the potential compromise and solutions that were proposed, but sometimes were lost in the rhetoric of the day. Should this new rate structure not be satisfactory to both RIAA/SoundExchange and the webcasters, it could all end up in the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals for a long and expensive court battle. It's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. 2:49:54 PM

	Tuesday, May 21, 2002

Round 2:  CARP is Rejected by Librarian of Congress 30 Day Clock is Now Ticking Mary Beth Peters, Registrar of the Library of Congress and Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress issued the ORDER today at 10 AM Eastern Time rejecting the CARP webcasting rates presented on February 20, 2002. Now the LOC has 30 days to make their own Ruling on the matter which should be out on or before June 20, 2002. It appears that the Public Roundtable held on May 10, and the flood of letters sent to the LOC made a definite impact on the decision makers (including the LOC and the Senate Judiciary Committee.) They learned first hand from the statements made to the LOC and Senate Committee that all webcasters, not only the large well funded ones, had not been given a fair and reasonable hearing. The LOC learned that if they adopted the Ruling of February 20, 2002 a considerable number of webcasters, including non-commercial and college webcasters, would have been put out of business. By hurting the small independent webcaster who had been shut out of the Ruling process would have been a clear cut case of averting the wishes of the Judiciary Committees wishes by adversely hurting small business. Passion clouds the facts: the other major item the Roundtable exposed the LOC to was the fact that RIAA and the Webcasters had come to some agreements on the entitlement of the artists to be paid something for their works, and agreement regarding the problems surrounding the original reporting requirements. The solutions are not clear cut, but the potential for compromises were set out at the Roundtable. At this point we have a 30-day waiting period to see what the Librarian of Congress is going to rule. From where I sit everyone needs to maintain our honest resolve for a long term solution. Most do not understand that this CARP ruling is only good for a 2 year period that is ENDING this year. We actually should be working on negotiating the next two year CARP rates now. But because this Order is precedence setting in order to establish rates, the new CARP II rates will end up being delayed until they have something concrete to discuss. Hopefully RIAA and the Webcasters will get together to discuss some voluntary compromises as well. As Bill Goldsmith of KPIG.com and RadioParadise.com put it, " The record labels can either play fair now - or be forced to by Congress and the Copyright Office." Because if the Ruling is unsatisfactory to any of the parties, even after the Librarian of Congress issues it in June 2002, the new CARP rates could end up in the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals for a hearing. 4:04:09 PM

	Sunday, May 19, 2002

Business Week: A Bad, Sad Hollywood Ending. [Doc Searls Weblog] Forget about Bill Gates, folks. The biggest enemy of free software may be Senator Ernest F. Hollings. Legislation introduced in March, 2002, by the South Carolina Democrat to require that copyright-protection software be embedded in PCs, handheld computers, CD players -- and anything else that can play, record, or manipulate data -- could make open-source software such as the Linux operating system illegal.   Uh huh... Those of you in Hollings-homeland might want to review what we are planning to do to Feinstein's re-election plans and do the same in your neighborhood. 3:24:34 AM

	Wednesday, May 15, 2002

Senate Judiciary Committee held "Copyright Royalties: Where is the Right Spot On The Dial For Webcasting. " hearings today in Washington, D.C.. The entire hearing was webcast. Links to the webcast are on the announcement page. Senator Orran Hatch and Patrick Leahy made remarks. The cast of characters testifying include: Ms. Hilary Rosen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Recording Industry Association of America, Washington, DC Mr. Jon Potter, Executive Director, The Digital Media Association, Washington, DC Mr. Bill Rose, VP and General Manager of Webcast Services, Arbitron, New York, NY Mr. Frank Schliemann, Founder, Onion River Radio, Montpelier, VT Mr. Billy Straus, President, Websound.com, Brattleboro, VT Dan Navarro, Artist, American Federation Of Television and Radio Artists, New York, NY Give a listen to the webcast which starts about 20 minutes into the webcast because of Senator Hatch being delayed. There is a considerable amount of Point of View information in this hearing.  Comments? 9:29:38 PM

Trade Groups File Friend of the Court Briefs About Viewer Tracking - The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), and Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) filed the Friend of the Court Brief, noting that the judge's order establishes a harmful "principle of judicial intervention in technology design." The leading high tech trade associations has criticized a District Court order that requires interactive television companies to track the viewing behavior of their customers. The group filed an amici brief today in the case of Paramount Pictures Corporation et al. versus Replay TV, Inc. et al. "When the courts take on the role of software engineer, software engineers and consumers need to start worrying. Not only is the potential for unintended consequences extremely high, but the decision also sets dangerous precedents. In a time when consumer 'trust' is central to industry success, forcing companies to abandon their contracts with consumers could be catastrophic. In addition, such court-ordered redesign could effectively bankrupt smaller technology companies with limited resources. With so much at stake for the industry and consumers, it is disturbing that the court would take this decision so lightly," said Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology. A copy of the brief is available on the web here. 8:42:10 PM

Clueless Hollywood: The State of The Very Rich and Uninformed "The clue train stopped there four times a day for ten years and they never took delivery."  — Veteran of a firm now free-falling out of the Fortune 500 - Cluetrain Website  This past week as marked several events which are showing everyone in the technology world just how uninformed the Hollywood executive set are. Mom always said, "Money is no replacement for an education or experience." And damn she was so right! The recent rounds of Senate Subcommittee meetings and townhall meetings, Roundtable meeting and articles, stories and press releases in the media involving CARP and the DMCA show us just how little they know and how dangerous this lack-a-knowledge can really be. From where I sit it's long overdue for these Hollywood executives to get an education or stop playing dumb. They can't have it both ways. For years Hollywood has been courting the computer industry in an effort to make the work and costs of productions better and cheaper. The courting and wooing of Silicon Valley and the technical centers of this country by Hollywood was a past time that has gone on for the past 15 or more years. I know because I was there. I have been a designer, witness and a participant to the process. Over 12 years ago I wrote up a short paper on the Convergence of Digital Media outlining in general details the use of computers and digital storage for audio, video and film transfer. I outlined how peer-to-peer direct connection products could and would make it possible for someone like me, who hates the drive in and out of LA, would be able to work from my home studio with others in their home studios all by way of a proper high-speed internet connection. Nearly everything but "finaling" a piece could be done in this manner. This would save vast amounts of production costs and make it possible for work to be done by the best people wherever they were living. . For me it was ideal and from my point of view the idea was nothing remarkable. The concept was just a logical extension of the way I had worked before on parts of a production using the internet or closed network service. I had done it before-- but we'd really never told anyone. We just did it and kept our word that nothing would ever get out into the public were it didn't belong. However when I published the paper online, you would have thought I'd committed blasphemy. Why? Because I dared to take the "control" of a production out of the realm of the "post house." I was advocating that editors, special effects people and directors could work better remotely and alone in the post production process without the direct supervision and control of a post house. Post houses who are very highly capitalized digital editing facilities rent a considerable amount of space to production companies while producing a television, audio or film product saw this "idea" as a threat to their gravytrain and did nearly everything possible to kill it. Or so they thought. ...And the Hollywood executives remained clueless by choice. Byting the Hand the Feeds You Over the past several years, since I vowed never to drive into LA again for work, I've taken projects that allow me to edit only if I can do the work remotely in my bunny slippers at home. Meetings are normally over the phone and occasional trips into the studios are made for the important, but rare, face to face meeting. And I'm not the only one doing it! Literally hundreds of video, film and audio professionals work everyday at home recording, tweaking, cutting and logging thousands of hours of music, film, graphics and video from the sanity of their home or home studio in an environment where they want to work-- and work very productively. Over 75% of the tools we use are stock, off the shelf software and compression codecs, like Mp3s and video formats. And we transfer our work to one another by FedEx or using the internet. The funny thing is: every DMCA crazed Hollywood executive knows we do it. So how do you propose we put the genie back into the bottle? There isn't a beancounter in LA who will tell an executive straightfaced that we remote-working folks aren't saving Hollywood money. Between us and the Vancouver productions, we are the reasons why Hollywood has been laying off the large in-house staff people who once ran up their payroll. The exec's like Eisner love that we use this technology to give him better profit lines. So who's he kidding? Oh yeah-- it's a matter of control. Eisner and his Hollywood cronies want to control who has the technology. That who is YOU the customer. It's a shame he still hasn't learned the lesson on how to put the genie back into the bottle. Because-- you can't. Comments? 6:12:24 PM

Doc Searls Weblog Reports: A gathering of the copyrighteous   Declan is circulating a '"celebration" of the DMCA on May 16 in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. Hosted by Jack Valenti, Hilary Rosen and chiefs of various publishing, film and other organizations in the business of advocating the maximal leverage of intellectual property law. The "invited guests" include ... what is that, the Judiciary Committee? Biden, Hatch, Helms, Leahy, Coble, Berman, Conyers, Dingle, Hyde, Frank, Markey, Sensenbrenner and Tauzin. Plus Ambassadors from 33 countries, none, oddly, in downtown Europe. Not you, me, or any artists, writers, film makers and other first sources of "content." No lie. From the invitation list it appears to be a Who's Who of the Clueless. If they were to invite us, it might surprise them to learn the real truth. Heaven forbid. 4:32:53 AM

	Friday, May 10, 2002

Round 2: Webcasters Meet with Industry at CARP Roundtable Today Today a historic meeting is taking place inwhich the webcasters and recording industry officials are meeting in a Roundtable Discussion with the Library of Congress' CARP panel.  The meetings will take place all day long from 9 AM to 5 PM in Washington DC. The International Webcasters Association in cooperation with  TVWorldwide.com will be streaming the entire meeting to the internet. To find the connection, please log into http://www.tvworldwide.com/event_iwa_020509.cfm and click on the "Click here for Live Video" icon. Should you be unable to hear the webcast live, they will archive the days events and put them online for replay later in the day. Panel Speakers for the US Copyright Office Roundtable are: Panel I Reporting to Determine Royalty Allocation Panel II Reporting to Monitor Compliance with Terms of License Panel III Small Businesses Future of Music Coalition (Jenny Toomey) Music Choice (Amy Bushyeager) WCPE (Deborah Proctor) Recording Industry Association of America (Steve Marks or other) DMX Music, Inc. (Barry Knittel) Arbitron (Joan FitzGerald) SoundExchange (John Simson or other) Muzak (Chuck Walker) Spacial AudioSolutions (Bryan Payne) Digital Media Association (Jonathan Potter or other) Digital Media Association (Jonathan Potter or other) RAS Records (Gary Himelfarb) National Association of Broadcasters et al. (Bruce Joseph) Yahoo! (Alex Maghen) Collegiate Broadcasters, Inc. (Will Robedee) Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (Frederick Kass or William Malone) Ultimate 80s (Dave Landis) Future of Music Coalition (Brian Zisk) ASCAP (Sam Mosenkis or Chris Amenita) iM Radio (MaryMcCann) SoundExchange (John Simson or other) Websound (Glen Fisher) XM Satellite Radio & Sirius Satellite Radio (Bruce Joseph) Massanutten Broadcasting System, Inc. (David Eshleman) American Federation of Musicians (Patricia Polach) Recording Industry Association of America (Steve Marks or other) University of Louisiana at Monroe/KXUL (Joel Willer) Beethoven.com (Kevin Shively) SoundExchange (John Simson or other) RAIN Publications (Kurt Hanson or Paul Maloney) Yahoo! (Alex Maghen) American Federation of Musicians (Patricia Polach) International Webcasting Association (Peggy Miles) Radio Computing Services, Inc. (Elliot Mazer) Clear Channel (Brian Parsons or Karyn Ablin) American Federation of Musicians (Patricia Polach) 3WK LLC (Wanda Atkinson) Twangcast.com (Michael Hays) Digitally Imported Radio (Gary Dobek) MediaUnbound, Inc. (Michael Papish) International Webcasters Association (Brad Pumphrey) Radioio.com (Mike Roe) DMX Music, Inc. (Barry Knittel) IBC (Joseph Buczynski) Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Martin Gelfand) 4:38:03 AM

	Thursday, May 09, 2002

CARP - Webcasters Town Meeting in Washington D.C. IWA dedicated the second in a series of on-line Worldwide Town Meetings of Webcasters to the implications of the Copyright Office recommendations known as CARP that was webcasted live today from Washington, D.C. The broadcast was made possible by various sponsors and the assistance of TVWorldwide.com who is hosting the webcasts.  The Archived Webcast in Real Format is available by clicking here.   The Webcast is 3hrs and 18 minutes long From where I sit, this is one of the most important webcasts ever done to date. This webcast answers many of the questions and explains in plain language what will happen to webcasting if CARP is adopted in its current form. There are five panel sessions in the webcast   1:00-1:15 PM Welcome and opening remarks  Introduction of Sponsors Dave Gardy, TVWorldwide.com Susan Pickering, Executive Director, IWA 1:15-2:00 PM Overview of CARP and Royalty Issues and State of the Webcast Industry What is the big picture and what is at stake? Moderator Peggy Miles, Intervox Panelists David Lawrence, Radio Host On-Line Tonight Roger Dean Lehman Bros., Chairman IWA Heather Shay-Peters, Radiodelray.com David Landis, Ultimate 80's John Simson Sound Exchange 2:00-2:30 PM Legal and Regulatory Facts Surrounding CARP  Where are we in the process and how does it work? Moderator Dave Oxenford, Shaw Pittman Panelists Karin Ablin, Wiley Rein & Felding Dineen Wasylik, Wiley Rein & Felding TBD 2:30-3:00 PM Technology Issues and the State-of-the-Art in the Webcasting Industry What technologies are changing the face of webcasting? Moderator Dave Gardy, TVWorldwide.com Panelists Ken Santucci, Amprod Mark Maxey TVWorldwide.com, formerly with Digital Island, Akamai Doug Wyllie Streaming Magazine 3:00-4:00 PM The Call to Action: What the Webcasting Industry Must do Next What Now? Moderator Peggy Miles, Intervox Panelists Dave Oxenford, Shaw Pittman Steve Wolf, Professional Products Dave Gardy, TVWorldwide.com David Lawrence, Radio Host On-Line Tonight Heather Shay-Peters, Radiodelray.com Bill Goldsmith, Radio Paradise.com Steve Wolf, WOLF FM Radio.com 9:51:00 PM

Make Sushi out of CARP! Reminder: International Webcasting Association to Rally Membership on Copyright Controversy with Two Webcasts, Live from Washington DC TVWorldwide.com Tapped to Stream Interactive Town Hall Meeting of Webcasters May 9, 1PM-4 PM EDT  and Coverage of U.S. Copyright Office Roundtable May 10  9AM-5PM EDT - For the entire press release click here! 5:40:29 AM

© Copyright 2002 Mary Wehmeier. Last update: 1/29/02; 2:08:24 AM.