Last week, Pandora CEO Tim Westergren, appearing on a forum called PandoMonthly, said a strange thing while defending against criticisms streaming services received in 2013 from name-brand artists. He said the following: “The industry has for a long time been propped up by a product where you’re paying $20 for something you really wanted to pay $1 for. Maybe you ...
The subject of copyright terms kept popping up last week, so I’ll take the message and dive in. I should be clear that I don’t have a strong opinion as to exactly what terms would be optimal at this point. Or to be more accurate, I don’t have the legal experience to account for all the implications of moving the ...
As the debate will no doubt rage (or stomp its feet) on the subject of copyright review in the coming year, one subject that will assuredly be on the table will be the terms of copyright (i.e. how long ownership can last). There is a persistent assumption that these terms are somehow the exclusive privilege of large corporations. As Robert ...
Okay this is pretty cool, and a really interesting example of what can happen when old media meets new media to produce something extraordinary. Filmmaker Casey Neistat was offered $25,000 by 20th Century Fox to make a video to promote the release of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. In considering the themes the studio proposed for the project, Neistat responded ...
Last week, the National Music Publishers Association put the top 50 unlicensed lyrics websites on notice. President of the NMPA David Isrealite had a simple message to these top infringers: “Get licensed, get offline, or get sued.” And with two recent judgments in its favor, Isrealite has little doubt his organization would prevail in its pursuit of these cases. Identifying ...
