A longstanding challenge with regard to websites that profit from pirated media, counterfeit products, and/or malware is the frequent placement of major brand advertising on the pages of those sites. Musician David Lowery’s activist website The Trichordist has published lists of major advertisers whose banner ads have appeared on various pirate sites, seeking to hold advertisers accountable for supporting exploitation of musical artists. ...
Last week, a report emerged from the London School of Economics claiming that piracy is not harming the entertainment industries. One of my new Twitter pals, Jean-Phlippe Vergne (@pirateorg) sent me a link to the report calling it “scientific” rather than based on “moral claims.” I read the report, and there’s nothing scientific about it, particularly in that it lacks ...
Attorney and legal scholar Lawrence Lessig considers the current copyright system to be generally antagonistic to contemporary culture. In fact, any number of common assertions about copyright’s supposed obsolescence in the digital age are very likely derivative of something written or said by Lessig, who has devoted a fair amount of energy promoting the value of the remix. In at ...
As we approach the dog days of summer, the blogosphere is heating up on matters pertaining to music and the stream in which it now swims. Practically on the heels of Pink Floyd’s public warning to artists against falling for Pandora’s recent attempts to lower licensing fees, Thom Yorke of bands Radiohead and Atoms for Peace pulled his music from ...
Once again, Pandora internet radio is attempting to use an act of Congress to lower the royalties it pays artists, and once again, musicians are speaking out against both the tactics and the two-faced approach being taken by CEO Tim Westergren to pay lip service to his respect for artists while sticking his already well-greased palm into their back pockets. ...
