Michael Robertson, former CEO of MP3.com and owner of MP3Tunes, I service I happen to enjoy quite a lot, writes for TechCrunch on Amazon.com defying the major labels regarding MP3 lockers. For those who don’t know, these lockers are a source where purchasers of MP3s can store their purchases and play them back in a number of devices and locations.
Steve Seidenberg of the ABA Journal writes on a good-news-bad-news treasure-trove of a find:
The question, however, is whether that will happen anytime soon. And if it doesn’t, music fans might be justified in putting the blame on copyright law. “The potential copyright liability that could attach to redistribution of these recordings is so large—and, more importantly, so uncertain—that there may never be a public distribution of the recordings,” wrote David G. Post, a law professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, on the Volokh Conspiracy blog. “Tracking down all the parties who may have a copyright interest in these performances, and therefore an entitlement to royalty payments (or to enjoining their distribution), is a monumental—and quite possibly an impossible—task.”
If this isn’t enough for music fans to start getting themselves immersed into the inner workings of copyright law, nothing will.
In a case of absolute hypocrisy, Michael Robertson and MP3 Tunes makes the allegation that EMI, who breathe fire on upload services like Rapidshare, are using Rapidshare to to give away music themselves. Read the full article at P2P.net.
For those of you who are old enough to have heard the eerie organ riff at the beginning of Procol Harum’s classic hit, “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” the organist who played that snazzy tune has been awarded the right to be recognized as co-writer of the song. It doesn’t mean much money, but it does mean Matthew Fisher will be recognized at long last for his contribution.
The BBC posts on Fisher’s win here.
And here is the song in question, should you be too much of a whippersnapper to know what we’re talking about here:
I have to admit that it came as a shock to me when I read that the founders of The Pirate Bay were jailed for running their torrent site, but it seems that a retrial is in order, thanks to the judge having a conflict of interest in the case.
The BBC has more on the story here.
Zack Whittaker of ZDNet points out the RIAA’s atrocious behavior in harassing kids who download music. It’s getting so bad that some of the targets of this treatment are contemplating suicide.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board offers some suggestions as to how major labels can co-opt their way into making money with downloads. Unfortunately, neither record labels nor their watchdogs at the RIAA want anything to do with either change or adaption, so they will, rightly, go by way of the dinosaur.
I’m all for homeland security, but this proposed British law is ridiculous! Feargal Sharkey, former singer of The Undertones and now boss for UK Music, is screaming mad at this proposition. Hopefully common sense will win the day and this draconian law gets stuffed.
The Independent of London has more here.
