This cartoon is NOT copyright by Dylan Horrocks '09
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News
$3M for 24 Songs: Cruel and Unusual Punishment?
10:06am 3rd July 2009
CNet reports that Jammie Thomas-Rasset will be appealing the 3M fine on constitutional grounds
. "She wants to take the issue up on appeal on the constitutionality of the damages. That's one of the main arguments--that the damages are disproportionate to any actual harm". The fine has seen massive protest against the music industry, with artists such as Moby and Richard Marx (one of the artists whose copyright was infringed) denouncing the judgment.Copyfraud: Poisoning the Public Domain
11:14am 2nd July 2009
The Register posts an article by American artist and multimedia producer, Charles Eicher. Well worth reading, the article explores the plundering of public domain works by commercial interests, suggesting that public domain works may need legal protection just as copyrighted works do: "Google and Amazon should be prohibited from offering books with false copyrights, the public should be empowered to flag copyfraud books and issue a take-down notice...Let us not forget what happened when a single portal to the entirety of the world's books was assembled: the ancient Library of Alexandria burned to the ground, taking everything with it. Nobody should be allowed to become a single portal to the world's knowledge." →The Pirate Bay: New Owner, New Business Model
11:32pm 30th June 2009
According to TorrentFreak The Pirate Bay is being sold to Global Gaming Factory X for (US) $7.8 million. If there are no problems with the acquisition it is due to be complete by August, and the new CEO says that “We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site,". The Pirate Bay has confirmed the report on their blog saying that "If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to." Hopefully they'll be looking at the Napster takeover as a guide of what not to do. →Harvard Business on Michael Jackson and the Zombieconomy
11:30am 30th June 2009
The Harvard Business Blog talks about the zombieconomy. "Let's use [Michael Jackson]'s tragic death as a mini case-study. $300 million over, for example, 25 years? That's $12 million a year. I'm deliberately leaving out ads, endorsements, concerts, etc., to focus on the the structural problems in one industry: music. If the world's biggest pop star only made $25 million a year [including endorsements], something's very, very wrong. Where's the rest of the money? Why can't a resource as scarce as the King of Pop capture more value?"Teachers Beware: Recording Industry Preys on Young Minds
4:58pm 26th June 2009
A high school competition recently launched by a number of Recording Industry lobby groups calls on high school students to come up with new promotional ideas for a campaign about "Respecting Creativity". Mark Rickerby has written an excellent response to the competition here , questioning it's bias and suggesting ways in which the competition might instead encourage critical thinking around an incredibly complex debate: "it is utterly unacceptable that students are being encouraged to plainly regurgitate corporate opinion to gain NCEA credits when they could be learning to think critically for themselves." →CFF workshop on Copyright at ADA Symposium HERE NOW
6:52pm 25th June 2009
This is a quick reminder that the CFF are holding a workshop on Copyright tomorrow morning, Friday 26 June, at the Aotearoa Digital Arts Symposium 2009, in Wellington. Come along!--
Introduction to Copyright in NZ, 10am - 1pm, Friday 26 June, Victoria University School of Design, 139 Vivian Street, Wellington →
Marx Attacks - Backlash Against RIAA Continues
2:38pm 25th June 2009
It's no new fact that some organisations that claim to represent artists don't always accurately do so. In the US, one of the musicians who had a song illegally downloaded by Jammie Thomas-Rasset has sprung to her defence, horrified by the exorbitant penalty placed on her by the RIAA's victory in court
. Earlier this week Moby expressed outrage at the situation. Now, ars technica reports that "Jammie Thomas-Rasset was held liable to sharing 24 songs, including one by pop crooner Richard Marx. But the lawsuit wasn't done in Marx's name—this week, he called out the recording industry's "greedy actions."". More inside... →
