98% of all Statistics are Made Up on the Spot! Fact is, copyright infringement DOES kill jobs.
Mark Twain had a lot to say about statistics, ranking them as the highest of all lies: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Twain is also attributed with the more insinuated saying that “statistics are like ladies of the evening, once you get them down, you [...]
Origins of an Idea–Nothing New Under the Sun?
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the [...]
The Proposed “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act”– yet another feeble attempt?
Since before the day that Napster was a twinkle in Sean Parker’s eye – well over a decade ago now – the legal and music industries have each struggled with ways to cope with and transform their dusty old business models from the physical status quo to the digital revolution.
Nothing left to lose – the ongoing war on copyrights
Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster once penned one of my favorite lyrics in the song Me and Bobby McGee, i.e., “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” The sentiment is perhaps appropriate for the ongoing war that is being waged against copyright laws as we know them. The latest battle in this war [...]
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My Avvo.com rating is a perfect 10! Please take the time to check out my information there and, if you’re a past client or a colleague, give me a recommendation. It would be greatly appreciated. Barry Neil Shrum View lawyer’s profile
PassAlong Networks gets cash infusion
Word is spreading on the Internet about PassAlong Networks, Inc.’s recent infusion of investment capital. PassAlong is a digital music distribution and sharing service aptly headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee. According to VentureWire, the company plans to close a $30 million funding round later this month. PassAlong, also known as the Tennessee Pacific Group, LLC, was [...]
Second Circuit gets it wrong in Cartoon Network v. Cablevision
On August 4, 2008, the Second Circuit court of appeals overturned a lower courts opinion that Cablevision’s Remote Storage” Digital Video Recorder (“RS-DVR”) system violated the Copyright Act by infringing plaintiffs’ exclusive rights of reproduction and public performance. The full 44-page opinion is available at Cartoon Network, LLP, et al. v. Cablevision. In my humble yet [...]
Taking a Bite out of Apple: iPhone Hackers File Lawsuits
Posted with the permission of the author Matthew Williams, Esquire. Matthew is an intellectual property attorney practicing with the firm of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp. All rights reserved. Apple’s release of the iPhone in June 2007 was an unqualified business success – 1.4 million iPhones were sold in just a few months. However, as has [...]
Columnist David Pogue sings a humorous diddy about the RIAA
New York Times technology columnist and Emmy-award winning CBS news correspondent David Pogue is featured in this YouTube video singing a fun diddy about the digital wave of media on the Internet, ending with a humorous take on the RIAA and its wave of litigation against college students nationwide. Enjoy Technorati Tags: digital copyright [...]
Atlantic Records et al. v. Brennan: Federal Judge Denies Default Judgment for RIAA
U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut Justice Janet Bond Arterton, handed down a very pointed and decisive opinion hammering the R.I.A.A. for its boilerplate style of pleading in the nationwide wide campaign against illegal file sharing. Justice Arterton was appointed by President Clinton in 1995. The full decision is here: Decision. At several [...]
Copyright Royalty Board begins critical hearings
On Monday, January 28th, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) began what will be four weeks of hearings. The CRB will hear testimony from interested parties on both sides of issues which will ultimately determine the statutory mechanical rates for songwriters and music publishers. The CRB sets these rates periodically, but these particular hearings are more [...]
Return fire by the music industry – artists to testify before Senate
The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a high-profile hearing today on the subject of imposing additional performance royalties on so-called “over-the-air” or “terrestrial” radio stations (I’ll just call them OTA’s in this article). Investigative hearings such as these are usually precursors to legislation being introduced on the subject. Grammy winner, Lyle Lovett and Chicago-based singer-songwriter [...]
New concurrent resolution, H.Con.Res. 244 introduced to combat performance fees for record labels
For years now, a huge battle has been brewing between proponents of performance royalties for the owners of sound recording copyrights to be paid by terrestrial radio stations (those broadcasting through the air) and it has been gathering steam in the last several months. The battle is being waged between the giants of industry, the [...]
Courts taking a stricter look at evidence in RIAA downloading cases
There appears to be a slight ripple of a trend among courts to take a stricter look at the evidence being presented by the RIAA in its crusade against digital downloads, based primarily on the evidence of user names and IP addresses assembled by their expert consultants, MediaSentry. In the RIAA’s case against Jeff Dangler, [...]
Amazon profits in the stratosphere
Propelled primarily by the sales of 2.5 million copies of the new Harry Potter book, Amazon’s profits reach ed the stratosphere in the 3rd fiscal quarter of 2007. The company announced its third-quarter earnings in an online conference call on Tuesday, announcing a profit of $80 million, three times the $19 million it earned in [...]
No more lines in the virtual sand – the Hew Griffiths case considered.
Back in 1999, my law clerk, J. Eric Crupi and I considered the topic of personal jurisdiction as applied to the Internet. In the resulting Law on the Row article, entitled “Lines in the Virtual Sand.” In the original article, Eric concluded that “the boundaries of personal jurisdiction in cyberspace have not been concretely defined, [...]
The Digital Lowdown: What's a good deal?
The author, Steven Corn is the co-founder of Big Fish Media, a digital music distribution company working with all the major download music services like iTunes, eMusic and Napster. He is the author of the blog, The Digital Lowdown. This article appeared in Issue 32 of Royalty Week, dated October 9, 2007 and is reprinted here with [...]
Lines in the Virtual Sand
by J. Eric Crupi Consider this scenario: A music publishing company in Nashville advertises its services worldwide via an Internet web site. The site displays general information about the company, such as a description of its business, a listing of prominent clients, the company logo, and a phone number. In addition, the site also provides [...]
