New Wine in Old Wine Skins
People don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the wine will make the skins burst, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. -Mark 2:22 Article 1, Section 8,Clause 8 of the United States Constitution is the starting point for any discussion of intellectual property, and [...]
SOPA and PROTECT IP: Is the Sky Falling on the Internet?
By Amber Rose and Barry Shrum If you’ve cruised the net or checked out your local news any time within the last few months, chances are you’ve heard rumors currently sweeping the United States about two pieces of proposed legislation : H.R. 3261 entitled the Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”) and S. 968 entitled the [...]
The Truth Shall Set Us Free: Copyrights in Biblical Translations
By Bennett L. McMordie, ed. by Barry Neil Shrum “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do [...]
Regulations related to Cyberspace
Since it was commercialized in 1995, the Internet, particularly the World Wide Web, has spawned many Federal laws to regulated activities conducted in Cyberspace. I developed the following presentation for my Cyberlaw class at Belmont University’s Mike Curb School of Music Business:
Steve Jobs: in memoriam obsequium.
STEVEN PAUL JOBS February 24, 1955-October 5, 2011 “Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.” – President Barack Obama, October 5, 2011. You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only [...]
Siri-ously Apple? Sad News for Applebots Everywhere.
Let me preface this post by stating unequivocally that I own both the original iPhone 4 and the iPad2, and I recently purchased both a Macbook Pro and Air for my son and wife respectively, so I am not by all counts an anti-Appleit, although I still use an Intel-based desktop machine at work, where [...]
Mista Freezy & Lance collaborate on “Long Hair”– Song climbs to #44 on charts in one day
A successful R&B/hip hop collaboration comes along very rarely, one such as I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By by Method Man & Mary J. Blige. But come along it has. My friend and client, Lance, has teamed up with Mista Freezy to produce what is sure to be a classic. [...]
Producing Music: Its History and the Process
By guest student writer, John Freund Music production is simply not what it used to be. Behind every great record is great production, but just what that production entails continues to grow more complex with new technology and a changing music industry. During its humble beginnings in the mid-20th century, production was extremely simple, quick, [...]
The Importance of Music in Film Licensing
By guest author Mallory Trice In 1926, the Warner Bros. studio in Hollywood introduced sound to film for the very first time causing a wave throughout Hollywood and around the globe as other major studios began the switch to “talkies” (pictures with sound). [1] The world of film and sound had become one, and Hollywood [...]
Will the real Sarah Palin please standup?: Interplay between Right of Publicity and Trademark
OR, What’s in a Name? Personal Names as Trade Names REMIXED. By Barry Neil Shrum, Esquire (with Ashley Trout) “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” You may know this quote from William Shakespeare’s classic play Romeo and Juliet or from the more “pop-culture” reference by Anne Hathaway [...]
YouTube Uses Happy Tree Friends to Educate on Copyright
By Rachel Galloway IMPORTANT NOTICE: The views expressed in this article are solely those of Ms. Galloway and may not necessarily reflect the views of Law on the Row or Barry Neil Shrum, Esquire. The last time I watched a Happy Tree Friends video was when I was around 13 years old in the company [...]
Lance–Reviews of his new album, “What you Make it.”
My new client, Lance, releases his new album, What you Make It on April 20th. Backed up by the Peterson family, Lance joined forces with Berklee College of Music graduate, Randall S. Peterson, who produced this collection; another Berklee grad, Paul Meyer, did the mastering. The finished product is being met with stellar reviews. This praise [...]
Solutions for the Orphaned Works of Copyright: Google Books Decision Highlights Need for Action
The recent decision presented by the honorable Judge Chin on the matter of copyright infringement in the case The Authors Guild v. Google Inc. raised numerous issues in the arena of Intellectual Property. In addition to opposing the “opt-out” stipulation written into the settlement, Judge Chin also contested the way Google Inc. approached and viewed [...]
Judge Chin rejects settlement agreement in Authors Guild v. Google
Under Rule 23(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a settlement of a class action requires approval of the court. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e). The court may approve a settlement that is binding on the class only if it determines that the settlement is “fair, adequate, and reasonable, and not a product of [...]
Illegal file-sharing has the greatest impact on the lowly songwriter
A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators… and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business. -Bono (New York Times, January 2010) The passage of the Digital Economy [...]
Rascal Flatts signs management deal with Spalding Entertainment
Rascal Flatts is arguably one of the most successful bands in recent history, selling more than 20 million albums as the headline act on Disney’s Lyric Street Records until that label succumbed to the effects of illegal digital downloading that has a stranglehold on the music industry. When that happened, the band moved to the [...]
The Utilitarian Idea of a Monopolistic Right in Intangible Property
By Barry Neil Shrum, Esquire and Nathan Drake The classical libertarian, Frédéric Bastiat, is quoted as saying: In the full sense of the word, man is born a proprietor. . . . Faculties are only an extension of the person; and property is nothing but an extension of the faculties. To separate a man from [...]
French Court Finds Google Liable and Refused to Apply Safe Harbor Provisions of The Law of Confidence in the Digital Economy
The search engine giant Google, known for its colorful name and creative endeavors, has been convicted in French Court of infringing the copyrights of four artistic works and now faces fines upwards of $600,000, not including legal costs and attorneys fees. The plaintiffs in the case was made up of four entities who owned the [...]
Belmont University To Honor Peebles and International Entertainment Buyers Association
Belmont University’s Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business will honor the International Entertainment Buyers Association and one of its founders Harry “Hap” Peebles with the 2011 Robert E. Mulloy Award of Excellence. Established in memory of program founder Bob Mulloy,the annual Award of Excellence recognizes an individual or organization that has achieved a [...]
New Country Radio Survey Data Released by Coleman Insights
CRS 2011 Research Study Finds State of Country Music Healthy, New Media Engagement Growing Country Radio still king for consumers, new music discovery The results of the CRB Country radio research study presented recently at Country Radio Seminar 2011 in Nashville. The comprehensive study was sponsored through a partnership between Country Radio Broadcasters, [...]
Immigration and Counterfeit Enforcement Agency Brings Criminal Charges against Owner of ChannelSurfing.Net
By Barry Neil Shrum & Nathan Drake In November 2010, the Federal Immigration and Counterfeit Enforcement agency (“ICE”) recently seized 82 websites and shut them down on the grounds that they were committing criminal copyright infringement. One of these websites has recently become the spotlight of attention:. Brain McCarthy, the owner and operator of channelsurfing.net, [...]
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 do anything with them!” [...]
The Magical Ring of Gyges: Why Illegal Downloading is So Rampant in the Age of Cyberspace
NBC Universal recently hired a company called Envisional to study counterfeiting activity over the Internet. The results of this study – despite the fact that it is industry funded – are literally astonishing: 24% of all global Internet traffic involves digital theft! Stated another way, one in every four people surfing the Internet are stealing [...]
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 [...]
