Copyright War Summit Report: Recording Industry vs. The People

Recording Industry vs. The People, presented by attorney and author of the blog Recording Industry vs. The People, Ray Beckerman
Beckerman discusses how the RIAA has proceeded in their law suits thus far, highlighting the biggest problems with the RIAA's tactics.  Some of these problems include: unlicensed investigators, insufficient evidence, and violations of various rules governing Federal Court procedures (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure). 

Most interesting is the missing proof of registration.  Under US copyright law, registration is not required for copyright protection, but it is required in order to recover statutory damages in an infringement case.  Most RIAA cases settled, and for the few that went to court, none investigated the required registrations.  But it looks like that’s about to change in the new Thomas retrial.

Another surprising element to the RIAA cases (or not-so-surprising, depending on how you’re looking at it) is that the RIAA has not gone after anyone who has used bitTorrent types of services.  Hmm… seems to me that’s like only chasing after pirates who don’t have boats.

If you’re interested in the RIAA’s lawsuits, have ever downloaded  music or even ever thought of sharing music online, Beckerman’s presentation is well worth a watch.

Labels aren't as Clueless as We Think

The Leadership Music Digital Summit is winding up today at Belmont University in Nashville.  This Ipper had the good fortune to attend many of the panel sessions.  Obviously, two days of digital music discussions produces lots of bloggable material, but today we'll discuss only one thing, the most encouraging part of Tuesday: the Keynote address by Rio Caraeff of Universal Music Group.

When we hear about record labels, especially the big four, we hear the same things over and over again: they're clueless, they can't keep up with the technology changes, they don't understand their audiences, they're evil, etc.  Today, Mr. Caraeff showed us just how wrong those statements are.  (Well, except the last one, jury's still out on that.) 

Caraeff is the head of eLabs at Universal, a team that focus on all aspects of digital development and music: cell phones, downloads, streams, videos, you name it.  They are not focused on content, but on the context.  Music used to be an experience, now it is data.  To Caraeff and Universal, this is a problem.  Where's the value if the product you buy is exactly the same as the product you can download for free?

So, they're working, and they're working hard, to bring back the experiential aspects of music.  The traditional album, with all its neat cover packaging and fancy inserts, is dead.  But, Caraeff explained, Universal's eLabs is working on creating a new type of packaging for digital downloads (and they aren't talking DRM).  Packaging that connects the listener to the music like the old album covers used to do.  And, one of the best parts, they are focused on using open technology, no proprietary software.

Caraeff didn't go into exactly what this new packaging will look like.  They might not even know yet.   But, that doesn't matter.  The encouraging part here is that Universal recognizes the changes in the industry; they're working on solutions; they are innovating, and innovating with a focus on the fans.  They know that access is now more important to consumers than possession.  (Caraeff expects music to be all cloud-source in about 5 years, rather than mp3 downloads.) 

Universal is not sitting back and relying on RIAA lawsuits, or simply trying to hold out until all their artists are signed under 360-deals.  As Caraeff put it, both the artist and the fans are the customers.  Universal's eLabs is focused on creating a new model that benefits all their customers.  And the simple fact that they're trying, that puts a smile on my face.

Who Gets to Keep Their Rights?

Last post we looked at some misconceptions held by people about posting content to the internet.  Today, we are going to look at how these misconceptions might influence perceptions relating to online content in general.

The students interviewed for the Vanderbilt article discussed last time held a common belief that once you post your content to the internet, you have given up your rights to the material.  This may explain some common copyright infringement behaviors on the internet.

People commonly run image searches in order to find pictures or graphics.  They then use their findings in a myriad of ways, some that could be infringing and some that would qualify as fair use.  A general assumption that content posted to the internet no longer has any rights attached to it could explain people's willingness to freely use whatever they find.  There are search engines, such as http://search.creativecommons.org that will help users find content pre-licensed exactly for their need.  There are also a large variety of public domain image resources available on the internet.  However, the existence of these resources is not as widely known as something like Google image search.  And, if people think that any image on the internet already comes "rights-free," then why does it matter which search is used to find the image?

One area where the argument that ignorance about rights and posting content online cannot be made is the area of digital music and film downloads.  The respective content industries have, by this point, made it very clear that just because their content is on the internet does not mean the rights-owners have given up their rights.  But, that perception certainly did exist when file sharing and p2p first appeared on the scene.  Many college students (and others) in the late 1990's said of file sharing, "well, if it was illegal, we wouldn't be able to do it."  Thus explaining that since they could do it, it couldn't be illegal.  

While the perception that posting to the internet equals rights-loss has been changed in regards to mainstream, professional, music and video content, it appears the shift has not expanded to cover other professional content, such as images, or amateur content, such as the types of content Facebook users post to their accounts.  The content industries have done a good job of educating users about content-industries' rights.  It's time to educate users about their own rights in their own content.