The same federal judge who oversaw the Joel Tenenbaum file-sharing trial earlier this year passed out default judgments this week against other file-swappers who never bothered to show up–and they now owe far less than Tenenbaum.
With a new school year in full swing, Ars takes a look at the RIAA’s newly updated copyright curriculum. Your kids could be learning from it–so what does it say?
Just how many file-sharers has the RIAA gone after?
There was a time in my life during which I left Richard Marx’s “Paid Vacation” album in my stereo system for weeks at a time. This was not because I felt a spiritual craving for the music so strong that only repeated listenings would satisfy. No, it was the single worst CD I could dredge up out of my music collection.
It is a fascinating and challenging time to work in the music business.
Charlie Nesson isn’t one for small gestures–the Harvard law professor is known as “Billion Dollar Charlie,” after all, and he was one of the lead lawyers in the famous industrial dumping case that became the book (and then the movie), “A Civil Action.”
At a digital music panel in Nashville this week, executives from AT&T and Comcast created a furor by saying they were passing along warnings to customers that the RIAA says are illegally uploading music files onto the Internet.
Later, the companies tried to calm the outrage erupting in the blogosphere by harrumphing they weren’t cutting off Internet access to those people–or in the case of Cox, hardly ever cutting it off.
Back in March, we noted that Warner Music Group had hired Jim Griffin, a music industry guy who has been pushing the concept of a “blanket license” for file sharing. The idea would be to get various ISPs to simply add an additional fee to everyone’s Internet access, have that money go into a pool that the recording industry would be responsible for paying out–and then let people have free reign for file sharing.
If you pay any attention to the endless debates over intellectual property policy in the United States, you’ll hear two numbers invoked over and over again, like the stuttering chorus of some Philip Glass opera: 750,000 and $200 to $250 billion.
To catch college students trading copyrighted songs online, the Recording Industry Association of America uses the same file-sharing software that online pirates love, an RIAA representative told The Chronicle at the organization’s offices during a private demonstration of how it catches alleged music pirates. He also said the group does not single out specific colleges in its investigations.
The Telecommunications and Internet subcommittee of the the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing today on H.R. 5353, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008. The bill would establish an official national broadband policy, one that prevents service providers from subjecting lawful content to “unreasonable interference” or “discrimination.” It also calls on the Federal Communications Commission to assess competition in and consumer access to broadband Internet access in light of this policy. The testimony at the hearing, however, suggested that these provisions, and net neutrality in general, mean very different things to different groups. And, as far as the RIAA is concerned, Net neutrality legislation could hamstring the fight against piracy.
In a brief filed in federal court Monday, Universal Music Group states that, when it comes to the millions of promo CDs that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs and other music-industry insiders, throwing them away is “an unauthorized distribution” that violates copyright law. Yes, you read that right–if you’ve ever received a promo CD from UMG, and you don’t still have it, UMG thinks you’re a pirate.
This certainly isn’t the first time it’s been proposed, but it appears that the RIAA is potentially warming up to the idea of a “music surcharge” that would have ISPs pay $5 a month in order to allow anyone to share music online. Just a month ago, we were discussing why this is a bad idea.
This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."
We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.
The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.
That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.
So here is exactly what we do: Read more »
Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
