Maybe. Soundexchange pushed the OK of draconian fees for internet music play through a well oiled Congress last year. Most internet broadcasters responded by shifting format or shutting down. Conventional wisdom says bigger fees are irrelevant if there is no one left standing to pay them. It appears that Soundexchange may have discovered this simple truth while there were still a few hangers on left to send a bill to.

The war between Internet radio stations and music rights holders has reached a settlement, at least for a few years. On Tuesday, SoundExchange, which represents many rights holders, announced “innovative, experimental new terms” for “pureplay” webcasters.

Pureplay webcasters are those whose primary business is streaming music and other sound recordings. (News Factor)

Is the war over between big music internet radio? I doubt it. For now, those who enjoy copyrighted material on the net may be getting a reprieve. Saving a real overhaul of the corrupted copyright system, I expect to see greed overwhelm common sense repeatedly.

The lawyers at the RIAA are having a field day with seemingly any business the could enable the sharing of files. I have no doubt that plenty of illicit files are shared on the Usenet. It’s also true that most burglar’s access their victims via public streets.  No one is suggesting we should rip up the streets to stop burglaries. For now, the low hanging fruit for litigation seems to be enterprises who were foolish enough to advertise that illicit files are shared on their systems: IE Pirate Bay and now Usenet.com.

In a decision that hands the RIAA an overwhelming victory, U.S. District Judge Harold Baer of the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of the music industry on all its main theories: that Usenet.com is guilty of direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. In addition, and perhaps most important for future cases, Baer said that Usenet.com can’t claim protection under the Sony Betamax decision. That ruling says companies can’t be held liable for contributory infringement if the device they create is “capable of significant non-infringing uses.” (Cnet)

As we have mentioned in earlier posts, there is no  major US ISP that offers usenet service with their access accounts - from fear of lawsuit. As long as the lawyering sticks to those who openly invite using thier services to break the law, we’re OK. Unfortunately, I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. This will certainly send a chillng effect through the industry, and we can expect smaller usenet providers who have done nothing wrong to close up shop even if the RIAA lawyers don’t attack them next. Actually, with it’s lawyers working the current laws that were authored by big media, it’s not a question of if but when.

Left to their own devices, lawyers tend to be pretty deliberate predators. That means most of us with limited net worth are not likely to do battle with one of them operating on his or her own nickel.  The RIAA has made plenty of enemies with its shoot first, ask questions later tactics in prosecuting file sharers and may have broken a few laws in the process. Since RIAA does have deep pockets, it should come as no surprise that enterprising lawyers are filing a class action suit on behalf of the victims of RIAA’s legal adventures. I have little doubt that the victim’s won’t be getting much of the spoils, but watching the RIAA take a good beating may be a justice enough for many of those it harmed.

Not content simply to defend Jammie Thomas-Rasset in her high-profile retrial next week in Minnesota, lawyer Kiwi Camara is joining forces with Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer. The goal is nothing less than to force the industry to pay back the alleged “$100+ million” it has collected over the last few years. (Ars Technica)

You can bet the MPAA is in the crosshairs.  While defending file sharers is a little dubious, there’s a larger issue with the DMCA. It criminalizes any of us who convert digital media from one format to another for our own use. If there’s a really benevolent attorney out there looking to self promote, it’s high time that this unconstitutional law gets a challenge inthe courts. Most of Congress has been too completely corrupted by big media to undo it. The courts may very well be the next best hope we have to restore fair use rights in America.

Well here we are again. On the front porch, mint julep in hand, Tommy Dorsey playing on the LP… Snoxxs, eh what?! Oh Sorry wrong dream.

Were back this time with the continuing saga of CNN vs Founding Bloggers. Round one ended with CNN filing a DMCA take down notice to YouTube of a Founding Bloggers video remix. Well in the middle of round two Founding Bloggers has landed a left jab —

Founding Bloggers, the conservative web site that had its video critical of CNN’s reporting on a Chicago “tea party” removed by YouTube after the cable network sent a DMCA takedown notice, is not backing down. On Thursday, Founding Bloggers submitted a DMCA counternotice to YouTube, starting the clock ticking toward a possible re-posting by YouTube — or a lawsuit that could establish important legal precedent regarding the contours of copyright law’s fair use doctrine, especially as it applies to use of news video by political bloggers. “We’re not going to let this just go away,” Andrew Marcus of Founding Bloggers told C&C in an interview earlier today.

As I’ve previously argued, the video at issue — which includes about 1 minute, 20 seconds of CNN footage of reporter Susan Roesgen conducting contentious interviews with protesters at an April 15 Chicago rally, as well as about 2 minutes, 30 seconds of footage shot by Founding Bloggers — is a non-infringing fair use of CNN’s material; thus I believe the DMCA notice was improper. CNN owns copyright in its own footage, but its rights are limited by the Copyright Act’s fair use provision, which specifically mentions “criticism, comment, [and] news reporting” as protected uses that are “not an infringement of copyright.” Founding Bloggers’ incorporation of the CNN footage was clearly for the purpose of criticizing and commenting on Roesgen’s reporting, which has come under heavy fire in the conservative blogosphere (and even from a former CNN reporter) for her hostile interactions with tea-partiers.

The irony here is that we have a NEWS ORGANIZATION that depends on FAIR USE in the operation of its business sending a take down notice against someone for the same ‘offense’. CNN’s lawyers know better. Not only that but I hope they advised their bosses that damages and legal fees can ensue under the provisions of a wrongful DMCA action.

I cannot conceive of a situation where CNN can prevail here. Even if they do, they are damaging their own profession in pursuing the matter. How stupid is that?

More here.

Welcome to a world where up is down, wrong is right and nothing is the way it seems. In this world run by corrupt politicians, corporations and lawyers, you must prove you own the copyright to your own music the music you created and recorded before you can give it away on the Internet. If you haven’t done that, you will be the victim of the copyright take down police.

Around a week ago, the  label (that the musician owns to distribute his own music) was notified by its webhost that it had some copyright music files on its server, which was no surprise to them since they were tracks by Arrogant Sons of Bitches, one of the label’s bands. The tracks the webhost referred to were actually written by Jeff himself. Jeff spoke with someone at the host on the telephone, explained that they were his own tracks and was informed this wasn’t a problem.

Three days later the labels site went down completely, due to Jeff hosting his own copyright files on his own site - a claimed violation of the hosting company’s Terms of Service. In order to solve the problem, Jeff would have to send his copyright registration forms to the host by mail, to prove he held the copyright, a problem in itself, explains Jeff:

“I called the company to explain that a lot of this material was NOT in fact registered with the US copyright office, instead we did the ol’ poor man’s copyright. The music that was copyrighted was done so under a Creative Commons License, which is a digital copyright that cannot be viewed if the website where the files are posted is down.”

It seems amazing that a host should be proactive like this, especially since it has clearly made a huge mistake. However, a week later and Jeff’s site is still down and he’s quite rightly upset: “I guess the scary thing for me is that it seems that my hosting server employs a guilty before proven innocent policy, which is terrifying for anyone who does not physically mail forms for every small idea they’ve ever had in their bedroom to the US copyright office. What a great new digital age, stuck in the trappings of wasteful forms and red tape.” (Torrentfreak)

Paranoid web hosting companies afraid of costly litigation will shoot before they ask questions at the “checkpoint”. Your papers are not be in order comrade! It’s off to the Gulag for your web site! Next, you’ll need to post documentation to perform in public like a building permit…. Welcome to the world of the DMCA!