Copyright Commerce and Culture

I love this article even though it's brief and not very technical. In class, we've been discussing where the lines are for imitation and copyright infringement, so what do you guys think of these examples?

This is the article I have chosen to improve for our assignment. I may narrow my topic to US Copyright Law in Theatre if the Performing Arts topic seems too broad.

Since we were talking about band copyright a little last class, I figured I'd post this. Dave Matthews Band allows concert go-ers to record live performances/shows. Many DMB fans post these to different fan websites such as antsmarching.org for everyone to download. DMB feels that "tape trading will foster greater interaction within the fan community."

I'm absolutely with DMB on this. If the music is for the fans and the purpose is to have them relate to it, why not have them interact as well? Some cases of video removal for "copyright infringement" on youtube baffle me, because they not cut off publicity and forum discussions about musicians and their performances, but also occasionally cause resentment or negative feelings towards the artists. Those, in my opinion, are instances of copyright protecting so much that it becomes detrimental.

It's not copyright per se, but it's an interesting use of creative commons.

the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed a copyright infringement suit against Hotfile (a file hosting service) on behalf of Disney Enterprises, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros, claiming that it promotes piracy. This suit is reminiscent of the music industry's attack on Limewire which resulted in it being shut down. Read the original Associated Press article on the Wall Street Journal Website: http://online.wsj.com/article/APba256b5b302d4d9c9e8af569d017dba6.html

The web radio service's filings show that over half of its revenue (approximately $45 million) was used to pay copyright owners, an amount so high that it expects to have a virtually non-existent profit margin through to 2012. Though the company has grown in the past year and copyright fee expenditures don't represent as large a chunk of the earnings as last year (when it was 60%), concern remains over its ability to make ends meet. Royalty payments are principally made to: SoundExchange (which receive 45 of Pandora's revenue alone), BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC. The company is also looking to "go global" but has encountered problems, as its business model is based on US copyright laws. 

Some claim that the digital music industry is not going to grow any larger than it already is--mostly due to piracy occurring online. Inspired by the U.S. Senate, which shut down LimeWire last year, other countries across Europe and Asia are looking to revisit copyright laws to crack down on piracy and promote growth in the digital music industry, as well as lead a shift away from monopolizing applications, like iTunes, and redirect sales to alternative subscription music service websites.

What can you do if that novel you've been looking to read isn't available as an e-book? Well, it turns out that Japanese companies are actually taking books and scanning them for their customers as PDF files compatible with iPad, iPhone, Kindle and Nook. In Japan, copyright agreements depend on the author, and in turn the secretary general of Japan Book Publishers Association suggests all of this activity may be legal. It would be interesting to see this service offered in the U.S. and the copyright infringement cases that might arise.

Title's a bit much, but the charts on renewal stats under the 1909 Act are really fascinating

Game parodying Call of Duty