On Sunday, January 18, 2009 Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen performed at one of the Inaugaration celebration concerts - specifically at Lincoln Park. A video of their duet performance of “This Land Is Your Land” was, of course, posted on YouTube. It has since been removed at the request of HBO.
I’d link to the video, but obviously it’s no longer available. You can see one single shot though in the embed here.
What I find most interesting about this, however, is the fact that YouTube lists exactly who requested the video be removed. Obviously this is not a new practice, but it is worth taking note of the fact that YouTube is trying to lay the blame for the lack of a video where the blame is due, thereby easily deflecting the blame from themselves as well as making sure YouTube doesn’t get any negative response from their take-downs.
UPDATED AT 7:30 CST:
The video now appears to be available at YouTube. Looks like HBO has lifted their ban.
Fewer people are downloading music from the internet illegally because they are frightened about having their connections cut off, according to new research.
According to an article in today’s Telegraph (UK):
Around 39 per cent of music fans currently download tracks from illegal sites, compared to 43 per cent last year, the annual digital music survey of 1,500 people found.
However, of those, 72 per cent said they would stop if they were contacted by their internet service provider (ISP).
According to an article at The Financial Times today , EMI is going back into the direct to consumer market with its music downloads. As some of you may remember, they tried something similar in the past with Musicnet (which was a failure).ÂÂ
At this point not much is known about the new venture, other than that is planned to be live by Christmas. Of course, the big question on everyone’s mind is “why should I bother shopping there?” - and EMI has yet to answer this. In today’s marketplace, a site or store with the broadest selection is most likely to succeed, even in the face of competition including price (see online sheet music site Musicnotes’ 80% market share vs. that of their competitor, Sheet Music Direct for proof).
Of course, the experience is another key component - but even if EMI offers a great experience it is unlikely to triumph over the experience already available from iTunes and others. Exclusive content might help, but for the most part if the rest of the content isn’t there the destination is likely to become an “I am going there specifically for this” vs. “I am going there because I like shopping there” kind of option.
That is, unless EMI is using this as an option should they decide to stop licensing retailers like iTunes, or force them to change their pricing structure (using the “if you don’t like it, we’ll just sell it ourselves” threat).
Of course, a lot of my ideas are speculation - but they’re valid speculation at least…
StereoTune has an article up about a new pay-for-content mp3 site at Soundsbox.com. Just like (the now defunct) allofmp3.com, they are charging a minimal fee per download ($.14 a track here), and just like allofmp3 they are using the Russian ROMS licensing system - which basically ignores all U.S. copyright law and does not pay a single cent to songwriters, artists or copyright holders. This is also the same supposed licensing that (the also illegal) ultimate-guitar.com uses for its guitar tabs.
Even though this is obviously illegal in regards to U.S. copyright law, it is still unlikely the site will be going anywhere anytime soon since it’s not based in the U.S.  It took major intervention, and a threat to not allow Russia into the WTO to get allofmp3 shut down, and they just moved to mp3sparks in the end anyway.
So Muxtape shut down (as we knew it would) due to completely disregarding the RIAA and being unable to come to any agreement with them. Now Favtape is positioned to take its place, but again it’s only a matter of time until this goes the way of the dodo as well.
Unlike Muxtape, Favtape doesn’t host anything itself - but is using Seeqpod instead. Of course, Seeqpod is very likely to get shut down soon for the same reasons services like Grokster got their butts sued - for being a service basically made to allow people to access copyright-protected material. See, Seeqpod is basically a music search engine/player that searches the web for MP3s of specific songs and then loads them in from the host server.
What eventually needs to happen if copyright holders want to keep stopping these services is that it needs to be made very clear that where a file itself is hosted is not the only part of copyright infringement - but building a service to do so is as well. Think of it as murder vs. hiring a hitman - just because someone else does the actual deed doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible at all for making it happen.
Today, after almost a year, the OiNK investigation came to an end. Earlier today we reported that OiNK administrator Alan Ellis was charged with “conspiracy to defraud”. Now, just hours later the alleged uploaders are charged with copyright infringement for uploading one CD.
According to both the wippit.com homepage, and a story on Distorted-Loop, one of the first legitimate p2p media networks has shut down due to being unable to compete in the current marketplace. Visitors to wippit.com are greeted with the following message:
Wippit has closed.
After 8 years of pushing the digital boundaries, Wippit can no longer compete in the current market climate.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us over the years and apologies to those that will miss us. “
In related news, Pandora also looks like it may be shutting down as well, after failing to reach an agreement with U.S. music publishers.
… and in sure to be upcoming news, music publishers continue to try to shut down services and refuse to license new business models, while the rest of the Internet walks away with their business. (my opinion).
Doesn’t the FBI have more important things to do than go after someone for leaking Guns n’ Roses songs? Sure, it’s illegal… but aren’t there much bigger fish to fry than someone posting 9 songs? Much less, 9 songs from an album that, if history is any indication, will never see the light of day anyway (and when if it does, will anyone really even care?)
Are you serious? You’re actually selling songs that you know you don’t have rights to, and just putting the money into a slush fund so you can pay the record labels, etc. when you get the deal done? Seriously?!
In my experience, if there is one way to kill any chances of going legit, it is to do exactly what you are doing. Your system of posting songs and paying ASCAP / streaming rights is more than likely fine, but to sell content that you know you don’t have rights to is extraordinarily risky.
From the deals I’ve worked on, one thing has stood out - and that is that there are many publishers and labels out there who simply will not work with a business if they have openly violated copyright law.
The simple fact that you have songs from The Beatles available for sale on your service, when not even iTunes has gotten this, is an extraordinarily bad move on your part, if your goal is to be a legal service with actual licenses. It’s one thing to hold royalties if you don’t know if you have rights. That’s debatable, but to hold royalties when you KNOW you don’t have rights….
All I can say is good luck, and I hope you have a good lawyer on retainer.
I have to admit, I haven’t had much time to research this site since I just came across it this morning… so consider this more of a note to myself than anything.
A kind of P2P music file sharer / iTunes / social network, Grooveshark.com “is an online music community that rewards you for sharing, reviewing, and discovering new music.” The more music you share, the more credits you get to download music from other people. Beyond this, the built-in social aspect of the site allows people to organize, filter and recommend music for each other - and the most respected users are automatically highlighted so as to give the best experience for casual users.
As for the legal portion… frankly I don’t know how this is set up. At first glance it appears that users can upload anything they want, and then the music is available for sharing or download.
User-generated music bios, reviews, a la Wikipedia
Demand-based Pricing ($.99, $.75, $.50, $.25)
Users receive $.25 for every song they sell
100% virus-free, high quality files at high speeds
Massive library via patented p2p architecture
Custom music recommendations for music discovery
Label Licensing Benefits
No hard drives or CDs required to upload content
$.25 user credit incentivizes users to buy more music
Song recommendations, artist promotion for partners
Fans are paid to market your artists and bands
Content is spread virally and legally from fan to fan
Label Content Management
Full control of pricing, payment, file quality (bitrates)
Sales reporting and comparison between competitors
Artist metadata information input and development
Access fan and user geographic & demographic data
Full take-down and opt-out of content distribution
Terms
Revenue split for songs sold in the system:
50% - Label
25% - Grooveshark User
25% - Grooveshark Administration Fee
• Label provides full metadata information
• Label pays publishing fees for any content sold
• Grooveshark pays all PROs related to streaming
• Grooveshark pays all hosting, integration fees
I haven’t been able to find an option yet for labels to opt out of the system, but I’m not going to say it doesn’t exist. However, I find it hard to believe they are doing this without first gaining approval. If they are simply posting songs, then selling them, and then trying to get contracts, that’s going to be a major problem.
I’ll try to spend some more time on the site later and give a better overview at that time. In the meantime, if anyone has any experience with Grooveshark, please give your opinions in the comments below.
All said, it does look pretty slick. I’m excited to do some research.
The Constable on January 19th, 2009
