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LOC = US Copyright Office.

The LOC has this nice 'jukebox' with sound recordings from the 1900s, over 110 years old, nicely reminding us that it is illegal download them because of 'state copyright laws'. Yeah, no joke.

Our copyright friends are trying to get the copyright office out from under the LOC control, probably because it'll be easier to get it under their own control.

Among her priorities will be the modernisation of the US Copyright Office IT system and trying to define the role of the USCO with the Library. There have been calls from stakeholders, including from the current Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante, to move the Office outside of the realm of the Library and establish it as an stand-alone government agency.

Source

So who knows, maybe Dr. Hayden was seen golfing with Chris Dodd and Joe Biden?

http://www.musicweek.com/news/read/spotify-responds-to-thom-yorke-and-nigel-godrich-criticism/055383

Doesn't seem so bad. I think Thom Yorke is missing a step... spotify pays the LABELS. The LABELS obviously decided the royalties from spotify are enough... Perhaps the labels aren't paying artists enough...

Only halved? I thought these things were supposed to have a 70% reduction according to the earlier surveys. Oh wait, those surveys are complete rubbish, as is most data on this sort of thing. The surveys for how much this sort of thing would reduce filesharing are all over the place; according to the IFPI, the French version, Hadopi, would cause 71% reduction in unlawful file-sharing, whereas a ZdNet.fr survey put it at 4%. Then there was a really fun Hollywood-sponsored survey from Australia that found 74% would stop infringing - unfortunately, in the fine detail, it turned out only 11% were actually committing copyright infringement on a regular basis, so at least 15% of people don't infringe regularly, but wouldn't stop even if threatened by their ISP.

This is definitely one of those "detailed-study-complete-with-full-figures-and-methodology or it didn't happen" situations.

However, it is interesting to see that the RIANZ are claiming that half isn't enough, and that more needs to be done. It mirrors my concerns about these laws elsewhere (particularly in the UK, obviously) that they have no criteria for success or failure, nor any real way to measure effectiveness. It means that once implemented the RIAA/Rianz/BPI are free to say "This is working, so we need more!" or "This isn't working, so we need more!" or "We're not sure whether or not this is working, so we need more!" no matter what actually happens, and we're back to copyright enforcement for the sake of copyright enforcement.

Fortunately in the EU these sorts of charges to ISPs were declared unlawful, so copyright owners are being forced to meet most of the bill for the UK three-strikes program (although subscribers will have to pay an arbitrary £20 to appeal allegations made against them).

The one good thing about the UK version, though, is that the government were persuaded that, once the three-strikes law is in force, someone should actually look into whether or not such a law is needed or will do any good, so in a year or so, after over 1m letters being sent (and however many lawsuits and prosecutions), we may actually get some independent and reliable data on this whole "online infringement of copyright" thing.

[Disclaimer: I 'work' as a lobbyist in this area and am currently in the middle of consultation work on the UK version of this sort of thing - so I'm rather biased. For anyone in the UK interested in this, the Ofcom consultation is available here and closes on Thursday.]

The industry itself doesn't even have a clear-cut idea as to what is property and what isn't as concerns digital media.

Take the RIAA, for instance, who in the course of a week or so, argued that an MP3 was merely being 'licensed' in order to prevent the sale of 'used' MP3's in their suit against Redigi, and then in another case, argued that MP3's were actually being 'sold' to avoid being liable for the much higher percentage of royalties due the artist for licensing their music as opposed to selling it.

Obviously a digital file cannot be both owned for purposes of liability and licensed for purposes of use, so the courts need to get on top of this ASAP.

...or license it to you?

That would be one question. I thought it was a sale as it came up in the ReDigi case recently

And that litigation is still pending. So, unfortunately, no answers there...yet

...or license it to you?

That would be one question. I thought it was a sale as it came up in the ReDigi case recently

No one at Apple is deluded, and this wasn't "pushed on Apple" since the story is pure fiction: Apple does not charge a $10k design fee as a barrier to entry.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1038901&c=1

It seems someone had a beef with iTunes and decided to make something up.

No negative moderation needed really, just the link to the story where Apple denies it is charging this 10k fee.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1038901&c=1

I actually think a fee of some sort here would be advisable for the "LP" so that there was at least some barrier to entry so that you couldn't just add a couple of photos and call it an LP and charge £25 for it. If there's a small barrier to entry (10k is not small really) then it would prevent (hopefully) dilution of the "LP" section with copies of Britney's latest musical abortion with a couple of shots of her in rehab rebranded as a "special edition".

According to the story linked there though, there is no $10k design fee.

Except that Apple are not charging 10k per design.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1038901&c=1

However, an iTunes spokesman says the fee is fiction. There is no production fee charged by Apple, he says. "We're releasing the open specs for iTunes LP soon, allowing both major and indie labels to create their own.

Not sure who is right, this guy or the guy who quoted the 10k$ figure.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. Or not if you're not interested in LPs.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1038901&c=1

However, an iTunes spokesman says the fee is fiction. “There is no production fee charged by Apple,” he says. "We're releasing the open specs for iTunes LP soon, allowing both major and indie labels to create their own.”