But if I pay for the mechanical license to cover a song, and then cover it, why can't I license out my performance to an ad company?
Because that's the way the law is.
Isn't that how the cover versions show up in ads in the first place, because the original artists don't want to license their performances?
No. When you hear a cover song in an ad, it is only because the artist has licensed the song for use "as a cover only." The company then goes and pays someone else to record a cover version.
What you're saying is: Mechanical license is paid for eight-year-old girl to cover "Lose Yourself:" legal. Eight-year-old girl licenses performance to ad agency: illegal. How is that possible?
That's right. If you want to go and record yourself singing "Lose Yourself" you can do so -- and you can sell your cover on a CD (and pay a compulsary license per copy sold to Eminem every 3 months).
But you can't use the song in a commercial. That's the law.
This is an interesting case. Anyone has the right to "cover" a copyrighted work, as long as the compulsory license is paid to the publisher (usually a per performance, or per mechanical fee).
However, in the case of endorsement, a specific license is indeed required (my wife - IANAL, but she is, ahem -- handles these from time to time). If the kid "singing" the song can be construed as an endorsement (probably), then Eminem deserves compensation.
Also, his likely fee ($10M) is definitely in the ballpark. You'd be amazed how much established artists make for these licenses. In fact, using an original song is usually so prohibitively expensive, that the licensor usually opts for a license to use a "cover" version only (much cheaper, but still a lot of money). That's why when you hear famous songs in commercials, they're often covers. FYI, in these cases, the language in these contracts usually requires a cover not to sound exactly like the original recording.
Re:Building the wrong mousetrap
on
Search Beyond Google
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
True, Google has optimized its search ahead of time so that its basic search is simply a matter of very, very fast hash lookups -- ones that can be handled by their server farms given the number of queries they typically work on simultaneously. And that is exactly the reason why Google can't offer more advanced data mining server-side. If ten million people wanted to perform an exhaustive analysis, Google would slow to a crawl. For basic searches, Google is fast. But for the "future of search" my bet is client-side (even P2P) computation on streamed data from Google.
A lot of articles (including this one) are focused with how Google (and their would-be competitors) can improve search via algorithms like PageRank; and again and again the proposed/imaged solutions are based on server-side computation. IMHO, the real solution to improving search is client-side -- and I don't mean search toolbars -- but rather using the computional power of the client to provide a better experience than what is available inside your browser. Searching in a browser is cool, but why not build a powerful Google search client app?
As a simple example: if your a Mac user, Beholder is really a much more useful image search frontend than using images.google.com alone (yes, I've mentioned this before, but hey, a developer has to eat).
"Google Image Search has been significantly updated," said Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and president of Technology. "We've doubled the index to more than 880 million images, enhanced search quality, and improved the user interface."
For Mac users, I recommend using Beholder to power your Google image search. Google's minimal UI changes notwithstanding.
Lindows is quite obviously an attempt to use the popularity of the "Windows" brand name to promote their operating system. There's really no other reason.
Actually there is a reason: Purposely name the product Lindows to force MS to bring a suit to defend its trademark.
These guys aren't naive (their lawyers would have fainted if they had seriously considered using "Lindows" without understanding the implications of doing so). Believe me, they knew exactly what was going to happen. Thus, the only reason for doing so is that they were bothered by Microsoft's claim of ownership of "Windows." So they purposely named their product "Lindows" to force a court review. A very clever legal attack, IMHO.
The free publicty (read: sales) from the certain lawsuit, plus the possible bonus of screwing Microsoft, are the motivations here.
You're confusing "generic" with "descriptive." Generic terms make great trademarks (Scope, Crest, Tide, etc.). The problem is trademarks that are generic and descriptive of the product or service.
"Office" is certainly descriptive, and thus, you might notice that Microsoft is not wasting it's time going after "StarOffice" or "OpenOffice." The same is true for SQL Server.
"Word" is iffy, and a legal challenge would be interesting -- in many ways it is similar to "Windows."
The other product names you listed (Excel, Access, etc.) are good trademarks. You will never see a "Oracle Access" email program.
Hello guys, are you really telling that your legal system is SO screwed now that you cannot post your negative opinion about some person online? Somehow I have always believed that this was quite an important point of Freedom of speech, that USA is so proud of.
The US legal system has always defended against slander and libel. And thus, you're free to make as many negative opinions about people as you wish. However, you may not state falsehoods about people as fact.
IMHO, the system probably doesn't seem as "screwed" if you are the victim.
This review of the Microsoft "smart" watch pretty much sums it up.
An excerpt: Why did Microsoft bother? Rick Rashid, the company's head of research, said last January that the idea was to "take everyday devices and make them better at what they do, without turning them into computers."
But what the company wound up doing was giving us yet another manual to digest, yet another AC adapter that has to be packed for vacation, yet another gadget to remove at the airport security line, and yet another subscription charge on your credit card bill. Enough already.
Isn't it "Apple" (not "Macintosh") that's been pronouced dead so many times?
If Apple had gone out of business, you can bet someone would have bought the Macintosh IP and kept right on selling them (maybe even as Macintosh branded PCs) -- the brand is worth way too much to just "die".
Times have changed, our movies are getting worse, They're so incredibly formulaic that they make you want to curse.
Should we blame the animators? Or blame our youth focus panel, That'd rather watch Nickelodeon than the Disney Channel?
No! Blame Eisner, blame Eisner.
For stealing Winnie the Pooh, and losing Hillary Duff too. Blame Eisner, blame Eisner, We need to form a full assault. It's Eisners fault.
Don't blame me for shooting my TV, I was forced to watch the ads that you can't skip on their DVDs.
And our partner Pixar once, had their pictures on our shelf, But now when he sees us Steve Jobs says he wants someone else.
Well? Blame Eisner, blame Eisner. It seems that everythings gone wrong since Eisner came along. Blame Eisner, blame Eisner. He's clearly the king in Shrek I must say.
My son sold on eBay, a Mickey Mouse flash cartoon. Now he's going to trial for copyright infringement soon. Should we blame the lawyers? Should we blame the buyer? Or Congress who refused Mickey to expire?
Heck no. Blame Eisner, blame Eisner. With all his cocky hubabaloo, And his hundreds of millions too.
Blame Eisner, shame on Eisner! For the lame we must name, And you'll never last. The laughter and fun, Is all in the past. We must blame you the cause of fuss, Before somebody thinks of blaming us!
Anyway, to the story: Booble is only confusingly similar to Google because Google itself is confusing their own trademark with Froogle and other alterations of their trademark. If you mangle your own trademark, you have less grounds to object when someone else does.
Google has registered both Google and Froogle as trademarks, so I don't see how the additional mark "dilutes" the first. If anything, a successful defense of the second mark will likely secure their protection of any computer service ending in -oogle.
Note also that the case at hand is not necessarily related to the actual word "Booble" -- the logo and trade dress of the service clearly infringe IMHO.
If you have our freeware image searcher Beholder, you can view the iTunes RSS feeds as collections of album art via the search engine templates that are now available online.
Jeez, I would've though those folks over at The Register would know the difference by now: this (and all other cybersquatting cases) is not a copyright issue: it is a trademark issue.
Yes, I know, this doesn't change the facts of the case, but since/.ers will go nuts when someone calls XML or HTML a programming language, somebody here needs to keep the legal lingo in check here too.:-)
Man or woman, anyone who attempts to pass a litany of ad hominem as "commentary" isn't really someone I'd describe as strong or intimidating. Seething and slightly off-kilter perhaps.
No, no, no. Everyone who is talking about "common words" not being valid as trademarks is misled.
Common words make excellent trademarks, as long as they are not descriptive of the product.
Scope is a common word, and it a great trademark for mouthwash. It would not be a good trademark for a telescope.
Crest is a common word, and is a great trademark for toothpaste. It would not be a good trademark for a shield.
Walk into a supermarket: hundreds and hundreds of common words for product names, all good trademarks!
So...back to your question. Apple is a great trademark for a computer company. It is a generic word that has nothing to do with computers.
Windows however, is descriptive -- the word is a generic term for a GUI view -- and hence it may not be a good trademark. That is what we're about to find out in the US. Apparently Sweden thinks otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
But if I pay for the mechanical license to cover a song, and then cover it, why can't I license out my performance to an ad company?
Because that's the way the law is.
Isn't that how the cover versions show up in ads in the first place, because the original artists don't want to license their performances?
No. When you hear a cover song in an ad, it is only because the artist has licensed the song for use "as a cover only." The company then goes and pays someone else to record a cover version.
What you're saying is: Mechanical license is paid for eight-year-old girl to cover "Lose Yourself:" legal. Eight-year-old girl licenses performance to ad agency: illegal. How is that possible?
That's right. If you want to go and record yourself singing "Lose Yourself" you can do so -- and you can sell your cover on a CD (and pay a compulsary license per copy sold to Eminem every 3 months).
But you can't use the song in a commercial. That's the law.
This is an interesting case. Anyone has the right to "cover" a copyrighted work, as long as the compulsory license is paid to the publisher (usually a per performance, or per mechanical fee).
However, in the case of endorsement, a specific license is indeed required (my wife - IANAL, but she is, ahem -- handles these from time to time). If the kid "singing" the song can be construed as an endorsement (probably), then Eminem deserves compensation.
Also, his likely fee ($10M) is definitely in the ballpark. You'd be amazed how much established artists make for these licenses. In fact, using an original song is usually so prohibitively expensive, that the licensor usually opts for a license to use a "cover" version only (much cheaper, but still a lot of money). That's why when you hear famous songs in commercials, they're often covers. FYI, in these cases, the language in these contracts usually requires a cover not to sound exactly like the original recording.
True, Google has optimized its search ahead of time so that its basic search is simply a matter of very, very fast hash lookups -- ones that can be handled by their server farms given the number of queries they typically work on simultaneously. And that is exactly the reason why Google can't offer more advanced data mining server-side. If ten million people wanted to perform an exhaustive analysis, Google would slow to a crawl. For basic searches, Google is fast. But for the "future of search" my bet is client-side (even P2P) computation on streamed data from Google.
A lot of articles (including this one) are focused with how Google (and their would-be competitors) can improve search via algorithms like PageRank; and again and again the proposed/imaged solutions are based on server-side computation. IMHO, the real solution to improving search is client-side -- and I don't mean search toolbars -- but rather using the computional power of the client to provide a better experience than what is available inside your browser. Searching in a browser is cool, but why not build a powerful Google search client app?
As a simple example: if your a Mac user, Beholder is really a much more useful image search frontend than using images.google.com alone (yes, I've mentioned this before, but hey, a developer has to eat).
"Google Image Search has been significantly updated," said Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and president of Technology. "We've doubled the index to more than 880 million images, enhanced search quality, and improved the user interface."
For Mac users, I recommend using Beholder to power your Google image search. Google's minimal UI changes notwithstanding.
(Mod +1 Self-Promotive)
Lindows is quite obviously an attempt to use the popularity of the "Windows" brand name to promote their operating system. There's really no other reason.
Actually there is a reason: Purposely name the product Lindows to force MS to bring a suit to defend its trademark.
These guys aren't naive (their lawyers would have fainted if they had seriously considered using "Lindows" without understanding the implications of doing so). Believe me, they knew exactly what was going to happen. Thus, the only reason for doing so is that they were bothered by Microsoft's claim of ownership of "Windows." So they purposely named their product "Lindows" to force a court review. A very clever legal attack, IMHO.
The free publicty (read: sales) from the certain lawsuit, plus the possible bonus of screwing Microsoft, are the motivations here.
You're confusing "generic" with "descriptive." Generic terms make great trademarks (Scope, Crest, Tide, etc.). The problem is trademarks that are generic and descriptive of the product or service.
"Office" is certainly descriptive, and thus, you might notice that Microsoft is not wasting it's time going after "StarOffice" or "OpenOffice." The same is true for SQL Server.
"Word" is iffy, and a legal challenge would be interesting -- in many ways it is similar to "Windows."
The other product names you listed (Excel, Access, etc.) are good trademarks. You will never see a "Oracle Access" email program.
Hello guys, are you really telling that your legal system is SO screwed now that you cannot post your negative opinion about some person online? Somehow I have always believed that this was quite an important point of Freedom of speech, that USA is so proud of.
The US legal system has always defended against slander and libel. And thus, you're free to make as many negative opinions about people as you wish. However, you may not state falsehoods about people as fact.
IMHO, the system probably doesn't seem as "screwed" if you are the victim.
This review of the Microsoft "smart" watch pretty much sums it up.
An excerpt:
Why did Microsoft bother? Rick Rashid, the company's head of research, said last January that the idea was to "take everyday devices and make them better at what they do, without turning them into computers."
But what the company wound up doing was giving us yet another manual to digest, yet another AC adapter that has to be packed for vacation, yet another gadget to remove at the airport security line, and yet another subscription charge on your credit card bill. Enough already.
Isn't it "Apple" (not "Macintosh") that's been pronouced dead so many times?
If Apple had gone out of business, you can bet someone would have bought the Macintosh IP and kept right on selling them (maybe even as Macintosh branded PCs) -- the brand is worth way too much to just "die".
Internally, Microsoft has begun developing game prototypes, and it is using G5 systems to do so.
Perhaps that's what these were for? (as opposed to: new machines for the MBU, controllers for Bill's video wall, or any of the other umpteen theories)
Battlebots, Mars Edition, here we come.
How does storing media on a foreign server make someone a "pirate"? Has this term been abused to also include stealing disk space?
Or...does he look like this?
Sony Betamax never had anywhere near the marketshare iTMS/iPOD has today. Maybe superiority doesn't count for much, but marketshare certainly does.
Times have changed, our movies are getting worse,
They're so incredibly formulaic that they make you want to curse.
Should we blame the animators?
Or blame our youth focus panel,
That'd rather watch Nickelodeon than the Disney Channel?
No!
Blame Eisner, blame Eisner.
For stealing Winnie the Pooh, and losing Hillary Duff too.
Blame Eisner, blame Eisner,
We need to form a full assault.
It's Eisners fault.
Don't blame me for shooting my TV,
I was forced to watch the ads that you can't skip on their DVDs.
And our partner Pixar once, had their pictures on our shelf,
But now when he sees us Steve Jobs says he wants someone else.
Well? Blame Eisner, blame Eisner.
It seems that everythings gone wrong since Eisner came along.
Blame Eisner, blame Eisner.
He's clearly the king in Shrek I must say.
My son sold on eBay, a Mickey Mouse flash cartoon.
Now he's going to trial for copyright infringement soon.
Should we blame the lawyers?
Should we blame the buyer?
Or Congress who refused Mickey to expire?
Heck no.
Blame Eisner, blame Eisner.
With all his cocky hubabaloo,
And his hundreds of millions too.
Blame Eisner, shame on Eisner!
For the lame we must name,
And you'll never last.
The laughter and fun,
Is all in the past.
We must blame you the cause of fuss,
Before somebody thinks of blaming us!
Anyway, to the story: Booble is only confusingly similar to Google because Google itself is confusing their own trademark with Froogle and other alterations of their trademark. If you mangle your own trademark, you have less grounds to object when someone else does.
Google has registered both Google and Froogle as trademarks, so I don't see how the additional mark "dilutes" the first. If anything, a successful defense of the second mark will likely secure their protection of any computer service ending in -oogle.
Note also that the case at hand is not necessarily related to the actual word "Booble" -- the logo and trade dress of the service clearly infringe IMHO.
If you have our freeware image searcher Beholder, you can view the iTunes RSS feeds as collections of album art via the search engine templates that are now available online.
Jeez, I would've though those folks over at The Register would know the difference by now: this (and all other cybersquatting cases) is not a copyright issue: it is a trademark issue.
/.ers will go nuts when someone calls XML or HTML a programming language, somebody here needs to keep the legal lingo in check here too. :-)
Yes, I know, this doesn't change the facts of the case, but since
Carbon. This is a set of procedural C-based APIs for Mac OS X that are based on the old Mac OS 9 API (actually dating back as far back as Mac OS 8.1)
To nitpick: actually, a lot of the Carbon APIs go as far back as System 1.0 -- most of QuickDraw for example.
I'm assuming something like bottlecaps with "free iTunes song", or a coupon in some boxes?
Yes, 1 out of 3 special "yellow" bottlecaps will contain a serial number to enter into iTunes.
Does anyone know if it will be "100 million songs of choice" or simply "100 million songs."
Your choice. The serial number gives you a $.99 credit inside iTunes (assuming you're registered).
It blows me away that you think iPod owners own zero CDs and hence buy every song on their iPod from iTMS.
Man or woman, anyone who attempts to pass a litany of ad hominem as "commentary" isn't really someone I'd describe as strong or intimidating. Seething and slightly off-kilter perhaps.
No, no, no. Everyone who is talking about "common words" not being valid as trademarks is misled.
Common words make excellent trademarks, as long as they are not descriptive of the product.
Scope is a common word, and it a great trademark for mouthwash. It would not be a good trademark for a telescope.
Crest is a common word, and is a great trademark for toothpaste. It would not be a good trademark for a shield.
Walk into a supermarket: hundreds and hundreds of common words for product names, all good trademarks!
So...back to your question. Apple is a great trademark for a computer company. It is a generic word that has nothing to do with computers.
Windows however, is descriptive -- the word is a generic term for a GUI view -- and hence it may not be a good trademark. That is what we're about to find out in the US. Apparently Sweden thinks otherwise.
Furthermore, the Darwin OS is released under an "Open Source" license, which is just another name for Communism.
LOL, equating "Open Source" with "Communism" isn't going to win you any converts here Pastor.