The only technology development that is needed for pure EVs to completely replace all internal combustion (including hybrid) cars is quick-charge battery technology. If you could build an EV with 250-300 mile range per charge, and a 5-minute-to-full-charge (at 110v or 220v), you could use the existing gas-station infrastructure... How many gas stations aren't already connected to the electrical grid?
These sorts of batteries are already in development (or existing?). Certainly we've all already seen quick(er) charging batteries in our laptops, cell phones, etc. - 8 hour charges back in the day are already down to 1 hour charges. One more engineering order of magnitude, and we're there.
FYI everyone, he's a Magistrate, not an actual federal judge. What this means, basically, is that he does not have lifetime tenure (as do "real" federal judges).
Might be worth letting your US Senators and Representatives know that something is smelling in the LA District Court....
But in the recording industry, the "artist" is almost always forced by contract to pay all of the expenses for recording, distribution, promotion, etc. I think that should mean the creator is the employer, with the recording studio et al being merely service providers.
These are the types of things that you look at to see if someone really is an employee - if they are not, then it is unlikely that the work will be a work for hire. So yes, there is a good chance that in the situation you describe the artist will not be considered an employee and, unless some other work for hire doctrine might apply, the record company will not be able to claim author status via a work for hire theory.
But, remember, work for hire is only to establish who the "author" is - the copyright rights (right to copy, distribute, perform, etc.) can still be sold. Thus, the recording contract will specify that the artist's work is (1) a work for hire - good chance this is void and ineffective, and (2) assigned fully to the record company. An assignment can be thought of as a sale of rights - so I pay you, the artist, $x advance and y royalty, and in exchange you assign all ownership rights in the copyright to me, the record company.
At the end of the day, the record company is going to own the music (if they can convince an artist to sign a properly-drafting recording contract).
But now, armed with the precedent from this case, plaintiffs will be able to take down the labels easily. To avoid legal expenses, the labels will likely voluntarily comply.
There is no precedent. A settlement is a contract, and is only binding on the people who sign it. Believe me the major labels will not fold on a case like this, and this settlement will not scare them. It might inform what they do in the future, and to the extent that it does, it is useful and good.
What about misrepresentation? The user is sold a disc with the Philips Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on it, but the disc doesn't meet the Compact Disc Digital Audio standards. Fraud is a felony.
I did not say they didn't do something wrong (they did), but I'm saying that the concept of copy protection in music is not illegal - just as Microsoft can implement copy protection in XP, record companies can copy protect CD's.
And ad campaigns to "look for the logo" on behalf of independent labels and Compact Disc logo trademark holder Philips.
I doubt it. Sure would be funny though. Still don't see it helping much.
Ever heard the old joke about the three fastest forms of communication? Telephone, television, and tell-a-girl. Negative word of mouth will kill the *NSYNC franchise rápidamente.
I wish, but I don't think so. Teenage girls are going to spend their money on this stuff - you think they are going to re-program themselves b/c they can't rip the CD? These are the people that buy Teen Beat...
IP stands for "Internet Protocol" or a numeric address assigned thereunder. The notion of "intellectual property" exists nowhere in the letter of United States copyright law; Congress presumably passed the copyright act "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," not to create a new form of property.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean - IP is shorthand for intellectual property which is just a shorthand way of referring to non-tangible propery including copyright, trademark, patent, etc.
Look, as much as I hate copy protection, etc., I just don't think this settlement is going to help - if there is no choice, consumers will buy (at least the masses will). I won't buy another Metallica CD based on their actions, but I have no doubt that Metallica will still sell a ton of their next album. That's all I'm saying.
BUT, don't forget, people will always break the copy protection schemes...
"The crux of Napster's copyright ownership argument revolves around a strange clause in copyright law called "works-for-hire," which essentially determines who owns the songs and albums. Any work of art -- in this case, music -- commissioned or created by an employee of a company becomes the property of that business. For example, reporters who work for newspapers don't own their stories."
Although not 100% legally accurate, the point is that the ownership of copyright for something you don't create is basically a function of contract law - i.e., the recording contract. Most companies who pay for the creation of IP (record companies, software companies, etc.) attempt to argue and contract themselves into a "work for hire" status - which means, essentially that they (the company) are the author in the eyes of the law.
However, work for hire, as the article states, is a doctrine that is controlled by statutory tests - simply saying something is a work for hire (even if the artist agrees to that in a contract) doesn't make it so.
So what if it isn't a work for hire? Traditionally contracts have a back up assignment of rights. The problem is when such an assignment does not cover rights that, for example, don't exist at the time the contract was written. Imagine a contract written in the 70's - it obviously isn't going to assign rights to digital distribution to the record company.
This comes into play in other industries - the publishing industry has recently had this problem with old author contracts where the author assigned all rights to publish a work "in book form" (standard language in older publishing agreements). Courts have found that electronic book rights still belong to the authors (or their estates).
Of course, the lawyers now use a simple addition to the assignment along the lines of "in all media whether now know or hereafter developed" to show that the assignment is everything now and in the future.
The settlement requires only that they label *this* CD - it does not require future labeling. And more importantly it has absolutely no effect on any other record company.
Universal can go right ahead and copy protect their CDs however they chose, and label them (or not) in whatever manner they want.
But the point of almost all of this is that there is nothing illegal with any of these copy protection schemes - at the *most* you will get gov't imposed labelling standards and requirements. But when N*Sync releases their album with fully-labelled copy protection, do you really think it won't sell to the teen masses?
In other words, get used to this idea - it's their IP, and they can protect it however they want (so long as they aren't tricking people, etc.)
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The only technology development that is needed for pure EVs to completely replace all internal combustion (including hybrid) cars is quick-charge battery technology. If you could build an EV with 250-300 mile range per charge, and a 5-minute-to-full-charge (at 110v or 220v), you could use the existing gas-station infrastructure... How many gas stations aren't already connected to the electrical grid?
These sorts of batteries are already in development (or existing?). Certainly we've all already seen quick(er) charging batteries in our laptops, cell phones, etc. - 8 hour charges back in the day are already down to 1 hour charges. One more engineering order of magnitude, and we're there.
Main stream media has picked up on this. Story here
FYI everyone, he's a Magistrate, not an actual federal judge. What this means, basically, is that he does not have lifetime tenure (as do "real" federal judges).
Might be worth letting your US Senators and Representatives know that something is smelling in the LA District Court....
But in the recording industry, the "artist" is almost always forced by contract to pay all of the expenses for recording, distribution, promotion, etc. I think that should mean the creator is the employer, with the recording studio et al being merely service providers.
These are the types of things that you look at to see if someone really is an employee - if they are not, then it is unlikely that the work will be a work for hire. So yes, there is a good chance that in the situation you describe the artist will not be considered an employee and, unless some other work for hire doctrine might apply, the record company will not be able to claim author status via a work for hire theory.
But, remember, work for hire is only to establish who the "author" is - the copyright rights (right to copy, distribute, perform, etc.) can still be sold. Thus, the recording contract will specify that the artist's work is (1) a work for hire - good chance this is void and ineffective, and (2) assigned fully to the record company. An assignment can be thought of as a sale of rights - so I pay you, the artist, $x advance and y royalty, and in exchange you assign all ownership rights in the copyright to me, the record company.
At the end of the day, the record company is going to own the music (if they can convince an artist to sign a properly-drafting recording contract).
But now, armed with the precedent from this case, plaintiffs will be able to take down the labels easily. To avoid legal expenses, the labels will likely voluntarily comply.
There is no precedent. A settlement is a contract, and is only binding on the people who sign it. Believe me the major labels will not fold on a case like this, and this settlement will not scare them. It might inform what they do in the future, and to the extent that it does, it is useful and good.
What about misrepresentation? The user is sold a disc with the Philips Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on it, but the disc doesn't meet the Compact Disc Digital Audio standards. Fraud is a felony.
I did not say they didn't do something wrong (they did), but I'm saying that the concept of copy protection in music is not illegal - just as Microsoft can implement copy protection in XP, record companies can copy protect CD's.
And ad campaigns to "look for the logo" on behalf of independent labels and Compact Disc logo trademark holder Philips.
I doubt it. Sure would be funny though. Still don't see it helping much.
Ever heard the old joke about the three fastest forms of communication? Telephone, television, and tell-a-girl. Negative word of mouth will kill the *NSYNC franchise rápidamente.
I wish, but I don't think so. Teenage girls are going to spend their money on this stuff - you think they are going to re-program themselves b/c they can't rip the CD? These are the people that buy Teen Beat...
IP stands for "Internet Protocol" or a numeric address assigned thereunder. The notion of "intellectual property" exists nowhere in the letter of United States copyright law; Congress presumably passed the copyright act "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," not to create a new form of property.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean - IP is shorthand for intellectual property which is just a shorthand way of referring to non-tangible propery including copyright, trademark, patent, etc.
Look, as much as I hate copy protection, etc., I just don't think this settlement is going to help - if there is no choice, consumers will buy (at least the masses will). I won't buy another Metallica CD based on their actions, but I have no doubt that Metallica will still sell a ton of their next album. That's all I'm saying.
BUT, don't forget, people will always break the copy protection schemes...
"The crux of Napster's copyright ownership argument revolves around a strange clause in copyright law called "works-for-hire," which essentially determines who owns the songs and albums. Any work of art -- in this case, music -- commissioned or created by an employee of a company becomes the property of that business. For example, reporters who work for newspapers don't own their stories."
Although not 100% legally accurate, the point is that the ownership of copyright for something you don't create is basically a function of contract law - i.e., the recording contract. Most companies who pay for the creation of IP (record companies, software companies, etc.) attempt to argue and contract themselves into a "work for hire" status - which means, essentially that they (the company) are the author in the eyes of the law.
However, work for hire, as the article states, is a doctrine that is controlled by statutory tests - simply saying something is a work for hire (even if the artist agrees to that in a contract) doesn't make it so.
So what if it isn't a work for hire? Traditionally contracts have a back up assignment of rights. The problem is when such an assignment does not cover rights that, for example, don't exist at the time the contract was written. Imagine a contract written in the 70's - it obviously isn't going to assign rights to digital distribution to the record company.
This comes into play in other industries - the publishing industry has recently had this problem with old author contracts where the author assigned all rights to publish a work "in book form" (standard language in older publishing agreements). Courts have found that electronic book rights still belong to the authors (or their estates).
Of course, the lawyers now use a simple addition to the assignment along the lines of "in all media whether now know or hereafter developed" to show that the assignment is everything now and in the future.
The settlement requires only that they label *this* CD - it does not require future labeling. And more importantly it has absolutely no effect on any other record company.
Universal can go right ahead and copy protect their CDs however they chose, and label them (or not) in whatever manner they want.
But the point of almost all of this is that there is nothing illegal with any of these copy protection schemes - at the *most* you will get gov't imposed labelling standards and requirements. But when N*Sync releases their album with fully-labelled copy protection, do you really think it won't sell to the teen masses?
In other words, get used to this idea - it's their IP, and they can protect it however they want (so long as they aren't tricking people, etc.)