The Copyright Royalty Judges stand up to the most dangerous corporations in the world and demand transparency in streaming mechanical rate “settlements.”
Will Sunlight Win at the Copyright Royalty Board in Big Tech’s Latest Credibility Debacle? — Music Technology Policy
Category: Pandora’s Assault on Songwriters
@halsinger: As the Revolving Door Swings: Big Tech could be forestalling platform regulation in a stealthy way
Through a LinkedIn email, I learned that a recent staffer on the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee was recruited by Amazon’s public-policy arm this month. I took to Twitter to express my dismay, and quickly learned that another staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee was recruited by Facebook’s competition policy arm in May 2020.
These two staffers are now working for the tech platforms, and presumably against my ideas, after having heard my ideas in a private setting.
It is important to note right here that I have no beef with these fine folks.
But I do.
@noamcohen: Silicon Valley is Not Your Friend
Late last month, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a brief post on Facebook at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, asking his friends for forgiveness not just for his personal failures but also for his professional ones, especially “the ways my work was used to divide people rather than bring us together.” He was heeding the call of the Jewish Day of Atonement to take stock of the year just passed as he pledged that he would “work to do better.”
Such a somber, self-critical statement hasn’t been typical for the usually sunny Mr. Zuckerberg, who once exhorted his employees at Facebook to “move fast and break things.” In the past, why would Mr. Zuckerberg, or any of his peers, have felt the need to atone for what they did at the office? For making incredibly cool sites that seamlessly connect billions of people to their friends as well as to a global storehouse of knowledge?
Lately, however, the sins of Silicon Valley-led disruption have become impossible to ignore.
Facebook has endured a drip, drip of revelations concerning Russian operatives who used its platform to influence the 2016 presidential election by stirring up racist anger. Google had a similar role in carrying targeted, inflammatory messages during the election, and this summer, it appeared to play the heavy when an important liberal think tank, New America, cut ties with a prominent scholar who is critical of the power of digital monopolies. Some within the organization questioned whether he was dismissed to appease Google and its executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, both longstanding donors, though New America’s executive president and a Google representative denied a connection.
Meanwhile, Amazon, with its purchase of the Whole Foods supermarket chain and the construction of brick-and-mortar stores, pursues the breathtakingly lucrative strategy of parlaying a monopoly position online into an offline one, too.
Now that Google, Facebook, Amazon have become world dominators, the question of the hour is, can the public be convinced to see Silicon Valley as the wrecking ball that it is?
These menacing turns of events have been quite bewildering to the public, running counter to everything Silicon Valley had preached about itself.
@FranklinFoer: How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality
[Editor Charlie sez: Remember that most of these companies are in the MIC Coalition cartel that is colluding to destroy songwriters, and royalty deadbeat Facebook refuses to license at all.]
Until recently, it was easy to define our most widely known corporations. Any third-grader could describe their essence. Exxon sells gas; McDonald’s makes hamburgers; Walmart is a place to buy stuff. This is no longer so. Today’s ascendant monopolies aspire to encompass all of existence. Google derives from googol, a number (1 followed by 100 zeros) that mathematicians use as shorthand for unimaginably large quantities. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google with the mission of organizing all knowledge, but that proved too narrow. They now aim to build driverless cars, manufacture phones and conquer death. Amazon, which once called itself “the everything store,” now produces television shows, owns Whole Foods and powers the cloud. The architect of this firm, Jeff Bezos, even owns this newspaper.
Along with Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, these companies are in a race to become our “personal assistant.” They want to wake us in the morning, have their artificial intelligence software guide us through our days and never quite leave our sides. They aspire to become the repository for precious and private items, our calendars and contacts, our photos and documents. They intend for us to turn unthinkingly to them for information and entertainment while they catalogue our intentions and aversions. Google Glass and the Apple Watch prefigure the day when these companies implant their artificial intelligence in our bodies. Brin has mused, “Perhaps in the future, we can attach a little version of Google that you just plug into your brain.”
More than any previous coterie of corporations, the tech monopolies aspire to mold humanity into their desired image of it.
@davidclowery: Does Sensenbrenner Bill Mean It’s Time for a Grand Jury?
What appears to be a backdated NOI sent to the author. If this was intentionally backdated this is fraud. Note MRI is simply a third party that sent the notice on behalf of the service. All legal responsibility rests with the service.
Digital music services are trying to end songwriters ability to ever sue broadcasters and digital music services for copyright infringement with this bill. In order to sue for copyright infringement you have to mount a case in a federal court. Not your local district court. This is extremely expensive. I would estimate you need about $250,000 to effectively fight a case. This bill takes away statutory penalties and legal fees, even when the songwriter prevails. This makes it impossible for independent songwriters to exercise their legal rights. NAB Broadcasters and digital services like YouTube and Spotify can safely ignore songwriters, especially independent songwriters with no resources. Songwriters and publishers would have never been able to achieve the recent settlements against Spotify, without statutory penalties and legal fees.
So this may surprise you but I say “fine!” Take away our ability to mount copyright infringement lawsuits? We still have plenty of other (sometimes much more severe) remedies available. Most songwriters don’t really care about the money. The royalties are pretty paltry to begin with. This is really about the principle. This is about justice.
I’m no lawyer but the more I learn about the predicament of songwriters in the US, it feels like something more than just copyright infringement seems to be going on. My layman’s reading of the situation makes me wonder if this isn’t exactly what the authors of the RICO laws had in mind. [RICO stands for “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act”. Copyright infringement has long been one of the RICO “predicates”.]
Artist Rights Watch--News for the Artist Rights Advocacy Community 