davidNeedham

Article 1

Grand Theft Photo

http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/5001/grand-theft-photo.html

It's obvious how easy it is to steal photos online through google images, flickr ,or a number of other websites. I've often wondered about exactly how easy it is for us to copyright our own photographs and what exactly can be done when people steal them. My summery of this article cannot do it credit so I recommend that anyone reading this should go and check out that article.

Say you take a great photograph and decide to show it off on your website or one of the popular photography websites like Flickr or deviantArt. Maybe you even go so far as to put in a digital watermark to protect it. It shows up on search engines like Google Images (legally - as stated in Kelly v. Arriba Soft from our reading) when someone does a search, and they steal your image to use in an ad campaign or a book they plan to sell. What can you do? Technically, your photos receive protection every time you take one - but if your photo wasn't registered, there isn't much that you can do. Lawyers will almost never take a case like this without registration.

So how do you get a picture registered? In years past, it was a long and drawn out process of filling out forms and pushing papers. It would regularly take over 5 months before getting the paperwork back. In June 2007, a grand new electronic submission system was created. Just go to the Electronic Copyright Office (eCo) at http://www.copyright.gov and sign up for an account. Then, you can submit an unlimited number of photos per submission for only $35 (discounted $10 over the paper system). With such a cheap and easy system, can you afford not to protect yourself?

Article 2

Copyright Vampires Delete Guitar 'Shred' Videos from YouTube

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/02/copyright-vampi.html

Are you familiar with Guitar 'Shred' Videos? They are parodies created by common people trying to make a laugh. They take videos of famous people rocking out on guitars and replace the audio with someone playing horribly on a guitar. Apparently someone took offense to this and requested that YouTube take them down. Not just one, but all of them. As we learned about and discussed in class, it doesn't break copyright law because it is a parody - and as such covered under the Fair Use affirmative defense.

As the article states: "If all that's left on there [YouTube] is material approved by entertainment conglomerates, our eyeballs will soon look elsewhere." I understand that YouTube has to look out for their own butts, but they need to draw the line somewhere. If you'd like to see an example of shred, the only video available at this time is the video of the author of shred playing with Slash on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show:http://youtube.com/watch?v=VpXB5MSTDfQ

Article 3

Copyright Board Begins Mechanical Royalty Rate Hearings

http://www.filmmusicmag.com/news/Copyright-Board-Begins-Mechanical-Royalty-Rate-Hea-305.html

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) starting meeting late last month on changing the standard ("mechanical") royalty fee to be paid to composers, song writers, and music publishers. Lobbying in this hearing are the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) and their rivals, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Digital Music Association (DMA). The RIAA and DMA are working to cut the already pitiful royalty rates by more than a third in some cases. The NMPA is fighting to increase the rate - especially in cases when the cost to the record label is reduced (downloads and streaming audio for example). Instead, the RIAA and DMA suggest a reduced royalty and in the case of streaming, no royalty whatsoever.

What kind of rubbish is this. The record companies are already raking in tons of money - and they're saying that the streaming media is the way of the future. Why then are they suggesting reduced royalties for their creators? It's hard enough as it is to make a living from songwriting or publishing - any reduction could drastically reduce the current number of those currently in this area - thus reducing everyone options for good music / lyrical content. Reading this article reminded me of the reading we did about early 1900's copyright legislation. Fortunately this time the artists have a decent voice to defend themselves.