Intellectual Property Podcast Reviews

This business works because of intellectual property law so it’s always a good idea to brush up on current legal events within the entertainment industry. New laws and court decisions are constantly evolving the way we do business so I’ve reviewed a few podcast resources below. Hopefully at least one of them will help you stay up to date on a regular basis.

Entertainment Law Update

Episode: 19

This is a great episode. Gordon Firemark covers some royalty issues concerning digital downloads and how the courts have approached artist royalty payments for digital download purchases. The issue is whether or not artist should get the publishing royalty rate or the sales rate, which is general, much less lucrative for the artists. I don’t think this will be an issue for long because labels will structure their new contracts to specify downloads as earning the same artist royalty rate as CD sales. However, I suspect a court decisions might change the labels rights to structure their agreements in this way. Digital downloads aren’t worth much to start with and giving the artist the publishing rate for these would actually hurt the music industry in a bad way. Digital sales are replacing CD sales and without the same percent of profit going to the labels they will lose even more money and the music industry will sink.

Intellectual Property Law Podcast Series

Episode: Is Net Neutrality a Virtual Taking?

This is a great podcast by Suffolk University. They explore the issues of net neutrality in this episode and the potential pros and cons of both sides of the argument. This is an episode I highly recommend because laws governing the Internet affect every type of business. What are the stipulations of ISP’s throttling content? The consumers receiving information at their home through the Internet pay for the right to so. Should business have the right to pay a premium to the ISP’s to have their content sent quicker? Is this unfair competition? Will this hurt the development of the Internet by allowing only well funded projects to the front of the pack? Does this mean future services like YouTube and Facebook that were started from the grassroots will not be able to have the same startup potential anymore? Will this hurt or does it sound legitimate? These are some important questions that his podcast covers.

Intellectual Property Law Podcast Series

Episode: Owning Markets

This episode addresses some current issues lying in trademark law. A lot of cases have appeared in recent years where companies are suing others in order to protect their trademarks value. This episode addresses the question of how far does a marks value reach? Does it reach into a market that a company has not expanded into but might decide to in the future? The speaker uses Apple’s mark as an excuse. They questions whether allowing other companies to using a similar mark in a different market is ok even though it might limit any future attempts by Apple to enter that market. One thing I like a lot about this one is that it is a little more one sided and they strike down some of the current arguments in trademark law cases by pointing out the flaws in the arguments.

I hope everybody sees the importance in these issues and pays close attention to the outcome of the cases in question. One single court decision can change how business is done entirely, especially in the entertainment industry. Intellectual property is a fairly new concept to the world and the relevant laws are still evolving. 

Legal Issues In Music

Today I want to talk about some specific legal issues in the music industry. These are recent issues that affect people on both the business and creative side of the industry so pay attention and feel free to share your thoughts with me.

The first issue is copyright law in regards to sampling and remixing. It is a common misconception that sampling is legal as long as the length of the sample is only a certain length. I’m here to tell you that there is only one way to legally sample music for commercial purposes and that’s with written permission. You must obtain permission, in writing of course, from whoever owns the rights to the music BEFORE you use it. Believe me the RIAA is a vicious machine and it will tear you to pieces if you give it an excuse to do it. So, I personally recommend getting permission even if you don’t think your use of a musical work is “commercial”. A Harvard law professor named Larry Lessig, points out that the way copyright law was originally put on the books makes even re-mixers and samplers who give their creative works away for free are technically “pirates” the same as people who do profit off of illegal music. The Lessig’s TED talk on this issue is below.

http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html

On to issue number two. The RIAA’s fight against piracy. Remember when people used to tell you as a kid “pick your battles”. The RIAA has sued children, dead old ladies (yes they actually tried this and claimed it was an accident), and parents. We all know what they are trying to do. They are trying to make examples to use as scare tactics. They want to deter future illegal downloading by crucifying a few harmless citizens in front of the national media and leave their rotting corpses up for display. Well does it work? Do you want to download music more or less when you read that they RIAA began trying to sue a mother and her two children for 1.92 MILLION DOLLARS for downloading 24 songs back in 2009? That’s enough songs to make up about two albums, which would cost roughly $20 at the I-Tunes store. Can anyone say bully, witch-hunt, and psychotic over-reaction?

The point I’m making here is that you have to fight for your rights, but when you are fighting the consumers, pick your battles. You will no doubt have venues, sponsors, promoters, etc, who will breach the terms of their contract or harm you in some other way. And sometimes, I said sometimes, legal action is the appropriate remedy. Just remember to learn from the RIAA’s mistake and don’t burn any bridges you’ll need later. And above all else, don’t alienate your fans by making yourself look like the bad guy. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Give your fans a reason to pay for your music, not a reason to steal it.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/riaa-wins-big-in-piracy-lawsuit-avast-downloaders,29424/

Legal issue three. For the second time in the last decade and a half, the major record labels are being sued for price fixing. Last January, the U.S. Supreme court upheld a NY judge’s decision to allow the case to go forward. This time the major labels are accused of colluding to price fixed digital downloads where as last time they were accused to price fixing CD’s. (Link below). The last time the major labels were sued for price fixing, they were found guilty. By the way, in case you don’t know, the RIAA we talked about in the last part represents……wait for it……..the major record labels. Does anybody else see a problem/pattern here?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jan/11/major-labels-lawsuit

I see it. I see an industry that has been price gouging for decades. An industry that forced people to pay growing prices on a technology that was getting cheaper to manufacture (recorded CD’s) by the minute. The people fought back and sued them.

The labels learned nothing and began more and more to fill the CD’s with 12 crappy songs, one good song, and forcibly sodomize people for the price of an entire album. So, when the labels refused to meet the consumers demand to buy just one song at a time, people found a way to fight back again and get just one song anyways…for free.

Then, the labels decide to come back and punish these rebel pirates, who are usually children with no income, by suing them for millions of dollars. Now, the people are accusing the labels of price fixing again. Now do you see the pattern?

Does this sound like a good business relationship to you? If it were a marriage, somebody would be dead by now.

Something has to change right now before this problem continues to escalate.