May152008
Royalty Logic Seeks To Prove Copyright Board Unconstitutional »
Just when record labels thought it was safe to start charging webcasters on a per-listener, per-song basis, the US Copyright Royalty Board that set the rates has been charged unconstitutional in the Federal Court of Appeals. During the royalty rate proceedings, a company called Royalty Logic proposed that it compete with SoundExchange for the collection of digital royalties from webcasters. Instead, the Copyright Royalty Board decided to make SoundExchange — formerly a division of the RIAA — the only party authorized to collect these royalties. Then, the board waved its potentially unconstitutional wand to turn SoundExchange’s proposed rates into law.
"But what’s the real effect of DRM? Last year, EMI began offering songs without it on iTunes. “The industry has finally been able to get some hard data about how removing DRM restrictions from legitimately purchased tracks affects piracy,” says Bill Rosenplatt, DRM specialist and president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies. “The statistics show that there’s no effect on piracy.”
No effect. The assertion is remarkable. If DRM does not in fact discourage piracy, then it is merely a nuisance for the user.
…Ironically, the music companies are now abandoning DRM because it worked too well.
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Thao Nguyen - Brooklyn Masonic Temple, NYC - May 1st, 2008 (via Chris | the other Chris)
Reblogged from Fred Wilson Dot VC.
From ars technica:
Exonerated P2P defendant Tanya Andersen should be awarded $107,834 in court costs and attorney fees, a federal magistrate judge ruled yesterday. It’s the largest attorneys’ fees award to date against the RIAA, but a far cry from both the $298,995 sought by her attorney and the RIAA’s reckoning of just under $30,000. Of course, all the RIAA needs is for 27 college kids to settle at $4,000 a pop and it’s got the award covered.