Whether Dumb Starbucks Is A PR Stunt, A Joke Or Real... Its 'Parody' Claims Are Pretty Questionable. Hidden Within The TPP: The RIAA's Secret Plan To Screw Musicians Out Of Their Rights. We've written a few times about how the RIAA has been fighting hard to screw over tons of musicians by taking away their "termination rights. " Termination rights are a bit confusing, but the simplest way of thinking about them is that after 35 years, if a copyright holder had assigned the copyright to someone else -- such as a record label -- the artist can simply take them back.
There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as in cases where the work was done under a "work for hire" setup. And while many people think they know what "work for hire" means, it has a very specific meaning that most likely does not apply to the many situations you might think it would. It certainly does not apply to music, in part because at the time the law was rewritten, the RIAA didn't have anyone in the room to add that into the document (seriously). Still, the recording industry, in particular, hates termination rights. The termination right, of course, is a limit on free transfer.
Record Label Picks Copyright Fight — With The Wrong Guy : All Tech Considered. An Australian record label may have picked a fight with the wrong guy. The label sent a standard takedown notice threatening to sue after YouTube computers spotted its music in a video. It turns out that video was posted by one of the most famous copyright attorneys in the world, and Lawrence Lessig is suing back. Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor, has lectured around the world about how copyright law needs to adapt to the Internet age. In his lecture, he shows examples of people who have used the Internet to "share their culture and remix other people's creations. " hide captionLaw professor Lawrence Lessig, shown here in 2009, is suing an Australian record label for threatening to sue him over an alleged YouTube copyright violation.
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Law professor Lawrence Lessig, shown here in 2009, is suing an Australian record label for threatening to sue him over an alleged YouTube copyright violation. Copyright Vs. At first, YouTube took it down. Afraid To Fight Back. GoldieBlox removes Beastie Boys song from girl power video: smart or cynical? The internet has in been in an uproar for days over toy maker Goldieblox’s video that showed young girls building a Rube Goldberg machine to the tune of the Beastie Boys’ 1989 rap song “Girls,” but with new lyrics that celebrated female coders and astronauts.
Now, after a colossal copyright kerfuffle, the original video has disappeared, to be replaced with a new version that has the same images but a dull, generic tune — the video has gone from an inspiring empowerment messages to another dull YouTube clip. Why? What’s going on? GoldieBlox explained the takedown on their blog in an open letter that reads in part: Dear Adam and Mike,We don’t want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans.When we made our parody version of your song, ‘Girls’, we did it with the best of intentions.
The story, then, shapes up as another episode of copyright bullying and a setback for parody and fair use law. I’m not so sure. Goldie says “Hey! Goldie sues Beastie to their dismay. Google wins book-scanning case: judge finds “fair use,” cites many benefits. Google has won a resounding victory in its eight-year copyright battle with the Authors Guild over the search giant’s controversial decision to scan more than 20 million books from libraries and make them available on the internet. In a ruling (embedded below) issued Thursday morning in New York, US Circuit Judge Denny Chin said the book scanning amounted to fair use because it was “highly transformative” and because it didn’t harm the market for the original work. “Google Books provides significant public benefits,” Chin wrote, describing it as “an essential research tool” and noting that the scanning service has expanded literary access for the blind and helped preserve the text of old books from physical decay.
Chin also rejected the theory that Google was depriving authors of income, noting that the company does not sell the scans or make whole copies of books available. “This has been a long road and we are absolutely delighted with today’s judgement.