p2pnet - rss feed: Vivendi’s UMG vs MySpace
p2pnet.net News:- It goes virtually unmentioned in the mainsteam media that Vivendi Universal, a member of the Big Four Organzied Music cartel, routinely attacks its own customers. But that it’s now lighting up MySpace, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corps, is big news, and the world press has gone to town on it.
However, in much the same way that when Vivendi sued GoTube, with UMG’s Doug Morris saying the site consistently violated music industry copyrights, you knew it wouldn’t be long before wedding bells sounded. And it’ll be the same with MySpace, although the process may take quite a bit longer.
Vivendi’s Universal had, “let it be known that pirates’ gold must be shared,” said The New York Post. And, “We understand now that piracy is a business model,” Disney co-chair Anne Sweeney recebtly declared. “It exists to serve a need in the market for consumers who want TV content on demand. Pirates competes the same way we do - through quality, price and availability. We we don’t like the model but we realise it’s competitive enough to make it a major competitor going forward.”
Moreover, “You’re going to have to look at slightly more ingenious ways of making electronic copies available so that people may actually pay a different price for something that they can download at home, which is just being released in the cinema,” UK film minister Shaun Woodward told Hollywod executives. “If they want to watch it at home, then maybe you should make it available to them.
But, “they should pay a premium rate for having it earlier on and it should be encrypted in such a way that it can’t be copied.”
DRM. Goes without saying.
Meanwhile, Why MySpace may settle with Universal Music Group, is the title to an OpEd by Bambi Francisco in MarketWatch.
Vivendi’s Universal Music Group claims MySpace “encourages” users and “facilitates” the upload of millions of Universal’s songs and videos, it says, going on that, according to UMG, News Corp has “turned MySpace Videos into a vast virtual warehouse for pirated copies of music videos and songs,” Universal’s attorneys argued.
“Universal is seeking damages of $150,000 per song or video posted to the collection of Web sites, and identifies 60 alleged copyright violations,” says MarketWatch.
News Corp, however, says it fully complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and that it “proactively take steps to filter unauthorized music sound recordings” and has implemented audio fingerprinting technology.
Peter Chermin is News Corp’s presient and ceo and MarketWatch says he’s citing compliance with a law that, “quickly became outdated: its provisions never addressed rampant file-sharing taking place across social networks like MySpace, YouTube and Grouper. Grouper, which is part of Sony, was recently sued by Universal in a case similar to its complaint against MySpace.”
“It’s rather hard to imagine Peter Chernin making that argument in court, what with his well-known extremist views on copyright,” the story has the EFF’s (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Fred von Lohmann saying, refering to Chernin as a copyright hardliner and the father of the “broadcast flag” and, “Like Sony before it, Fox suddenly looks like a house divided against itself.”
But, says Francisco, “let me propose that if Chernin is truly dedicated to the cause of copyright protection, rather than holding up the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as a defense to skirt any responsibility MySpace has, he would argue for an amendment to the law. When the legislation was enacted in the late ’90s, lawmakers didn’t anticipate a world in which content could be shared with millions across social networks as easily as it is today.”
It also might be a tall order to make changes to the law, she adds, and, “Given that challenge - and Chernin’s own high principles - I’d imagine he’d hold MySpace to the same high standard.
“That’s why this case is more likely to settle than be protracted and dirty.”
Also See:
consistently violated - UMG threatens YouTube, September 14, 2006
The New York Post - Universal Music warns web video swapper, September 14, 200
serve a need - Hollywood lauds pirates, October 10, 2006
more ingenious ways - UK answer to movie pirates, October 13, 2006
MarketWatch - Why MySpace may settle with Universal Music Group, November 21, 2006
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November 21st, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Vivendi’s Universal had, “let it be known that pirates’ gold must be shared,” said The New York Post. And, “We understand now that piracy is a business model,”
thats a big statement… to say the least
November 21st, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Vivendi’s Universal had, “let it be known that pirates’ gold must be shared,”
Do they mean shared with the artists?
How much DO they share with the artists anyway?
John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls:
“Our last record sold maybe 800,000 copies – we didn’t make any money. None. Not one penny from record sales. Imagine if we weren’t able to go out and tour and make money on tour. What would we have done? We would have had a gold record and go out and get jobs.”
With all the studies that are done by Polara and evrybody - when is someone going to finance a study on how much all the artists actually end up getting?
When you take a look at diagrams like this (which was put out by the canadian Gov’t) you gotta wonder how much could possibly be left for the actual creator.
Hard copy sales:
http://www.music.gc.ca/flash/Enreg_Suppo_Conso_e.asp
Online sales:
http://www.music.gc.ca/flash/Enreg_Fichi_Conso_e.asp
There’s got to be a better way.
Sorry if I got a bit off topic.