The 'Catch Up' COPYKAT

After a week in Groningen in Holland at the EuroSonic music conference and festival. it's time for a quick catch up before our two new interns, Mateusz Rachubka and Kelsey Farish take over. And since you were asking - the buzzwords at ESNS 2018 were 'bots' and 'blockchain' ! As for the word of copyright, and still mostly in the world of music - here goes!

There has been a LOT of chat about the fact that even with the 1998 twenty year extension to the copyright term in the USA, copyrights will (again) begin to enter the public domain with works from 1923 in the public domain next year, and Mickey Mouse cartoons entering the public domain starting in 2024, with Steamboat Willie. Will Disney lead another charge to extend the the term - AGAIN? Ars Technica's Timothy B Lee has polled lobbyists for the record and movie industries and so far there seems to be no will to push for any legislative pushes this year, and EFF's Daniel Nazer suggests that the studios know that there would be a big pushback now - "the days of copyright being a wonky, obscure issue that fronts the families of dead artists as human shields for policies that let big companies lock up more and more of our shared culture are over."

Still in the US, the music industry has (mostly) come together to support a raft of new legislation. First of all there is the CLASSICS Act, which is aimed at rectifying the much discussed pre-1972 quirk in American copyright law that excludes the earlier sound recordings from the performance right and therefor royalties from airplay (litigation by the Turtles, pictured left, has kept us busy on this blog).  US music trade bodies, lobbying groups and collecting societies representing record labels, music publishers, artists, songwriters, record producers and artist managers have also  backed the AMP Act, which would introduce a new right for record producers and sound engineers, and reform to the way satellite radio royalties are calculated, and provide a general performing right  for sound recording copyright to rectify another odd position in US copyrights law where AM/FM radio stations do not royalties (at all) to artists and labels for the airplay of sound recordings (they do play for the use of the 'song'). And the music industry is (mostly) behind the recently unveiled Music Modernization Act, which would cover the anomalies in America’s mechanical rights that (as CMU says) "has resulted in songwriters going unpaid and streaming services getting sued, including that mega-bucks $1.6 billion lawsuit filed by Wixen last month."  More here. 

Facebook has signed another multi-year licensing deal with a major music company -Sony/ATV Music Publishing.The news comes just two weeks after Universal Music Group announced that it had signed an agreement with the social media giant, which draws more than 2 billion users every month to its platform. Sony ATV’s multi-territory, multi-year deal covers a catalogue of more than 3 million songs, including those by Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Drake, The Chainsmokers, Sam Smith, Sia and Kanye West. On top of this, Facebook them announced it had signed three more significant music licensing agreements,  this time with SESAC’s HFA/Rumblefish platform, Kobalt Music Publishing and Irving Azoff’s Global Music Rights. SESAC says that its new Facebook agreement, a standardised deal in which indie publishers can choose to opt in, will provide ‘streamline music licensing and administration for the independent publishing market’.

Lana Del Rey by Bea Gibson

Are Radiohead suing Lana Del Rey over an alleged copy of their iconic song 'Creep'? Lana Del Rey recently tweeted: “it’s true about the lawsuit. Although I know my song wasn’t inspired by ‘Creep’, Radiohead feel it was and want 100% of the publishing. I offered up to 40 over the last few months but they will only accept 100. Their lawyers have been relentless, so we will deal with it in court”.” Whilst many took this to mean a lawsuit had been filed by Radiohead’s lawyers, that isn’t quite the full picture. The spokes person for Warner/ Chappell states that: “As Radiohead’s music publisher, it’s true that we’ve been in discussions since August of last year with Lana Del Rey’s representatives. It’s clear that the verses of ‘Get Free’ use musical elements found in the verses of ‘Creep’ and we’ve requested that this be acknowledged in favour of all writers of ‘Creep’. To set the record straight, no lawsuit has been issued and Radiohead have not said they ‘will only accept 100%’ of the publishing of ‘Get Free'”.

Four of Britain’s biggest karaoke firms "face ruin" after being sued for infringing copyright in the US. It seems that "they must cough up hundreds of millions in damages after failing to pay royalties on versions of hits by acts including The Beatles and Oasis." £527 million in damages to be precise. UK firms SBI Global, Mr Entertainer, Zoom Entertainments and Music Factory re-create hits without the vocals and sell them on. But while they paid royalties on sales in the UK and Europe they did not have permission to sell in the US, a US court has ruled. More here. 

Fox and the Premier League have joined telcos Singtel and StarHub in a private case against two Android set-top box sellers in Singapore for allegedly ‘wilfully infringing’ copyright. The actions against Singapore distributor Synnex Trading and retailer An-Nahl, along with their respective directors Jia Xiaofeng and Abdul Nagib Abdul Aziz, have been brought under Section 136 (3A) of the Copyright Act. In a joint statement, Starhub, SingTel, Fox Networks Group and the FAPL said the broadcasting industry would continue to take "concerted and decisive action" against content piracy through public education as well as via legal channels to uphold intellectual property rights saying “The alarming proliferation of piracy and illicit streaming devices that are used to view copyright-protected content hurts both consumers and producers. Piracy makes it untenable for producers to keep on creating content for the public's enjoyment and Singapore cannot effectively encourage innovation when intellectual property rights are constantly trampled on”.

The CopyKat - Friday's feline feast

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have both sent letters to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) urging the organization to take strong action against the use of domain names for illegal and abusive activities including those related to copyright infringement. The RIAA had said it was disappointed with ICANN’s treatment of copyright abuse complaints and urged ICANN to make domain name registries and registrars investigate copyright abuse complaints and take swift action, not least because when ICANN recently opened up top-level domains, it included a provision in its contract with the registries of the new top-level domains which was called the Public Interest Commitment - agreeing that they would only do business with domain name registrars that prohibited its customers from distributing piracy, trademark and copyright infringement (amongst other things). More on Techspot here.

Here's an interesting take on copyright reform in the EU: "The reform of copyright also concerns linguistic precision - a distinction should be made between Anglo-American copyright and continental European authors' rights. With copyright exploitation rights are not necessary reserved for the creator." Its from Dietmar Köster, the European Parliament's EPP group shadow rapporteur looking towards a renewed consensus on the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the EU: That debate is being led by the rapporteur for parliament's legal affairs committee, Julia Reda, of the Greens/EFA group.

City University are organising a copyright-related seminar to be held at City Law School on Wednesday 1st April 2015, College Building, Room AG 02. The speaker is Professor Stavroula Karapapa (University of Reading), who will talk about "The Concept of 'Public' in Copyright Law" and will look at "what amounts to an actionable communication of copyright works to the public. Recent rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union uphold that infringement takes place not only where an unauthorised communication reaches the public but also where a communication is addressed to a «new public», i.e. a public that copyright holders had not taken into account when authorising the initial communication of the work. This newly developed doctrine does not refer to a public or a private circle in a copyright sense, but develops a sui generis legal fiction that fundamentally changes the communication right; it both restricts and expands its scope in ways that were not foreseen when the right was first introduced in international law, European copyright and the national laws of Member States. In its unnecessary complexity and complicated logic that challenges the credibility of copyright, the concept of the “new public” indicates that the extremely broad scope of the communication right is unworkable and counter productive, and invites a principle-based approach in examinations of infringement." More here.

CMU Daily reports that the City Of London Police's IP Crime Unit (PIPCU) has shut down a copyright infringing karaoke website following a complaint by PRS For Music. CMU tells us that KaraokeWorld was a BitTorrent site with a specific focus on accessing unlicensed karaoke tune. The service had a commercial element, with VIP memberships on offer from £5 to £90, which will have heightened the case for taking criminal rather than civil action against the operation. A 46 year old man believed to be the operator of the website was arrested as part of the shutdown. PIPCU Detective Chief Inspector Danny Medlycott told reporters: "The public needs to be aware that by accessing sites like this, they are putting money directly in the hands of criminals, which often then funds other serious organised crime, as well as putting their own financial and personal details at risk of being compromised and used for other fraudulent scams. These websites are stealing from the creative industries that employ thousands of people and PIPCU will continue to work closely with our partners to tackle the criminals behind these sites and bring them to justice".

AND FINALLY - AND coincidently set against the backdrop of the news that Sarah Brightman is working with Andrew Lloyd Webber on new material to perform in space -  this from a anonymous contributor who The CopyKat shall name only as 'Major Tom'.....

'Stimulated by Sarah Brightman's intention to be propelled into space in September, the EU has launched a Public Consultation into the collective administration of rights in extraterrestrial broadcasting. "We have asked her to delay her flight for an indefinite period - possibly several aeons - while we consult and decide on the cross-planet implications of the licensing of her performance', said an EU spokesperson. Elsewhere (George) Lucas Grange, supremo of Universal Music, said 'We are called Universal for a good reason. We have an exclusive arrangement with Ms Brightman and her ex-husband, with his Soyuzful Music Corporation, to handle all the publishing and artistic rights. People laughed at us when we signed everything for the Universe, but they are now laughing on the other side of their galaxies.' This claim was dismissed by Sergey Brin. 'Ms Brinman's voyage will take place in Google Rocket, propelled by Google Zoom. Her Google Watch will stream her singing via Google Play and Universal can go and sing for their royalties. Her destination was Google Moon, but if she fails in her mission then she and the royalties will fall into a Google Black Hole.' Speaking from a black hole in Brussels, an EU spokesperson stated that all modalities would be taken into consideration. The CEO of a central European collecting society, who wished to remain anonyme, said 'all public performance royalties from Ms Brightman's performances that cannot be distributed (and that means all of them) will be sucked into our black box, as is customary'.

To infinity ...... and beyond!