After our very last post, more on dance steps! Former "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" star Alfonso Ribeiro has been involved in a lawsuit with Take-Two Interactive, publisher of the video game "NBA 2K," and the publisher of "Fortnite" over avatars in the games being able to do the dance that his character popularised on the hugely popular '90s sitcom ' the 'Carlton Dance'. But now that action has taken a knock back as details of a letter from Saskia Florence at the US Copyright Office to Ribeiro's attorney, David Hecht surfaced as part of federal court documents in California. In the correspondence, Florence wrote that the moves are "a simple dance routine." adding "as such, it is not registrable as a choreographic work".
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And with that final draft of the European Copyright Directive now being considered, a number of organisations representing independent record labels and music publishers, songwriters and their collecting societies published a letter calling on the EU Council and European Parliament to vote through the copyright reforms. Independent label's group IMPALA and the Independent Music Publishers International Forum led the call for support for the Directive to now be adopted along with support from the European Composer And Songwriter Alliance, and collecting society groups CISAC and GESAC, with the letter saying "We, the undersigned organisations, representing authors, composers, writers, journalists, photographers and others working in all artistic fields, news agencies, book, press and music publishers, audiovisual and independent music producers, call on the Council Of The European Union and the European Parliament to adopt the Directive On Copyright In The Digital Single Market".
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The Copyright Royalty Board in the US has published the new mechanical royalty rates that will apply for the use of music in America. The new rates were first published a year ago and include a top line 44% increase in the revenue share rate being paid by the streaming services, which will rise from 10.5% to 15.1%. After a further period of consultation with submissions from both music owners and music users a ‘final determination’ has now followed - although participating parties still have one more chance to appeal. Benjamin Semel who represents the National Music Publishers Association commented: “The final determination that became effective today is even stronger than the initial determination, as the judges clarified an important definition during the rehearing motion phase, providing additional protection against streaming services using product bundling to exclude revenues from the royalty pool”. NMPA President & CEO David Israelite said that digital music companies would ‘declare war on songwriters’ should they appeal the 44% streaming royalty rise decided by the Copyright Royalty Board adding “Apple has announced it will not appeal. The others won’t say. We will know soon whether some digital companies want to be partners or want to attack the songwriters who make their businesses possible. Stay Tuned.”
US Radio lobbyists and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in Washington DC are backing the Local Radio Freedom Act, which would limit the royalties radio stations have to pay for the use of recordings. Similar bills failed in 2017 and 2015 and of course the rapidly passed Music Modernization Act did much to update the law on music use in the USA. Now 124 congress members and five senators have signed on as initial co-sponsors. The bills argue that radio stations "provide free publicity and promotion to the recording industry and performers," so they should not be obliged to pay "any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge." If such fees were imposed, the bill's proponents argue, it would cause "severe economic hardship." Or perhaps just reduce profits for broadcasters.
And finally, in Trinidad & Tobago, Police have arrested seven people in Port of Spain for copyright infringement..The seven vendors were targeted during an exercise which saw officers of the Port of Spain Division, the Municipal Police, and officials from Awesome Copyright interview CD vendors in Independence Square and Charlotte Street. Various CDs and sound equipment were seized with the arrests made pursuant tof Section 41 of the Trinidad and Tobago Copyright Act. The offence carries a jail term of up to ten years and/or a fine of up to $250,000.
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