There is yet another copyright lawsuit against the appropriation artist Richard Prince, after Dennis Morris LLC, the London-based photographer’s corporation, filed a complaint on the 3rd June in a Californian federal court seeking unspecified damages and any profits the artist and his dealer Gagosian Gallery made from Prince’s alleged use of three photographs of the 1970s punk rock band the Sex Pistols. According to the complaint, Prince used the images in work included in the 2011 exhibition Untitled (Covering Pollock) at Guild Hall in East Hampton. The claim says that Prince made "derivative works” and accuses the defendants of “producing and distributing large scale reproductions incorporating those derivative works” based on Morris’s photos of Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious. Morris is seeking a jury trial and demanding, among other damages, all of Prince and Gagosian’s profits from sales of the disputed works. The complaint also alleges that Prince used Instagram to promote the work for sale and includes a screenshot of a post (since deleted but pictured, left) on Prince’s Instagram account, featuring one of Morris’s best known photos of Vicious who died in 1979 from a drugs overdose.
Arts Technica reports that the lawyers behind the Prenda Law "copyright trolling" enterprise have lost their key appeal and will have to pay more than $230,000 in sanctions. The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a 12-page ruling upholding the sanction order that began Prenda's downfall, issued by US District Judge Otis Wright in 2013. The ruling wholly supports Wright's sanction and dismisses John Steele and Paul Hansmeier claims that due process rights were violated: "These consolidated cases began as minor copyright infringement suits, until courts nationwide started catching on to the plaintiffs' real business of copyright trolling," the ruling states. "Prenda Principals were found contradicting themselves, evading questioning, and possibly committing identity theft and fraud on the courts" and "The Prenda Principals have engaged in abusive litigation, fraud on courts across the country, and willful violation of court orders," the opinion states. "They have lied to other courts about their ability to pay sanctions. They also failed to pay their own attorney’s fees in this case." The third appellant, Paul Duffy, died last year.
All three major record labels, along with 50 other rights owners and platforms, including Spotify, Pandora, SACEM and YouTube, have committed to creating a new system to “dramatically simplify the way that music creators and rights owners are identified and compensated”. The new initiative will hopefully replace and surpass the stalled Global Repertoire Database - and provide a 'one stop' centre for users who want to use songs and sound recordings. The Open Music Initiative (OMI) has been founded by Berklee College of Music’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE), and has been publicly backed by Universal, Sony, Warner and many more – although as MBW points out - despite Google's YouTube being on board, Apple’s name is conspicuous by its absence.
The European Commission's public consultation on "neighbouring rights" for publishers - otherwise known as the 'Google tax on snippets' CLOSES TODAY. The right could potentially allow publishers to demand payment from search engines and content aggregators where they include short snippets that link to the original text. You must use the questionnaire on the EU website to respond.
And the latest battle in what the difference is between 'inspiration' and what is 'appropriation' has kicked off in Los Angeles, where Led Zeppelin stand accused of copying of a song called “Taurus,” written by Randy Wolfe and performed with his band Spirit, into their epic "Stairway to Heaven". Those who have listened to recordings of each of the songs might think there is a strong similarity, but the legal team attorney for Zeppelin’s front man, Robert Plant, and lead guitarist, Jimmy Page, said any similarities were because the two songs both relied on “basic musical devices that are completely commonplace” and found in songs dating back centuries. "Taurus" was released three years before “Stairway to Heaven” surfaced on Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, commonly referred to as “Led Zeppelin IV.” In the wake of the jury decision in the "Blurred Lines" case, its unsurprising Plant and Page cancelled sows to attend the trial.
And finally and this time from Canada, a federal court has ruled that that a number of companies must temporarily stop selling TV boxes that allow consumers to access content via streaming sites as they face a court battle over alleged copyright infringement. The plaintiffs, who include Bell and Groupe TVA, allege the TV boxes come with pre-loaded software that allows consumers to view copyrighted programming from illegal streaming sites . MTLFreeTV, one of the defendants, argued the boxes are similar to a tablet or computer, and the company does not develop, produce, service or maintain the software that comes with the boxes. Justice Danièle Tremblay-Lamer ruled that the companies must stop selling pre-loaded products until a the result of a trail in the matter.
The Global Repertoire Database (GRD) – the project that aims to catalogue the world’s music – has announced that it will set up its global headquarters in London and will base its operations centre in Berlin.
The London office, housing corporate functions and business development capabilities is scheduled to open later in 2013, and will work alongside the current London-based project team in the first instance. The Berlin operations centre will provide registrations and data processing facilities, and may provide a template for further operations centres to support the global operation as it grows.
When completed, the main aim will be to create a new and more effective global infrastructure for music rights management, leading to an improved path to music licensing for digital and other music services, and to efficiency benefits for the whole music ecosystem saving extensive costs currently lost to duplication in data processing.
Alfons Karabuda, President of ECSA, the European Composer & Songwriter Alliance, said, ‘We are happy to have a home for the Global Repertoire Database. These two great cities of Berlin and London with their proud heritage and strong support for authors’ rights and for copyright will serve our needs very well. We can now turn our attention to building the world’s first authoritative database of musical works and to creating a completely new system of rights management that will benefit creators globally.’
Kenth Muldin, Chair of CISAC, the organisation representing the world’s copyright management societies, said, ‘The Global Repertoire Database is necessary for the effective functioning of the rights licensing, management and royalty payment systems of musical works in the 21st century. A single, authoritative global view of music ownership in real time will mean that anyone wanting to set up a music service can do so more quickly – and that means more legal choice for music fans and consumers, and a more efficient way of identifying who should be paid royalties for the use of their music.’
The next stage of development in the GRD project is the technical build, during which the systems and processes required for the new database to interact with existing licensing and payment systems will be structured. GRD systems will be fully compliant with existing rights management solutions FastTrack and ICE, who are technology partners in the project.
www.globalrepertoiredatabase.com
Progress on the creation of a Global Repertoire Database (GRD) for musical works has moved ahead
strongly over the past twelve months with the completion of the Scoping Study and
the commencement of the Requirements and Design Phase according to a new press
release, which also says that 2013 will
mark some important milestones in the realisation of the project.
The scope of the GRD is to provide a single, comprehensive and
authoritative representation of the global ownership and control of musical
works. Once deployed the GRD will "save extensive costs, currently lost to
duplication in data processing". Delivery of the project is driven
by the GRD Working Group: This consists of representatives from 14
organisations of creators, publishers, collective management societies, digital
service providers and their trade associations –APRA,
GEMA, PRS for Music, SACEM, STIM, CISAC, Sony/ATV/EMI Music Publishing,
Universal Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, ICMP, ECSA, Google, iTunes
and Omnifone. In all, nearly 30 companies represented by
nearly 100 individuals are directly involved in the work worldwide. Thirteen collective management
societies for music are supporting the project with funding, knowledge and
access to their databases and these are APRA, GEMA. PRS, STIM and SACEM as well as ASCAP, BMI, SGAE,
SIAE, UBC, BUMA, SABAM and SOCAN. The project is managed by Deloitte with
support from ICE and FastTrack as technology solution providers.
Andrew Jenkins, Chair of ICMP
(International Confederation of Music Publishers) commented: “ICMP and its
music publisher members around the world are committed to the development of
the Global Repertoire Database which will benefit all those who have a stake in
improved music licensing processes including creators, music publishers,
collecting societies, music suppliers and fans of music everywhere. Indeed, it
is impossible to argue against the benefits of the GRD for the wider community
and all of us involved are working together to deliver something that will be a
game-changer for the industry".
A series of distinct project
phases have been completed thus far and the period since March 2012 has been
spent ensuring that all parties are comfortable with the way forward and
putting the necessary structures in place. Work on the
Requirements and Design phase of the project began in October 2012 and will run
until May 2013. During this project phase, focus will be on the business
requirements and rules of the database including a definition of standards for
works, agreements and repertoire mandates as well as definition of the GRD
logical data model.
Robert Ashcroft Chief Executive
of PRS for Music said “The Global
Repertoire Database is the building block for the future success of the legal
online music market. PRS for Music has supported the project from the outset
and we are committed to making the initiative work for the benefit of rights
holders and rights users globally".
GRD will be set up as a legal entity during the project phase, the
business plan will be completed and the logical technology architecture for the
system will be defined. In mid-2013, the project will move into the technology build,
with a first release of the database due in 2015.
http://globalrepertoiredatabase.com/
