Search Results for: Intellectual Property

Michael Jackson’s surprise attack on Sony Music as racist has grabbed headlines, but many in the music industry have turned a deaf ear – suspecting the pop star has been motivated by self-interest rather than a concern for civil rights. Jackson, under contract with Sony until 2004 and among the highest-paid pop stars of all time, appears to be trying to pressure Sony into breaking the deal so he can exit with his valuable trove of master recordings, industry sources said. They say Jackson’s assault was prompted mostly by anger at Sony for the poor showing of his latest album,… Read more »

The people who tried to take away your VCR are at it again. Hollywood has always dreamed of a “well-mannered marketplace” where the only technologies that you can buy are those that do not disrupt its business. Acting through legislators who dance to Hollywood’s tune, the movie studios are racing to lock away the flexible, general-purpose technology that has given us a century of unparalelled prosperity and innovation. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed the “Content Protection Status Report” with the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, laying out its plan to remake the technology world to suit its… Read more »

Penton Media’s Streaming Media, Inc. today announced that Streaming Media West 2002, to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from April 23-26 (http://www.streamingmedia.com/west), will have several sessions lead by online music experts to address net radio and the recent royalty decision by the U.S. Copyright Office. Recent articles in The New York Times, CNET and Business Week have highlighted the issues faced by Webcasters such as the royalty debate and the potential repercussions on net radio. If approved by the U.S. Copyright Office on May 21st, the new music licensing rates would force thousands of Webcasters to pay… Read more »

Recording Industry Association of America President and CEO Hilary Rosen recently testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on international and domestic intellectual property theft. The subject of music piracy has been top on Rosen’s agenda since the advent of Napster in late 1999, and the emergence of post-Napster progeny since the RIAA successfully shut down the peer-to-peer music exchange in July last year. Targeting her testimony to the foreign relations audience she was addressing, Rosen said, “In Russia, China, and Brazil alone-the world’s three leading pirate marketplaces-the music industry loses more than $1 billion per year.” Rosen added… Read more »

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on $75 million worth of metals, footwear and other goods from Ukraine in retaliation for piracy of music compact discs and other optical media products in that country. The action, which takes effect Jan. 23, follows repeated U.S. warnings over the past two years that Ukraine could face sanctions unless it cracked down on the illegal copying. “The United States is moving forcefully to protect its rights,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said in a statement. “We hope Ukraine will now redouble its efforts to deal with intellectual property rights and pass the… Read more »

Napster and the U.S. record industry will be back in court Monday, arguing over how much initiative the once-popular song-swapping service can take in order to comply with a court-ordered injunction that it stop trade in copyright-protected music. The once-popular service has been idle since July due to technical glitches it faced while complying with the injunction, which bars the trade of any copyrighted material. Both sides to the lawsuit, which remains widely watched as a defining case on intellectual property on the Internet, will go before a federal appeals court in Pasadena, California Monday, to argue over how to… Read more »

Liquid Audio confirmed yesterday that after reviewing the claims made against the company in a lawsuit recently filed by Network Commerce it believes the complaint has no merit and has accordingly filed a motion to dismiss the case. Liquid Audio filed the motion to dismiss on Nov. 27, 2001 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. “Liquid Audio has always respected valid intellectual property rights and is a key innovator in the digital distribution space, creating and licensing new technology to address market needs,” said Leon Rishniw, vice president of Engineering at Liquid Audio, Inc. “We… Read more »

United States District Judge A. Howard Matz issued a preliminary injunction against American Online, Inc. finding that PlayMedia Systems’ had established the probable validity of allegations that its AMP(R) MP3 playback technology was used in the AOL 6.0 Media Player without permission. At issue is whether AOL violates the terms of a 1999 licensing agreement. PlayMedia, a firm that designs and develops digital content distribution and management software, markets a popular MP3 audio decoding engine known as AMP. PlayMedia originally licensed AMP to Nullsoft in 1999 for use in conjunction with Nullsoft’s Winamp product. AOL subsequently bought Nullsoft and used… Read more »

Alanis Morissette was scheduled to appear Wednesday (September 12) in Washington D.C. to present testimony from the artists’ point of view in regards to the future of music and intellectual property at the Kennedy Center. Due to the terrorist attack, the hearing was postponed. Morissette put out a statement via her website: “Alanis sends her love to everyone and would like to express her deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones and friends…Peace and love, you are not alone.” Jewel was in New York City briefly and passed along the message, “We are safe and not there…Pray for… Read more »

The music industry is escalating its crusade against Napster-style music swapping with a plan to place stringent controls on compact discs – including, perhaps, the one you bought last week. Some of the world’s major record labels – Vivendi Universal’s Universal Music, Sony Corp.’s Sony Music, AOL Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Music, EMI Group Plc, and Bertelsmann AG’s BMG – are already running quiet field tests of CDs that cannot be copied, or “ripped,” to a personal computer. Using technology from companies such as Sunnyvale, California-based Macrovision Corp and privately held Israeli firm Midbar Technologies, the labels hope to staunch… Read more »