Intellectual Property Rights, Hypocrisy, Transparency, Immorality (By Others)

I mean to write about government "consent degrees", which seems to me to be an Orwellian term for the situation where authors (whether of music or of literature) are forced to accept reduced royalties and loss of negotiating rights by the heavy hand of the government which favors Big Business political contributors, and enables these "disruptors" or exploit writers.

However, my thoughts aren't fully formed, so for now, I will post some thought-provoking links to other writers' blogs and articles in honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day, which was yesterday.

Arggggh.

(Credit and kudos for this collection goes to The Trichordist although I am re-mixing their links and adding comments of my own here and there.)

For instance, I am surprised to find myself agreeing with Robert Reich (an advocate for the redistribution of property)... or at least with his headlines. IMHO, the "sharing economy" takes from the copyright owners the right and ability to be paid --or paid fairly-- for their work.

Robert Reich: The sharing economy will be our undoing | Salon
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/25/robert_reich_the_sharing_economy_will_be_our_undoing_partner/
And
Robert Reich: Is Big Tech Too Powerful....
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/is-big-tech-too-powerful-ask-google.html?_r=0

Amazon, Facebook and Google have the same secret  | Salon
http://www.salon.com/2015/08/30/amazon_facebook_and_google_have_the_same_secret/
* Our modern tech monopolies made billions and transformed the economy in different ways, but this was the base.

This Salon article points out that Microsoft has enjoyed a monopoly because its business model is based on intellectual property.

"Apple, Oracle, Google, Facebook, Amazon) have been accused of antitrust violations. But even when the antitrust cases have gone against them, the basis of these monopolies in intellectual property has limited the effectiveness of remedies." 

Randolph May and Seth Cooper explain why the Founding Fathers valued copyright protection for creators.

Why intellectual property rights matter | The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/3/randolph-may-seth-cooper-why-intellectual-property/
* The Founders believed ownership of one’s labor is a natural right

"...a substantial amount of online piracy is attributable to the contemporary “downgrading” of IP rights by otherwise law-abiding people. With so much information so readily available on the Internet and so easily copied, distributed, recopied and redistributed, ad infinitum, many suppose online content is there for the taking."

IMHO Consent degrees suggest that a single, appointed judge in New York should decide who decides on what is a fair price for a song or for an ebook and whether or not the creator may negotiate. 

Film Producers Sue 16 Popcorn Time Users in Bid to Curb Piracy | PC Mag
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2490549,00.asp

IMHO, the suit against Popcorn Time USERS could be a turning point, because it is the viewers, rather than the piratical uploaders, who may be being pursued.

"Survivor Productions admitted that it had not personally identified the users, but had obtained IP addresses and their general location. The company also knows that they are Comcast customers and says it may be able to identify them with the provider's help."

Allegedly, Popcorn Time is "Netflix for pirated movies". Given the possibility that xfinity or u-verse service providers have the ability to help, this sort of piracy might not be worth the risk.

The MovieTube Litigation Part I: Who Needs SOPA? | Law Theories
http://lawtheories.com/?p=2269

IMHO, this doesn't sound like current, compelling reading.... but it is! Allegedly, MovieTube was a movie pirate site based in Singapore, and since the copyright owners had little chance of shutting the pirates down in Singapore, they parsed the existing DMCA (nothing to do with SOPA, which failed) and found arguments that an American court had the power to compel the American sites that made MovieTube possible (and perhaps profitable) to disable links to it.

"Nonetheless, a group of tech giants, comprised of Google, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Yahoo, filed an amicusbrief arguing that “the proposed injunction violates Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65 and the safe-harbor provisions of the DMCA.” Specifically, the amici claim that an injunction against MovieTube couldn’t bind third parties such as themselves because Rule 65(d)(2) and Section 512(j) of the DMCA wouldn’t allow it."

IMHO, that is a weird. reading of Safe Harbor.  The tech giants weren't being fined, or anything like that. They were simply --as I understand it--being deprived of an illegal revenue source that they shouldn't have been exploiting in the first place.

This is a follow-on story:

Hollywood, Silicon Valley Sharpen Their Swords in Piracy War | Variety
http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/hollywood-silicon-valley-internet-piracy-1201572854/

Here's hypocrisy (exposed by Jonathan Lamy):

"Jonathan Lamy, spokesman for the Recording Industry Assn. of America, painted the anti-copyright forces as hypocrites. “During the SOPA debate, the common response was that existing law or agencies like the ITC were the appropriate ways to deal with overseas rogue websites,” he said. “Fast forward three years, and apparently those statements are ‘no longer operative.’ Our job is to hold them to their word.”

The Pirate Hunter | Williamette Week
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-25279-the_pirate_hunter.html

Of hairy legs and cross-hairs....

"of Carl Crowell, a one-man police force for Hollywood studios seeking to protect the value of their movies. He’s waging a battle against a widespread belief many Internet users hold: that content should be free, regardless of who produced it or under what conditions."

Go Carl!!!

Finally, if "finally" can refer to a steam of five more urls, here are a bunch of links to very much music related stories. I include them without further comment because, IMHO, authors--even alien romance authors--should watch what happens and has happened to the intellectual property rights of songwriters.  They are probably canaries in the coal mine.

The More Money Spotify Makes, The Less Artists Get Paid | Digital Music News
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/09/03/the-more-money-spotify-makes-the-less-artists-get-paid-2/

A Stream on Apple Music Pays Songwriters And Publishers 33% More Than A Stream On Spotify | Hypebot
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2015/08/a-stream-on-apple-music-pays-songwriters-and-publishers-33-more-than-a-stream-on-spotify.html

WashingtonWatch: Pre-’72 Royalty Battle Adds Another New York Lawsuit | Grammy Pro https://www.grammypro.com/advocacy/news/washingtonwatch-pre-72-royalty-battle-adds-another-new-york-lawsuit

Radio Giants Facing Bicoastal Legal Demands to Stop Playing Pre-1972 Songs | Billboard
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6678790/radio-giants-facing-bicoastal-legal-demands-to-stop-playing-pre-1972-songs

What EMI’s six-month sample amnesty means for the music industry | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/01/emi-sample-amnesty-means-for-the-music-industry

Have a profitable week,

Rowena Cherry

Congress, Close Those Pirate-Friendly Loopholes, Please!

For the benefit of authors and interested readers of this blog who are not members of Authors' Guild, I am sharing recent news from the Guild.

Dear Member, 

This week, we sent a letter to Congress asking for help in fighting piracy, which affects us all. Authors care about e-book piracy. We hear this increasingly from our members. From 2009 to 2013, the number of Internet piracy alerts we received increased over 300%. In the next year alone, from 2013 to 2014, it doubled. 

There is a direct connection between e-book piracy and authors’ pocketbooks. The publishing industry as a whole loses $80 to $100 million to piracy annually, according to the Association of American Publishers. Many publishers have the resources to adjust their business models to absorb piracy-related losses, but individual authors don’t. Each time a standard frontlist e-book is pirated rather than purchased through a normal retail channel, its author forgoes what would have been nearly $2 in royalties. This adds up and make a real dent in the typical author’s earnings. (According to our recent survey, median writing-related income for full-time authors in 2014 was only $17,500.) 

Despite many publishers’ implementation of anti-piracy software and technological protection measures, the problem continues to grow. According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance, the effectiveness of protection measures is limited by “business models built entirely around manufacturing and distributing technologies, software, devices, components, or tools, or around providing services, to gain unlawful access to the content or to copy it without authorization.” 

So we’re asking Congress to do something about it. This letter, addressed to the House Judiciary Committee (which is spearheading a review of U.S. copyright law), reminds members of Congress that Internet piracy directly harms authors’ ability to make a living. It asks them to consider key changes to the U.S. Copyright Act to give authors a productive remedy for online infringement—not the ineffective, Sisyphean system currently in place, known as “Notice and Takedown.” 

Court decisions have construed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Notice and Takedown provisions to mean that a copyright owner is required to send a notice for each separate instance (i.e., copy) of infringement, specifying the URL. But as soon as a pirated copy is taken down, it is usually put right back up. Needless to say, copyright owners cannot keep up with this senseless game, and individual authors do not begin to have the resources to send a new notice every time a pirated copy is posted or reposted. 

We are asking for a “Notice and Stay-Down” regime: once a webhost knows a work is being infringed, it should not continue to receive “safe harbor” immunity from claims of infringement unless it takes reasonable measures to remove all infringing copies of the same work. 

You can help supplement our efforts to create more awareness among members of Congress by contacting your Representative to express your support for this change. Feel free to pass along our letter or write your own. And, as always, if you’ve been a victim of Internet piracy, let us know at staff@authorsguild.org.

Full link to the letter: 

http://hosting-source.bm23.com/896/public/Letter_to_Judiciary_Comm._7.9.15.pdf

Do read the letter. It calls out Google Play and the pirated works posted there. I've seen illegal ebook versions of my works posted on other sites with false release dates and false publisher information. 

Like this: (But, I wouldn't visit lacumbre if I were you!)

http://www.lacumbre.com/review-714-498-forced_mate_god_princes_of_tigron_1_/

Publisher

Transworld

Publication date

28th August 2014

ISBN

0505526018

Length

326 pages

Categories

Thrillers

I've never had a contract with Transworld and the book is not a "Thriller". It was released as a paperback, and only as a paperback by Dorchester Publishing's "LoveSpell" imprint.

More anon.

Rowena Cherry