Laurel L. Russwurm 's Techdirt Comments
Latest Comments (90)
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On the post: It's Not An Open vs. Closed Internet, But Ours vs. Theirs
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On the post: Vancouver Train System To Charge Buskers Huge Fees To Play In Stations
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2010 @ 01:35pm!!!
The problem is that this is an absolutely ridiculous situation.
In the first place, the very idea of charging buskers royalties is insane. Buskers survive on donations. They can put on a show and not make a nickel.
In the second place, charging buskers for royalty charges they did not incur is obscene.
When is SOCAN going to start charging royalties on private homes? OMG someone might be singing one of the songs they represent. (Or even one of the songs belonging to someone they DON'T represent. Because they collect those royalties too.)
The people who actually create the music benefit the least from these ridiculous extensions of "copyright". The janitor at SOCAN has a better income from the music industry than most Canadian recording artists. Most Canadian recording artists don't want this kind of stuff to happen. Musicians and songwriters (with perhaps the exception of Bono) are some of the most generous people on the planet. They encourage and do their best to help out other artists.
They sure don't want to put other artists out of business. More important to them than the pittance allotted by copyright collectives such as SOCAN is to have their music disseminated.
If copyright Collectives want to collect royalties they need to monitor the performances PROPERLY. That's part of the cost of doing business. If it is too expensive a real business would decide that the cost is higher than any potential benefits. And not do it. But copyright collectives aren't real businesses. They simply profit disproportionately from the actual work of overs.
(Read about SOCAN's secret copyright submission )
If SOCAN can't actually work out who should REALLY be paid they should not be collecting anything. Anything at all.
Collecting royalties that are not incurred is theft. A far more serious (criminal even) offense than copyright infringement. -
On the post: Vancouver Train System To Charge Buskers Huge Fees To Play In Stations
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2010 @ 11:15pmRe: Re: Re:
If they want to collect it they need to monitor the performances. That's part of the cost of doing business. A real businesses would decide that the cost is higher than the benefit. If they can't actually work out who should REALLY be paid they should not be collecting anything.
The formula system is as accurate as polls are.... And it has gotten much worse as more and more performers chose to go independent.
Using a formula based on guesswork and making everybody pay whether they actually use it or not no longer cuts it. The music business is growing up; it isn't a company store anymore.
Your argument is like a cel phone provider saying: we're going to use our formula to guess how much air time you use and we'll bill you accordingly. Wait... you say... but I don't HAVE a cel phone... Too bad, everybody pays. -
On the post: Court Notices That The FCC Appears To Have No Legal Mandate To Enforce Net Neutrality
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 08 Jan, 2010 @ 10:56pmRe: Federal COMMUNICATIONS Commission
Currently the internet is international.
The FCC is just YOUR country's regulatory body. Ours is the CRTC, and I would suspect that most other countries in the world have their own....
Which in itself is a compelling reason for net neutrality.
How would you expect the FCC to enforce net neitrality on China? Isn't there enough war? -
On the post: Artist Thinking vs. Lawyer Thinking
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 07 Jan, 2010 @ 10:32pmBig Media = Dinosaurs
The problem of course is that under the old business model, musicians did not have a choice about giving up their copyright until they had achieved "name status". If they wanted distribution they had no choice. Period.
The fact that technology has made it possible for artists to cut out the middle man is helping to change things a little. Of course, the industry backlash response has been to try to legislate a halt to the technology that makes this competition possible. But the music industry is losing the fight; the writing is on the wall. Which has got to be good for artists AND audiences.
Nina Paley's excellent film Sita Sings the Blues proves that the same thing can and wil happen to the movie business as well.
The thing of it is, stories like this one illustrate exactly how the big media companies are driving themselves toward extinction.
Stories like this ensure it will be more and more difficult for these corporations to attract new talent. The growing percentage of independent creators have been forced to create their own new distribution networks because the big media companies have refused to adapt.
They are putting themselves out of business. -
On the post: Sony Won't Support Its Own Movie For An Oscar Over Misplaced Piracy Fears
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2010 @ 09:58pmIn 1977 I was a kid yet I managed to see Star Wars in the theatre 13 times. Twentieth Century Fox issued a special anniversary movie poster to the theatres that made it to the anniversary.
Today in Ontario, the hit movies are lucky to play for a couple of weeks.
From where I sit when I've wanted to go the movies lately, the ones we wanted to see were usuallt gone after a week or two, sometimes before I even knew it was playing.
Granted, I live in Canada where we are down to a single 1st run movie theatre chain, but still, it's as though they don't want is to go to the movies. All movies are released wide and only the mega hits get theatre play for more than a week. A large number of Hollywood movies don't play here at all.
First Problem: The window to see movies in the theatre is very small.
@The Anti-Mike: During the time you are talking about, 2003 would have been Matchstick Men, Return of the King, Bruce Almighty, a Harry Potter or two before they became unwatchable, the second and third Pirates of the Caribean movies which were both fairly bad... Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit...The Legend of Zorro... Evan ALmighty
The last movie I saw in the theatre was The Spirit in 2009 and that was a huge disappointment. The whole family went since my Dad had been waiting for over 50 years... and it was terrible.
Second Problem: Many of the Movies are not very good.
In the time you're talking about I've probably seen more movies in the rep theatres around the time the DVD is released. But mostly I buy previously viewed DVDs, or cheap ones from the bargin bins in the supermarket.
Comparing years only goes so far if the content is pathetic.
I very much doubt there is any validity to the notion that piracy is affecting sales here as much media company practices.
The three I REALLY wanted to see theatrically and couldn't were Bon Cop, Bad Cop, The Rocket and Passchendaele. Interesting. Those were three extremely good Canadian movies. Which means that the Canadian film industry is doing very well indeed. Could this mean piracy is good for movies?
Third Problem: Advertising?
I don't watch broadcast TV. We don't have cable. I haven't willingly listened to the radio in twenty years. We listen to CDs, pod casts and watch DVD's. And I don't buy the paper. Basically, I only find out about movies by word of mouth, internet, or driving past the marquee.
@Anonymous Coward: Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind was excellent. I buy most of my movies previously viewed from the local video store, or the cheap bin at the supermarket. -
On the post: Nintendo Shuts Down Fan-Made Zelda Movie
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2010 @ 11:01amNo one even remembers the 1931 version of the Maltese Falcon starring Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade. It was even a hit. That's why they remade it with Bogart in 1941. It was a hit that time too.
How about the 1978 version of The Lord of the Rings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohw78b1TTFY Let me tell you, back in the day when it looked like that was the best we were gonna get I was even annoyed that they never made the second part. After seeing the Peter Jackson "Fellowship of the Ring" I borrowed the videotape from the library and watched it with my family. Later when the library was selling off the video at a book sale, $1.00 was too high a price for such a piece of crap.
Somehow I don't think it hurt Peter Jackson's version any.
I am not even a Zelda fan, but I am a movie fan. Checking out the YouTube trailer linked above by by Solohan50 I was surprised that it didn't look half bad. Particularly as a piece of fan fiction, it looks bloody impressive. The trailer was nicely cut, and well paced. Even the acting looked good. I might have actually gone to the theatre to see the thing.
Nintendo has behaved foolishly. They should have fallen on their knees in thanksgiving. It was a massive undertaking. Promotion like this cannot be bought.
Shutting it down makes Nintendo look pretty petty.
I know that the old adage "the customer was always right" has been discarded, but still I can't imagine where these companies can possibly come up with executives stupid enough to think alienating the customers is a good thing. From where I sit, I'll not be buying games for the kids from them again. -
On the post: Bono: We Should Use China's Censorship As An Example Of How To Stop Piracy
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2010 @ 06:40amRe: Re:
2. Isaac Hayes was a good actor too... He was great on the Rockford Files.
3. Any creative effort benefits from branding assuming you're looking for an audience.
4. The old model wasn't kind to any creatives short of the superstar level. -
On the post: Bono: We Should Use China's Censorship As An Example Of How To Stop Piracy
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 05 Jan, 2010 @ 06:17amRe: those who can do, those who can't teach.
@ Anti-Mike
This bit of folksy wisdom has always made me angry because it is such BS. In the first place it presupposes that people can only do well at one thing, which is in itself preposterous.
"Specialization is for insects."
-- Lazarus Long
Perhaps you are only capable of doing one thing well, but many other people can do more than one job. Nowadays it has actually become routine for people to have more than one career during the course of a lifetime.
Scroll through IMDB sometime and check out how many hyphenates are listed.
Being good at anything requires a certain skill set.
Being a good teacher requires its own skill set. As far as I'm concerned teaching is one of the most important jobs in the world. I am also so damn sick of people bashing teachers.
Sure there are bad teachers, like there are bad cops, doctors and rock stars. But I am inclined to think that there are more good teachers than bad, and even the middling teachers are generally doing it because they care. Teachers DESERVE a lot more respect.
I defy anyone who thinks teachers are underworked and overpaid to spend a day in charge of a class. (No, I am not nor have I ever been a teacher... except insofar as I've been a mom... no way am I tough enough to be a teacher.)
I would never accept someone as teacher who taught only because they were incompetent in their chosen field. That is another absurd premise.
And yes, I do realize that you really only said that as a facile attempt to cleverly diss Michael Geist for daring to have opinions (much less a following) outside acadamia... hey, you're not really Barry Sookman, are you?
The views of a copyright law professor on copyright law in the real world are somewhat more compelling than the views of a has been rock star who clearly has difficulty getting past his own self interest, not to mention the difficulty he has with technical issues.
But then what do I know, I'm just an uninvolved weblog writer. -
On the post: How China's Attempts To Censor The Internet Are Failing
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2010 @ 04:14pmout of the realm of luxury: the internet is a necessity
Ah... the point is that even China can't afford to be unplugged.
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On the post: Tough To Punish Those Who File Bogus DMCA Takedowns
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2010 @ 02:22pmRe:
That's how it USED to work... copyright infringement (bootlegging) was not a criminal offense... Disney et all ran around ferreting it out and enforcing it.
You have to wonder why governments are so willing to take on the job of collection agency for media profits. -
On the post: Could Wolverine's Leaking Have Helped It At The Box Office?
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2010 @ 02:18pmOf course it helped boost ticket sales...
I first saw Lawrence of Arabia on a small black and white portable TV. You can bet I was at the cinesphere for the revival. Awesome.
If you like a movie, you'll want to see it in a movie theatre, even if it has lousy reviews.
(They must have been exceedingly lousy if they were worse than Harry Potter reviews... but then, Harry Potter lacks Hugh Jackman. Yum.) -
On the post: Tough To Punish Those Who File Bogus DMCA Takedowns
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 04 Jan, 2010 @ 07:11amPrecisely
why DMCA takedowns should not happen at all. The whole system needs dismantling.
Even if citizens feel the need for this kind of copyright oversight, at the very least DMCA takedowns should not be based on ALLEGATIONS, but rather legal proofs:
1. that the entity making the allegation has the right to make the allegation (i.e. is the copyroght holder)
2. that the website is actually infringing copyright...
3. ... deliberately. -
On the post: SoundExchange Claims To Open Up, But Somehow Its List Of Unpaid Musicians Has Disappeared [Updated: List Found]
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 30 Dec, 2009 @ 12:52amkissing and making up doesn't always work
@harbingerofdoom
as someone with blogs and websites, I can tell you things can be added or subtracted from the internet fairly easily.
My assumption based on life experience is that the media attention by p2pnet, TechDirt and twitter encouraged SoundExchange to put the list back online. The SoundExchange inability to find and pay artists who are "hiding in plain site" is a key complaint.
I don't think anyone really cares if there is a retraction, all anyone wants is for SoundExchange to act... and pay the monies they owe to the people they have been collecting it for.
If it is too difficult a task for SoundExchange maybe it should not be their job. Since SoundExchange is not doing the job they are supposed to, it is irresponsible for government to even contemplate new responsibilities for SoundExchange.
Saying you're going to pay is not the same as actually paying. Ask any bank manager... or IRS agent. -
On the post: SoundExchange Claims To Open Up, But Somehow Its List Of Unpaid Musicians Has Disappeared [Updated: List Found]
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2009 @ 02:57pmthe game is rigged
A peek at the SoundExchange website:
SoundExchange forms seem to want as much personal info as banks do when you buy a house.
Even if SoundExchange manages to find all the unregistered artists, SoundExchange still gets to deduct administrative fees (amounts that they are allowed to set) before actually releasing funds to the artists. And of course SoundExchange has the right to collect your royalties whether you wish to be a member of their organization or not.
I just found the new unregistered artist list area on the SoundExchange website.
Sadly it is much more awkward to use than their old unregistered artist list
It will also be much more awkward to compare the two... -
On the post: SoundExchange Claims To Open Up, But Somehow Its List Of Unpaid Musicians Has Disappeared [Updated: List Found]
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 29 Dec, 2009 @ 02:05pmbad copyright law
Just for fun I thought I'd take a peek at the Wayback Machine to see if there were old copies of the list available (so some of those older artists might be able to know they are due to get paid).
But:
The Wayback Machine says
Robots.txt Retrieval Exclusion.
We're sorry, access to http://soundexchange.com/ has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.
This exclusion does not happen accidentally, it must be deliberately done by the site owner, in this case http://soundexchange.com/
You'd kind of think that SoundExchange doesn't want people to be able to find the older versions of the unregistered artist list. Wonder why. Surely they don't want to deprive those hard working recording artists of the royalties to which they are entitled. -
On the post: Do Your Rights To Listen To Legally Licensed Music Stop At The Border?
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 28 Dec, 2009 @ 09:41pmWhy should they stop at the border?
If I have a CD in my car radio, it doesn't stop playing if I drive across the border. If I have a book-- a real book, not one on a Kindle-- I can still read it when I cross the border.
If I buy a book, I can do with it what I want.
Where did this twisted idea come from that corporations can get paid over and over for the same thing?
Copyright laws certainly do need to be reformed, but in the opposite way that the copyright lobby wants. -
On the post: Why Is The NY Times Running A Ridiculous, Conflicted Op-Ed Against Google?
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 28 Dec, 2009 @ 09:25pmby Peter
@Peter:
A.C.T.A. will not be a "last resort"... it was never intended to be anything but a way of dominating the global markets-- including yours. A.C.T.A. is so bloody awful they must keep it so "secret" that most elected members of government do not have a clue what is going on. But governments are going along with it because of industry pressure. Governments are not acting in the best interests of citizens.
Amazingly, Google does have competition. That puts it in a free market, which I trust a lot more than governments shoring up big media's bad business models via regulation. It would help if you would take a moment and read what people are saying before lashing out.
@Bernie: wanting our software and various devices to work efficiently together does not equate with "We want it NOW! Instant gratification."
In bygone days, food was kept in an icebox, and ice, like most grocery items, had to be delivered daily. Water had to be drawn from the well, and wood gathered to run the stoves. Of course, there was often a full time parent at home too to do these things. In most G-8 countries 2 working parents are necessary for survival. (Possibly because governments have been shoring up bad business models much longer than we think!)
Today most people REQUIRE efficiency so they can feed and house their children. With mom AND dad in the workforce, they don't have time to shop on Main Street. It isn't "quaint" to be forced to waste time by inefficiency.
My local grocery refuses to stock things they used to... they only want one national brand and the store brand. And after campaigning against Wal-Mart moving into our rural community, Wal-Mart is the only store that actually carries the products I want. If the only stores offering a reasonable selection are box stores, maybe that is the way to go.
(BTW, I don't text.)
Of course executives or those uber-rich folks living off the IP of others (like, say Disney, or any of the copyright collectives) may have the luxury of sending their secretaries or au pairs out to pick up the family dinner or buy gifts for the kids.... or quaintly spend thrice as long as should be necessary online to search for the best deals.
Google's search criteria seems to require "merit" as a criteria for success. I have no trouble with that and serious doubts about the motives of those who do.
Prove that Google is really playing favorites and people will listen, but so far no one has come anywhere close to doing that. -
On the post: Why Is The NY Times Running A Ridiculous, Conflicted Op-Ed Against Google?
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 28 Dec, 2009 @ 07:57pmRe: Re: Re: Re: Agree with the guy
Google isn't perfect, and there are things they do that I disagree with, but still I would much rather rely on Google's search ranking parameters than on government regulation of same. What a horrendous idea? Whose government?
How exactly would government regulation stop Google from taking over the market (any market) I wonder? Google's current market domination has been achieved and is sustained by the radical means of doing a good job.
@Peter: you complain about Google having a "monopoly" while seeming to support the government line (that is to say government-parroting-the-Big-Media-line) on copyright. A.C.T.A. type secret government negotiations will create a global "monopoly" that will crush competition and net neutrality.
@Ida: sadly it will for a small blip's worth but happily they'll sink back into obscurity when business gets back to usual. -
On the post: IsoHunt Loses Big; Court Says: You Induce, You Lose
Laurel L. Russwurm ( profile ), 24 Dec, 2009 @ 12:27am3rd time's the charm...
[OK... I just figured out the problem; please ignore the other two aborted comments... ]
“the MPAA failed to show actual evidence of infringement of copyrights by US users on IsoHunt ”
I have a big problem with criminal charges unsupported by evidence.
Call me crazy, but I believe in archaic legal ideas like "innocent until proven guilty".
@Anonymous Coward: so long as there's that CD levy Canadians are within their rights to download music.
(As one who lost 6 months worth of photo restoration work when my hard drive died this really annoys me because I have made mountains of CD backups of digital photos and digital imaging work. Since this money is supposed to go to the music interests, from my point of view, THEY are stealing from ME.)
Copyright should be the exclusive non-transferable right of creators, not corporations.
Corporations don't create.
"the way that our government is ours and our culture is ours"
None of that has been ours for a long time. I rather agree with a guy named (The Infamous) Joe that a reboot is necessary. Canada may even need a reboot more desperately than the US does at this point.
If the copyright lobby has its way, none of us will have culture anymore at all, just product. How long before they start assessing royalties for the music that runs through our head unbidden.
Perhaps the artists will need to establish underground venues to create a black market culture. It will be like the speakeasies of prohibition), and they will need to stay hidden from the copyright collectives or they'll be charged "royalties" for performing. In much the same way SOCAN is charging buskers in Vancouver because they MIGHT be using copyright material.Techdirt: Vancouver Train System To Charge Buskers Huge Fees To Play In Stations)
"Us versus them" isn't about money, its about control. "Them" controlling "us" by controlling government (law), copyright (culture) and the Internet (freedom/communication).