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Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

reuters.com

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Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#91

Post by QAPereo »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #86
DrJokepu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of a gray area, the whole performing/mechanical rights system was obviously invented before streaming. Radio stations pay for performing rights, so the question arises whether streaming is more like radio broadcast or manufacturing and distributing physical copies (e.g. CDs)? Without further legislation, ultimately only the courts can decide that. My guess is that ultimately streaming rights will end up as…

It's also the reason behind ridiculous things like DRM. The idea that there is a difference between broadcasting and copying, and that computers can emulate that difference is a pipe dream; nonetheless shared by most music labels.

It’s an endless boon to piracy, which should have largely died if not for the rampant greed and incompetence of publishers.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#92

Post by bambax »

shams93 wrote: post #87
DrJokepu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of a gray area, the whole performing/mechanical rights system was obviously invented before streaming. Radio stations pay for performing rights, so the question arises whether streaming is more like radio broadcast or manufacturing and distributing physical copies (e.g. CDs)? Without further legislation, ultimately only the courts can decide that. My guess is that ultimately streaming rights will end up as…

On a logical level it should be treated the same as broadcast radio, however it gets hazy because you can store playlists and play tracks on demand so its really not clear cut. With radio you can hear the song if it happens to be playing but there is no on demand, no playlists.

There is replay; you can search many radio stations playlist for a specific title and play it.

What about Youtube? It seems most / all music is on YT, what licence do they use? Streaming services seem a lot like YT.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#93

Post by thomastjeffery »

cbhl wrote: post #57
turc1656 wrote: post #14

This doesn't shock me at all. I recall a while back reading how Spotify allegedly started their service with downloads from The Pirate Bay: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...

Spotify cleaned up a lot in 2014. They used to be peer-to-peer, and they'd give "free" service to employees of certain big tech companies because they could take advantage of the upload bandwidth of the big tech offices. They culled the P2P tech in 2014 and went to a standard server-client model. https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-pe...

It's sad to see that peer to peer is not utilized more, since it scales so well.

The overbearing copyright propaganda has given BitTorrent a bad name, even though it has so many other uses.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#94

Post by joeblau »

basseq wrote: post #65

This article reads like a press release from the plantiff (Wixen) and took a little googling to unwind. Long story short, it sounds like there's disagreement about what type of license Spotify needs. Spotify has previously claimed that streaming is not "reproduction" and is more akin to "performance"... and they (may) have those licenses. What they do not have (in some cases?) is a "mechanical" license[1], which carr…

There really is a place in this world for straight up news.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#95

Post by behringer »

gt_ wrote: post #77
foepys wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly my point. It only benefits the already big successful cooperations and people. It does nearly nothing for small artists while actively hindering people from enjoying cultural goods. Every song that is being created today will still be under copyright when you die. Meanwhile if someone creates a new way to manufacture a certain product, it's "only" protected for 20 years (which is fine). If Taylor Swif…

When an artistic pursuit is personal, it seems like it could maybe be passed on in a will or something similar. This might be a ridiculous idea, but I guess I find complaining about someone’s artistic endeavors not being free to be absurd in it’s own way.

Tell that to Disney when he made snow white.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#96

Post by agrippanux »

I was one of the original engineers on MP3.com.

Shortly after our music locker service debuted, we got sued by all the major labels. I spent 4 months writing tools to pull all the discovery data for their lawsuits.

When it was apparent our court case was going south, the major music publishers sued us as well (lead by Harry Fox Agency). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits.

When those court cases trended badly for us, we got sued by every 2 bit operation that owned a partial percentage of the country-based rights to a song (ie, one company may of owned 4% the rights of a song in the United States and 10% in Mexico and 9.3% in Ireland, with another company owning 1.3%, 40%, .5% respectively). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits.

Finally, after we where acquired by Vivendi Universal and they took on our liabilities, I spent almost a year writing tools for them to pay these partial percentages. Have you ever had to split 1 cent via check between 3 parties? It's not fun.

Moral of this boring story is Spotify better win this fast and clean or they are in a world of pain; I can never get those 2 years of my life back.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#97

Post by cortesoft »

bambax wrote: post #92
shams93 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a logical level it should be treated the same as broadcast radio, however it gets hazy because you can store playlists and play tracks on demand so its really not clear cut. With radio you can hear the song if it happens to be playing but there is no on demand, no playlists.

There is replay; you can search many radio stations playlist for a specific title and play it. What about Youtube? It seems most / all music is on YT, what licence do they use? Streaming services seem a lot like YT.

I think only music owners are allowed to post to YT, so they don't need a license like Spotify would.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#98

Post by thomastjeffery »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #80
whiddershins wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted because I agree with the sentiment but also not true. Look at how the interpretation of copyright as it pertains to sampling and mashing etc absolutely stifled innovation and continues to do so. For visual art look at how ambiguous the law is around collage, which definitely stifles innovation.

It's simply nonsense to claim that sampling and mashups have been stifled by copyright law. Ignoring a few ancient parody/satire acts like Negativland, samples are made, used, cleared, and paid for with no serious negative consequences. Likewise remixes. There's some extra paperwork, money changes hands, and on the whole everyone is happy. What's been far more damaging is Spotify's insanely exploitative model, which…

> Spotify's insanely exploitative model, which sees its officers making millions while the artists who provide the content get pocket change - if that.

That's not just Spotify's model; it's music labels' model.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#99

Post by DrJokepu »

bambax wrote: post #92
shams93 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a logical level it should be treated the same as broadcast radio, however it gets hazy because you can store playlists and play tracks on demand so its really not clear cut. With radio you can hear the song if it happens to be playing but there is no on demand, no playlists.

There is replay; you can search many radio stations playlist for a specific title and play it. What about Youtube? It seems most / all music is on YT, what licence do they use? Streaming services seem a lot like YT.

YouTube is different though because as soon as you have visuals accompanying the audio you are in sync rights territory which is the kind of royalty that e.g. television broadcasters pay. Same goes for Twitch.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#100

Post by cortesoft »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #93
cbhl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify cleaned up a lot in 2014. They used to be peer-to-peer, and they'd give "free" service to employees of certain big tech companies because they could take advantage of the upload bandwidth of the big tech offices. They culled the P2P tech in 2014 and went to a standard server-client model. https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-pe...

It's sad to see that peer to peer is not utilized more, since it scales so well. The overbearing copyright propaganda has given BitTorrent a bad name, even though it has so many other uses.

It scales really well for the owner of the service... it does not scale really well for the internet as a whole (sadly).
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