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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

#141

Post by guelo »

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…

I would have thought that at this point with so many music streaming services all the legal stuff would have been figured out by now.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#142

Post by cortesoft »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #105
cortesoft wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How so? There only issue I can think of is upload speed, which is improving for many, and would improve more prevalently if more average users had a clear need.

Well, ISPs did not build their systems with equal upload and download in mind. There is no pure technical reason they couldn't have, but it was what they did. To replace all of that would be difficult, and the large players in the existing system will have economic motivations for fighting any change.

There is a pretty good write up here: http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2009/10/03/why-up-is-slower-...

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#143

Post by saalweachter »

andrepd wrote: post #51
794CD01 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make it okay to flaunt the law, Travis.

So we should obey the law because it is the law?

See, the "an unjust law should not be obeyed" rhetoric works better when the principle being upheld isn't "I want to be entertained for free".

I can get behind the "the information wants to be free, man" line when we're talking about overpriced textbooks and academic journals and bytecode for tractors, but when it comes to entertainment, I have a hard time caring. I don't think producers have a fundamental right to control recording, performance and distribution, as granted by the gub'mint, but I also don't think the consumers have a fundamental right to consume any cultural artifact for free.

But I do think that people should obey most laws, even ones they disagree with, until some ethereal line has been crossed, simply because it is the law, and I think "I want to be entertained for free" is way too low a bar, so I get kind of disgusted when pirates try to take a high-and-mighty stance.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#144

Post by dizzystar »

cortesoft wrote: post #97
bambax wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are allowed to post covers on YouTube, which requires a performance license payment.

Covers are a compulsory license, so there is no way to disallow a cover from being posted if the license fees are paid.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#146

Post by emodendroket »

QAPereo wrote: post #140
sideshowb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree publishers were incompetent (in clinging onto old models rather than adapting), but has streaming really helped the average artist? Having the option to distribute music for free has been good, for sure Setting the expectation that music should be near enough free, less so You could argue this is one of those public good situations universal income is designed to address, but it certainly hasn't yet.

For the vast majority of history, musicians were not some of the wealthiest members of society, far from it. Music has traditionally been “near free” and only ceased to be during a brief period necessitated by tech. That period has long since ended. I don’t see that an artificial value placed on music, rather than the previous real value set on its distribution, is necessarily a good thing.

How would you feel if someone were applying this argument to software development?

At any rate, rich, world-famous artists are the least harmed by changes in the music industry.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#147

Post by emodendroket »

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 doesn't seem outlandish to claim there's a distinction between a broadcast, where you might hear a song at a particular time of day, and having an on-demand copy of a song at any time. The former scenario could see you, for instance, buying a CD because you liked a song you heard on the radio; that is probably not as likely with Spotify.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#148

Post by seanalltogether »

lathiat wrote: post #130
thomastjeffery wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I get the feeling that a lot of p2p efforts fail because of patents. For example I understand the reason Facetime calls don't go phone-to-phone and instead go through a server is because of a patent [troll]. I'm curious to see how WebRTC fits into that.

I think that was more a lesson from observing the problems with Skype and other video conferencing software. P2P video is great when everything is one on one, start adding in additional people and the whole experience grinds to a stuttering pixelated mess.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#149

Post by rhizome »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #139
agrippanux wrote: post #96

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 co…

> When it was apparent our court case was going south, the major music publishers sued us as well (lead by Harry Fox Agency). From the OP: > Wixen also alleged that Spotify outsourced its work to a third party, licensing and royalty services provider the Harry Fox Agency, which was “ill-equipped to obtain all the necessary mechanical licenses”. If there's any justice, if they lose at all in court Spotify will be suin…

Wixen also alleged that Spotify outsourced its work to a third party, licensing and royalty services provider the Harry Fox Agency, which was “ill-equipped to obtain all the necessary mechanical licenses”

Not to mention that SoundExchange makes zero effort to track down rightsholders, seemingly because they get to keep any left over royalties they collect, and IIRC these extra royalties may also be partially distributed to top artists regardless of whoever a particular leftover royalty dollar should be allocated.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#150

Post by state_less »

QAPereo wrote: post #140
sideshowb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree publishers were incompetent (in clinging onto old models rather than adapting), but has streaming really helped the average artist? Having the option to distribute music for free has been good, for sure Setting the expectation that music should be near enough free, less so You could argue this is one of those public good situations universal income is designed to address, but it certainly hasn't yet.

For the vast majority of history, musicians were not some of the wealthiest members of society, far from it. Music has traditionally been “near free” and only ceased to be during a brief period necessitated by tech. That period has long since ended. I don’t see that an artificial value placed on music, rather than the previous real value set on its distribution, is necessarily a good thing.

Being a musical artist is not easy business for pretty much every artists except for a few outliers, though we do appreciate and consume music.

If you made a graph with the x axis being percentile and the y axis being the amount of money made, on the far right side of the x axis there would be a huge spike where a tiny fraction are making a fortune. (I think) I'd prefer the spike to be smoothed out.

What's interesting is that Apple/Google/Pandora/Spotify could test this. Adjust the distribution curve and then see how demand for music services changes over the years. With more artists able to live as pros, would music as a whole be more in demand? I'd venture that music as a whole would be more in demand due to increasing the number of (quality) trials in the musical search space. And if you flatten it out too much, you would reduce the motivation to continue to try to "hit it big", so you're looking to optimize the distribution curve.

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