Liability Stuff, ugh.

I listened to two separate podcasts dealing with entertainment law and the liabilities that can be found. The first podcast I listened to was a Suffolk University podcast on Overprotection in the IP world. While the podcast itself contained a lot I really want to just sum up what was discussed in his talk. Basically what was being described was the difference between what IP law was set up for and what it has become. When IP law was originally designed it was meant to encourage creation. By protecting work and making it not able to be stolen, people would want to create and receive the credit they were due. Now IP law has become a way for people to never give up their rights, even after death. The big example he gave was how Google, as the physical website, is registered as a design and as a utility. Google as a design eventually would loose it’s copyright and eventually become public domain but since it is also registered as a utility (as long as it’s in use) it’s protected. Another example being the 21^st Century Fox song, which is registered as the companies trademark as well as the sound recording. This means even when the sound recording copyright expires, it won’t as a trademark, as long as it’s in use. For an IP holder this is great. For the public it’s seriously limiting to rights we are owed as a society. IP should be allowed to be used by everyone at some point. This overprotecting fad is just going to allow business to keep greedy hands on things that should belong to everybody for as long as they want. I’m sure Disney is studying up.

The second podcast I listened to was the Entertainment Law Update. The episode was called “Cease and desist, but nicely.” This podcast was over an hour and had much too much information to talk about everything, so I’ll touch a few I liked. The first thing they discussed was a lawsuit with the movie 50/50 from music group with the same phonetic name. The music group said they were infringing on the name and the judge apparently watched the movie. He defined that the name was so descriptive on the content of the movie it couldn’t be infringing. Also, in this case and most others, titles of works are generally not copyrightable. I thought this was interesting because when he first was describing the case it seemed so cut and dry and found myself wondering how they would fix it since the movie was already out. But apparently doesn’t matter movie and the music get to both have the name since the movie did such a good job making the name meaningful to the movie. Win for 50/50 and I’m glad. That movie was dope.

            Another case they discussed that I really liked was this new technology available in NYC called Aereo. It apparently is this little antenna that connects via Internet and gives you cheap cable to all sorts of devices. Now obviously network companies went berserk when they heard and sued em’. In the preliminary trials the big discussion was that it was infringing on their work based on the fact that it’s a public performance of their work. So far the courts have said this isn’t the case. Apparently, since everyone gets their own antenna, this arguments null and void. Courts said it doesn’t count as public performance and, on those grounds, it’s not infringing. I’m assuming that’s not the networks only big gun defense, but hopefully it’ll help a bit. Either way, I love creative technology getting the best of huge corporations. Makes me feel so proud of my generation.

            The last piece I wanna talk about here is more of a morale case. Pretty simple really. Some political group finds a picture of a gay couple making out in front of Manhattan. They take the photo, Photoshop it, and put it in a mailer and send it everywhere. The couple is like, “Whoa, now way you can’t do that.” The political group says, “We can do whatever, people do it to us.” Now apparently the big fuss here is that the political group doesn’t like gays. I have NO idea why they’re putting gay couples kissing in their mailers if they don’t, but that’s beside the point. This case hasn’t been brought anywhere, yet. They’re just spitting fighting words at each other for the moment and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

            Anyway, after listening to an hour and a half worth of podcasts I’ve concluded this: people will sue you over everything. I myself am gonna hire myself a decent lawyer before I do anything.

Some Liability Stuff

For this weeks blog I’m focusing on liabilities within the recording industry and the entertainment industry as a whole.

The first case I came upon was rather disturbing in nature really. A woman named Nicole Westmoreland is suing Cash Money Records because she was allegedly sexually assaulted in the studio’s bathroom. She said she was at the studio to make a business proposal and was assaulted before giving the presentation. Her serious claim to liability was that the alleged assaulter was a friend of the studio owners and they were aware that he was dangerous. I find myself agreeing with the woman in this case that the owners are liable. The owners claim that her story about what occurred is incorrect and that the company “is not liable for criminal acts of an employee, unless they should have foreseen those acts were going to occur.” As owners, they are responsible for knowing who is in their studio and that the people they allow to be there, whether employees or friends, on the company’s property and on the company’s time, represent them. While no one should plan for sexual assault on their studio’s premises, criminal acts are something that should be considered when thinking about liabilities.

The next case I found was much simpler and definitely a cut and dry outcome. Recently, Dr. Dre has been sued by Paramount for failure to pay his bills. They are claiming breach of contract and over a large sum of time that Dre had rented out the studio. The Studio is suing for $1,220,500 and it seems they’re going to get it. These kinds of cases always seem so ridiculous to me. Dre’s got plenty of cash to pay and all he had to do was pay it by July 13^th. Now I’m sure he’s going to have to pay more and he looses a valuable industry relation over money he’s now going to have to give them anyway. Without knowing more details, shame on you Dre.

The third I looked into is more of a movie issue, although the premise is the same across many more media outlets. Back in 2011, the company behind The Hurt Locker (Voltage Pictures) decided to sue 24,583 different people over sharing their movie over the Internet. Now this is by no means a new issue and companies are suing over this torrent stuff everyday, but what I found interesting is some of the defendant actions. ISP information is tricky and has a lot of available loopholes. If the ISP information is stored in RAM it’s not solid evidence what’s its relating to. Some people claim it was others using their Internet that committed the offense. And where the servers are located that provide the files, may make the United States unable to even touch the information. But in 119 motions the judge decided to dismiss all of them. Now I am an avid believer in the fact that downloading is a good thing and unstoppable at this point. The industry needs to learn to adapt and change the way it does business. This is such a horrible step in the wrong direction and simply a money grab. The article states that Voltage is interested in offering settlements to the parties. If half of the people accused accept, the company makes more money off of them then the movie made in the box office. Why not just make them pay double blu-ray rates for the loss? 24,000 people giving up 120 bucks is still almost 3 million. Can they really justify loosing that much? Regardless of how I feel about it, this whole torrent thing isn’t going away. Studios and other entertainment companies should just start to anticipate and compensate.   

Native Changes the World

Avid has just released the new Native Thunderbolt. This amazing new device allows any Pro Tools user the ability to use Pro Tools HD on any computer. Instead of shelling out 13k for cards and 3k for an interface, this devices takes the position of the cards at just 3k. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about here, here's a small breakdown. Pro Tools is available for anyone for a few hundred dollars and can be used on any computer. Pro Tools HD is far more powerful and far more expensive and normally requires specific cards and computer abilities to run. This has in the past made HD only available to full production studios or rich pricks who feel they need this sort of system in their home. Native brings this price pont way down. While the number is still high for the home user, it's perfect for small studios. 


Now you may be thinking, "Changing the world is a bit strong, don't you think?" It may be, but it just might change the music world. I have discussed a multitude of times about how home studio recording is a bittersweet movement that may threaten the integrity of the recording industry, but I think that this kind of stride is PERFECT. 

The price point means that it won't be idiots in their garage buying it. It'll be start up studios who do amazing work with little money that will realize the potential of an investment into this technology. The analog to digital battle is still roaring and while analog will never be dead completely, this a step in the direction of digital. This is also a step in the direction of smaller budget albums and more money for artists. While this may seem like a leap, I assure you it's not. 

With this new technology, small studios can make better recordings. These small studios won't charge as much and produce the same quality recordings. Bands can use less money to produce an album and ultimately no have to recoup as much for the recording process. This can lead more overhead and give bands the ability to try and experiment with new pricing options to counter the loss on record sales. Assuming any of this happens, Native changes the world (music world).

In a sad attempt to round this out to something about Management, I would say this why I feel it's important for managers to keep up on technology. Maybe look for a studios with this sort of technology in it. They can be guaranteed that lower cost studio really knows what they're doing and they get a little bit more security that they're doing all they can to get the best quality. Either way when I can afford it, I'm buying one.

iOs Recording, really?

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of news on iOS recording. If you’re not familiar with any new technology and haven’t seen the internet or TV before, this is recording using iPads or Ipods and software that runs on these and other mobile devices. Many people are talking about how this is the future of home based recording. So is this a step in the right direction?

It’s no secret that professional studios are running scared of all this new technology available to consumer market. Just a decade ago, recording in your home and getting a sound even a tenth of the quality of a pro studio was impossible. The equipment wasn’t available but more importantly the computers weren’t there. Sure the early 2000s saw a huge jump in technology and computers were faster than anything we’d ever seen but they weren’t quite yet comparable. Now the cell phone everyone is carrying around in there pocket is more powerful than half the computers that were used to launch the first space shuttles to the moon. Everyone and their mom can make professional sounding music on a laptop, and the worst part is they do. Horrible recording are made everyday at home and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Now you don’t even need a computer, just an iPhone and minimal amount of equipment.

Now it’s hard for me to bash on the idea that everyone can record and not feel a bit hypocritical. I mean, I record at home, what makes me better? Well for one, I went to school to become an audio engineer and I have enough experience to make claims about my quality that I can live up to. But that aside, just because everyone can afford to buy a paintbrush, does that mean anyone who does is a world-class painter? I’m not knocking the at home musician who makes songs for himself and friends. That’s fine. Have a hobby and enjoy yourself doing. I’m knocking the guy who buys a Macbook Pro, downloads Garageband and tells everyone he’s got a studio and starts charging for recordings. It’s insulting to the education I spent time and money on.

I know that Mac really loves money, and I get that they just want to make more of it. In their position, I would probably do the same. But giving everyone the same tools makes it seem like the line between professional and consumer should be allowed to blur. Recording on tablet and phone devices is the beginning of the end of an era.

Auto-tune, good or bad?

There’s a new trend in music today. Someone goes into the studio, they sing crap, and polished, shiny vocals some how end up on the track. The culprit: Auto-tune. I myself, as a singer, use auto-tune and Melodyne and I will openly admit that I do. But I use it to clean and make sure everything is just how I want it. It’s not a fall back for me and certainly do just let bad takes get recorded because, “Whatever, it’ll get fixed later.” 

For all the good Auto-tune has done, it has done some serious bad as well. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive it for making Lil’ Wayne and T-Pain’s careers possible. 

But what I am really upset about it that for these years, Auto-tune has been tricking me. Making me think everyone who uses it must be a god-awful singer. Now I love to judge, and I certainly love to judge singers, but now I can’t. I listen to radio and everyone sounds perfect, all the time. There’s no dynamics and no emotion. Skills cannot be properly assessed. How would I know if any of these cookie cutter pop singers were good? 

Auto-tune has become so popular that the tone and overuse is a DESIRABLE sound. I cannot even get over how crazy this is. People in studios are actually saying, “I want this singer to sound like they can’t sing at all.” I’m sure not why I get so heated about this because the music it affects isn’t music I even listen to. Maybe it’s that all this overproduced crap is threatening my integrity as a singer. Or maybe it’s just that I hate Katy Perry and anything she endorses just turns into a steaming pile in my eyes (goodbye Pepsi). 

Like my favorite super hero says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” While this seems a bit heavy to be about Auto-tune, I think it fits. Auto-tune is a powerful tool that used subtly and correctly can make a great singer sound incredible. This does not mean it should be used to make horrid rappers talking, sound like they have any musical skills at all. 

RIAA and a Dying Industry

It’s no secret that downloading has affected the industry greatly in the past decade. Everywhere you turn there’s new music out there and no one is paying for it. The idea that this is a bad thing is one I don’t agree with. Record labels are constantly struggling with the idea that they need to stop piracy and get back to fans paying for their music again. I think that the system is broke and we need to accept it. Things are never going to go back to the way they were. The Internet has made this impossible. We never going to have a huge genre wave again and no one is going to think that music shouldn’t be free.

The RIAA is one of the major organizations that are trying to hold on and keep people paying for music. In some ways what there are doing is a good thing and in others a bad. They’ve made it possible for bands to license their music out to other forms of media and this has become a huge source of revenue for artists. There are now over 400 licensing companies and the digital licensing revenue for 2009 was 3.8 billion dollars. But they are also responsible for copyright infringement acts which have really only become a nuisance. Anyone with semi-decent Internet skills can find millions of other ways to download and they do.

They also unsuccessfully brag about the streaming services they’ve helped create, which on the surface look great but really are just hurting artists. “Spotify racked up one million plays of Lady Gaga's 'Poker Face', and paid the artist just US$167 (GBP100) in royalties,” according to Gizmag.com. Lady Gaga is obviously huge and any artist who can’t pull that kind of play weight, which is most, could never dream to see a check even that big.

Luckily a lot of artists have just come to accept they aren’t going to make money from their recorded music anymore. They try,along with others, to come up with other sources of revenue to make up for the income that records can no longer bring in. A site called BandHappy.com gives fans the ability to take lessons from some of their favorite artists for a preset price by the artist. New and exciting things like this are the direction the industry needs to head.

The RIAA is a great organization that has been doing a great job in the industry for years but it needs to adapt to the times. The ideals of the company and the music world need to take a hard look at the future and make the changes necessary to keep artists alive and fans interesting in contributing. 

This is Broken

I watched a speech by Seth Godin last night called “This is Broken.” The point of the video was him talking about how and why things are done incorrectly and not fixed. This is an idea I think about everyday. I am constantly running into things in my life that don’t work and there’s no reason they should be like this.

Mr. Godin is certainly no the best speaker I’ve ever seen but he’s relatable and that seems to be his strong point. He comes off like someone you know and stays that way throughout his speech. Often times I see speeches, especially on TED, from “gods among men” and they are difficult to relate with. Their intellects are staggering and their resumes are endless. But back to his topic.

In his speech he identifies a base seven reasons for why these things are created. These seven things are: Not my job, Selfish jerks, The world changed, I didn’t know, I’m not a fish, Contradictions, and Broken on purpose. Now the most glaringly apparent in everyday life are not my job, selfish, and I’m not a fish, which is personally my favorite and a serious oversight in most designs.

Without going through all the examples and essentially restating his speech, I’ll go through the important ones. Not my job is obvious in that if something doesn’t work well or is broken, if it’s not your job, who cares. Selfish is another easy one because everybody is familiar with using things that work horrendously just because it’s better for someone else. The, I’m not a fish isn’t so direct and basically means whoever designed it was not the intended market of the product. They never had to use it and therefore, never saw it’s flaws. This seems like something that should never be overlooked in the design phase, but apparently only a select few designers feel this way.

Now these all are horrendous reasons to ever make something work terribly, but it happens constantly. Personally if nothing else, Mr. Godin’s speech makes me feel like this kind of thought process should be present in the creation of anything. I should never put my name on anything without going through all the ways my product could be used, looked at, or judged and make sure on every level it makes sense. Releasing products that make anyone question its purpose or design is unacceptable, ever.