Category: Media Moguls

So more and more people are getting DVRs like TiVo, and commercial TV networks have been getting more and more up in arms over the “theft” involved in people watching their shows without watching commercials as well. To date, their efforts have been to try and cripple DVRs from being able to skip through commercials (which makes one wonder whether, if they had they power, they’d develop a way to shackle viewers to their chairs).

But, miracle of miracles, a few enlightened souls have figured out it’s probably more effective, and less alienating, to try to encourage people to watch commercials, rather than try and prevent them from not doing so.

This September, AOL and Mark Burnett Productions will launch “Gold Rush,” an interactive game that asks players to monitor CBS television programs and commercials for clues to find $2 million in gold.

The game will last for approximately the first two months of the fall television schedule, according to a CBS representative. Clues will be scattered throughout CBS television programs, commercials, the AOL Web site and other media properties, AOL said.

The game could be a sign of a new tactic in the television advertising battle. As TV show downloads and ad-skipping DVRs pull viewers away from live advertising, the networks must find new ways to draw them in. The solution may be low-tech creativity: constructing new blends of advertising with content viewers are compelled to watch.

CBS isn’t alone. Since May 3, ABC has featured fictitious ads for the mysterious “Hanso Foundation” during commercial breaks of “Lost.” Viewers who stayed tuned during commercial breaks were rewarded with “ads” featuring phone numbers and Web sites leading to clues about the show.

Amazing — TV networks trying to make themselves more entertaining and desirable to watch. What will they think of next?

Posted by CyberDave

(via BoingBoing)

Sony, like any other media giant, seems to want to have it both ways, as long is it adds to the bottom line.

To artists, Sony claims that music it puts up into the iTunes store is, in fact, a sale, not a license. After all, on sales, Sony only pays artists 4.5 cents per song, whereas on licenses it would be paying them substantially more.

To consumers, though, Sony claims that iTunes purchases are licenses, not sales, which is why, it claims, you can’t be allowed to sell it to someone else, give it to someone else, etc., th way you could if it were a sale, like a CD.

Doubtless this dichotomy will all go away once Sony fixes its contract language and gets a few new laws passed. In the meantime, though, I’m delighted that they’re getting the snot sued out of them by artists like Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers.

(via BoingBoing)

If I weren’t already overworked and undergruntled today, I’d be waxing long and apoplectic over the latest volley in the copyright wars. Congresscritters at the behest of Big Media are cutting the Gordian Knot of how to balance Fair Usage and First Purchase rights vs. We Paid Money To See This Made So It’s Ours Forever by simply making copyright uber alles. Given that copyright now extends and indefinitely length into the future, the direction our Representatives are taking us is to say that if Company X has the intellectual property ownership of Medium Y, you will never own more than the narrowly defined stake they decide you can own. Buy a CD? Cool, but don’t expect to be able to rip it to your iPod, or (in the future) listen to it more than the defined times/inside the defined period the media makers (and media player makers) decide you are allowed to.

In the latest effort, we not only don’t get a rationalization of the DMCA, but the DMCA gets expanded and all sorts of cool criminal penalties latched onto it. Woo-hoo!

For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA’s restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.

The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith, a Texas Republican, is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law. A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee said Friday that the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 is expected to “be introduced in the near future.” Beth Frigola, Smith’s press secretary, added Monday that Wisconsin Republican F. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the full House Judiciary Committee, will be leading the effort.

This is all necessary because, of couse, people burning copies of their favorite music track as an MP3 file and passing on to their friends for a listen to are, naturally, in cahoots with Osama bin Ladin.

During a speech in November, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endorsed the idea and said at the time that he would send Congress draft legislation. Such changes are necessary because new technology is “encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft,” Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, “quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities.”

Of course, the DoJ and the RIAA haven’t been getting much press for putting the screws to Big Copyright Violating Criminal Enterprises. But what we have heard a lot of is the RIAA suing the snot out of individual citizens — who will now find, under the suggested law, that they can be wiretapped by the Feds, server logs concerning anywhere they’ve been can be examined, and the PC they used to make a copy of some music can be confiscated.

The proposed law scheduled to be introduced by Rep. Smith also does the following: […] Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be “destroyed” or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.

Because we all know how well that’s worked out.

As it’s put in the Ars Technica article:

Piracy isn’t the issue here. With the federal government’s help, the labels and studios are aiming at is complete content lockdown. It’s worth quoting Ken’s article on the analog hole from last fall:

These laws aren’t about piracy, and anyone who thinks they are needs to stop, look, and listen. Once the MPAA and pals have their way, you’re going to pay through the nose for even the most basic of Fair Use rights. You’re going to pay for the right to rewind and “re-experience” content. The Copy Prohibited Content class, complete with its asinine insta-delete feature is nothing but a back door into attacking what the content industry hates most: your ability to timeshift content. Yes, Jack Valenti said the VCR would destroy Hollywood, and while these moonbats no longer believe that, they do know that the rhetoric works.

To put it bluntly, the claims of the content creation industry do not add up. Here’s what the equation really looks like: Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 + analog hole legislation + the broadcast flag = zero Fair Use rights + pay multiple times for the same content. If you don’t like that math, it’s time to get in touch with your congressperson and senators.

Feh.

(via Les)

At least in terms of being the stereotyped “Muzak.”

The syrupy orchestral “elevator music” that most people associate with the company scarcely exists anymore. Muzak sells about a hundred prepackaged programs and several hundred customized ones, and only one—“Environmental”—truly fits the stereotype. It consists of “contemporary instrumental versions of popular songs,” and it is no longer terribly popular anywhere, except in Japan. (“The Japanese think they love it, but they actually don’t,” a former Muzak executive told me. “They’ll get over it soon.”)

All of Muzak’s other programs are drawn from the company’s huge digital inventory, called the Well, which contains more than 1.5 million commercially recorded songs, representing dozens of genres and subgenres—acid jazz, heavy metal, shag, neo-soul, contemporary Italian—and is growing at the rate of twenty thousand songs a month. (Some record labels now upload new releases directly to the company, which, like a radio station, pays licensing fees for the songs it uses.)

The Well includes seven hundred and seventy-five tracks recorded by the Beatles, a hundred and thirty by Kanye West, three hundred and twenty-four by Led Zeppelin, eighty-four by Gwen Stefani, a hundred and ninety-one by 50 Cent, and nine hundred and eighty-three by Miles Davis. It also includes many covers—among them, versions of the Rolling Stones’ song “Paint It Black” by U2, Ottmar Liebert, and a late-sixties French rock band with a female vocalist (who sang it in French) and approximately five hundred versions of the Beatles’ song “Yesterday,” which, according to Guinness World Records, is the most frequently covered song in the world.

Fun article, going into the company’s history, their original pseudo-science behind play lists (and their new pseudo-science), and all sorts of stuff you probably never thought about regarding piped music.

Joss Whedon and Warren Ellis … chat … on Ellis’s web page. Or, as Ellis puts it:

Look, everybody. Joss and Warren are avoiding writing.

Fun stuff. And, yes, I’d pay good money (and a fair amount of bad money, too) to see them collaborate on something.

(via Doyce)

Do these people ever actually listen to themselves, to hear what they sound like? The RIAA has declared that copying music from a CD you own to an MP3 player you own is not necessarily covered by “fair use,” previous statements by media industry lawyers notwithstanding.

The referenced statement, by an industry lawyer before the Supreme Court, intended to show how the music industry was kind and gentle and loved bunnies and consumers, said:

Except, of course, what he really meant to say (according to the RIAA’s current stance) that they are simply, out of the goodness of their hearts, authorizing you, permitting you, allowing you, to do this. If they decide not to, if they “withhold that authorization,” then, well, damn, you’re stuck with being an illegal schmuck pirate if you decide to copy your their music onto your iPod, and ought to be subject to the full force of the DMCA and the courts.

Idiots. I don’t see any “licensing agreement” or “conditions of use” or similar lawyerly claptrap on any of the CDs in my collection (not that I don’t doubt someone’s considering slipping them in). As far as I’m concerned, it’s mine, baby, and the only thing I have to do to respect your copyright is not give away or sell copies of it. Which is quite reasonable.

But if I make copies for myself, that is my business, not yours.

(via BoingBoing)