Blog
New Compulsory License & The USPTO Green Paper Roundtable at Vanderbilt Law School - May 21, 2014
A Compulsory License to Sample Master Recordings is a very good idea. A fair, respectful and business-happy aspect of this license would be that a recording MUST be at least ten (10) years old. That way, the recording has had ample time to be sold in its original form, sales of the original recording have greatly decreased (or stopped), a new version will draw attention to the original version, the public has more art and options, and money will be generated from the rebirth of a 10 year old recording.
Dr. Dre Should Have Hired Me
The moral of the story below? Not hiring me can cost money. Dr. Dre hired a musicologist for an opinion on whether he could use a bass line from another song, one that Dr. Dre had not composed. That expert told Dr. Dre that the bass line was not original and therefore Dr. Dre was free to use it. I would have told Dr. Dre that that bass line WAS original and that Dr. Dre should NOT use it. But, Dr. Dre did not consult with me. Dr. Dre took the advice of a different expert witness and it cost him $1.5 million.
Dexter Not Only Murders, He Steals Film Titles
Many episodes of DEXTER are titled after titles of films. I'll repeat the accusatory verbs that could be hurled at the copyright owners of DEXTER by each of the potential plaintiffs below. While to some, referencing a movie title is not a reference/cultural reference/cultural signifier as much as it is an outrageous theft of their intellectual property. There are many who have sued over four (4), three (3) or even two (2) words that have been copied/stolen/referenced/plundered from another source by cutthroat pirates.
Making Lyrics From Other Lyrics - Fair Use & Reference - Part 1
Referencing of lyrics/text and/or music has been a respected practice in many cultures and traditions. I have written this and will write future posts to show that in our society - Western, North American, South American, U. S. (and elsewhere) - we commonly reference. Culture is built by expression which is manifested by origination, accretion, reference, imitation, reproduction and other means.In my opinion, in the examples below, copyright has NOT been infringed. These are examples of fair use.
Dexter Not Only Murders, He Steals Intellectual Property - Part 1
I am very new to the great Showtime original series, DEXTER. I "cut the cord," got Netflix and am now a proud Netflix sheep/minion who watches television based to a large degree on what's available on Netflix.I was attracted to Netflix because I loved the nature of the Netflix beast - for a reasonable monthly fee, we could watch/ingest anything and everything we wanted, when, where and how we wanted - via 55 inch television, 27 inch iMac, iPad with or without retina display, iPhone, Google Glass or wrist watch, although those latter two are not widely available on Earth as of late December 2013. But Netflix is part of what's right about my intellectual property (IP) demands for life in the 21st century.
Copying & Using Lyrics As Lyrics, Names Of Bands, Magazines & Organizations
I want to mention and briefly discuss the copying of lyrics.Many questions can arise pertaining to the copying of lyrics, questions that can be extremely wide-ranging. For this space today, I am mostly concerned with identifying a few examples of copying that I find constructive, reconstructive and progressive, i.e., these examples of copying do not infringe copyright or constitute laziness on the part of the new author/creator.Why are lyrics copied? Are lyrics copied for some of the same reasons that music is copied? I will pose a few possible answers as to why lyrics are copied:
Fair Use and Copyright Abuse - My AIMP Talk Is SOLD OUT. Scalpers? Buehler?
Copying someone else's expression is allowed. Perhaps it is more accurate to state it this way: Copying someone else's expression is possible. Is permissible. Can happen. Can happen without negative consequences. (Fair use can mean that one has the right to hire expensive attorneys to fight back against a plaintiff's assertion that you have infringed her copyright. The "without negative consequences" is initially a theory - it often takes time, money, attorneys and experts to negate the "negative consequences.")
Fair Use, the 2-line rule & my heart tells me it's real
"Fair Use." Fair use is not silly - it's essential. Fair use is the use a copyrighted work (or more than one) without the author's permission. It's what we were forced to do in the American education system. It's not enough that we spouted our views - we needed to COPY and quote others' views as well, and it was unthinkable that we'd go to the trouble of writing to a book publisher to ask for permission, for example, to COPY a few sentences/paragraph from an author and insert it into our original work. This new original work by a student was usually a paper that had to be handed in to a teacher to fulfill an assignment. Asking for permission would take too long. Proper attribution (and copyright notice) for an academic assignment is usually considered a good reason to violate/break/pillage the "Copyright Law of the United States and Related Laws..."