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Humans Acting Out In Business, My Favorite Twitter Accounts - the letter "A"
Those Resources are a list of websites that relate in some way to the music and entertainment industry - they are connected to the music and entertainment industry in my mind. It is my belief that every musician and person in the world of music and entertainment must know more than music. Law, technology, business, film, video, television, advertising and communication, especially 21st century style communication by means of social media, are some of what should go into/be shot into/forced down the throat of/taught to a musician or person living in these post-Mayan times. We need to confront and try to master what is represented by those social media proper nouns - those companies and services - and verbs formed by speaking nouns as if they were verbs.
Is Alicia Keys guilty of copyright infringement? A lawyer quotes a feebly written blog and files a foolish lawsuit
I was startled to read that "some of the suit is based on my reporting" as I had never heard of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed because of the "reporting" of a blogger, and especially a blogger who demonstrates his incontrovertible ignorance of copyright law.Friedman states, "Hopefully musicologists will be called in, etc. experts who can testify about Keys's use of two lines from the chorus of 'Hey There Lonely Girl' in 'Girl on Fire.'"This is such a poorly conceived and written sentence. First, is Friedman stating his hopes that musicologists "will be called in, etc.?" As a musicologist who has testified in copyright infringement cases in U. S. federal courts for 20 years, I am extremely curious as to what Friedman means by "etc...." As I try to understand, I think he might mean that we are called in and then comes other actions - the etcetra part. Just what does the "etc." of his sentence mean, and have I been "etc.-ing" these past 20 years or should I start "etc.-ing" now to make up for the times in which I did not etcetera?
Happy 12 12 12, Twelve Twelve Twelve, Zwölf Zwölf Zwölf, Dodici Dodici Dodici, Doce Doce Doce, Douze Douze Douze
Wayne Shorter, Bo Diddley, George StraitWhat day is it? December 12, 2012? December 12, 2012 can be abbreviated as 12-12-12 or 12/12/12 or 12.12.12 or spoken Twelve Twelve Twelve, Doce Doce Doce, Douze Douze Douze, Dodici Dodici Dodici, Zwölf Zwölf Zwölf or hundreds of other ways. If you've been near social media, you also know that this will be the last repetitive date ever. (That's true only if a 13th month is never added to our calendar. There could be a 13th month because like copyright terms, Viagra and Cialis, there's always someone who wants to lengthen something.)
Harvard Law School Lecture - December 5, 2012
I will be speaking at The Harvard University Law School today between noon and 1:15 PM in Wasserstein Hall 3036. The subject will be my work in, and take on, music copyright, intellectual property, tech and entertainment issues. This is a great honor and I am very happy to have been invited.This blog post will also double as my notes or at least a guide to the order of subjects. I'll be able to see this post on a monitor or my iPhone while my iPad plays the music. I'll also bring a DVD or two, unless I choose to access the same material on the Very Wide World Spider Web.
I've Had The Time Of My Life & Do I Owe It All To Sandals.com Ripping Off The Beatles?
Q U E S T I O N SDoes Sandals sound like The Beatles?Does Sandals rip off The Beatles?Does Sandals infringe The Beatles?Does Sandals sound too much like The Beatles?Is the Sandals/Beatles issue a copyright problem?Is the Sandals/Beatles issue a right of publicity problem?Is the Sandals/Beatles issue an unfair competition problem?...
Talk Amongst Yourselves, Turn Me On, Beatles One Louder, the Buttocks Bowl
How can you get one's attention? Play a Beatles recording. Play something loud and very noticeable. Maybe the intro to a Beatles song. If one wants to hear a loud, striking, very original opening of a Beatles song, one that will really hit the ear, there is one song that WILL not do it. It would be the WORST BEATLES SONG, worst only in terms of making a listener notice. What is the Beatles song LEAST likely to get one's attention?
Do The Macarena (On A Fishing Boat In The North Atlantic With An HP Printer)
While working on a project, I heard this HP Office Jet Pro commercial and looked up. What distracted me and attracted me to the commercial was the manner in which it referenced the way-too-big hit song from the mid 1990's, "Macarena." (When I just wrote, M-A-C-A-R-E-N-A, Wordpress thought perhaps I meant, "Macaroni," or "Macaroon." No, I meant M-A-C-A-R-E-N-A. It might take a few more years to convince the world of words that Macarena is Macarena, just as it took a long time to make "Beatles" not be "Beetles.""Macarena" features its hook at these eleven (11) places in Macarena:
Did Taylor Swift Steal A Lyric From Matt Nathanson? Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Andy Williams & Tony Bennett
My first impression is that I would side with Taylor Swift as I think two (or more) authors could come up with those very similar words independently, i.e., without copying. And if one did not copy the other, it is not copyright infringement.These two short lyric excerpts from larger songs are of a style of lyric writing I have seen before, one in which a clever literary device is at play. Songs with these literary devices are fairly common in Nashville, country and pop. It reminds me of songs and song titles like these:
Unfair Competition, Election Night 2012, Swimming at 57 F / 41 F
An example of unfair competition would occur if an unknown musician, or any non-Beatle, released an album of 13 supposedly original songs, whose titles, in order, were:“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”“With A Little Help From My Friends”“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”“Getting Better”“Fixing A Hole”“She’s Leaving Home”“Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”“Within You Without You”“When I’m Sixty-Four”“Lovely Rita”“Good Morning Good Morning”“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”“A Day In The Life”
Minotaur Shock, Band Of The Day App
This morning I was listening to the podcast (from Stitcher) of This Week In Tech: Episode 378 from TWIT.TV - it's a good, fun episode - when I found out that I had some apps to update on my iPhone 5. Of course this little iPhone 5 machine can update away while I'm listing to Stitcher, so I proceeded to give my blessings so the updates could update.Next, "Genius," the Apple app Recommender-In-Chief that I've wisely enabled, suggested a few apps I just had to have. Check. Got them.Next came another Genius app recommendation - BAND OF THE DAY. Band Of The Day, according to its own statement of honest hype, "unearths the best new music by delivering one new artist a day, every single day.
Watching Me Walk Around Naked
Directv has created and is airing a sticky - to be more concise, "ICKY" - television commercial that only succeeds at showing a young couple in their loveless relationship. And the "zinger" line, aired by the male, is mean spirited and aimed at demeaning the woman. It suggests danger, discomfort and intimidation, not exactly positive qualities to connote by means of a television commercial. When I first saw this commercial, I was shocked and thought, "he didn't just say that, did he? Yikes, this is one ugly and disturbing commercial."
Where I'm Going (By Dressing Up As A Dragon)
I’ve included some legal/law websites in this list as well some for the most obvious reasons and others because they are friends’ websites. For example, one should never get too serious about the creation and dissemination of music without thinking about----COPYRIGHT andTRADEMARKSo I included the U. S. Copyright Office and the U. S. Patent & Trademark Office.Now I am pondering a few more things with respect to the nature of my Resources:1. Should the Resources be more focussed and contain fewer non-music sites, or2. Should the Resources contain more sites that are not primarily music or entertainment industry, and if #2 holds, then3. Resources will be more a reflection of me as I love to connect things that some think are not so connected. For example, all of us intersect daily with law, business, technology and communication. That seems to give me the kind of carte blanche to just post away, and fun away!
John Lennon - "I Got Resources On My Fingers!"
Tonight I've added a new section to www.emichaelmusic.com - one called, "Resources." It will be a living document. I'll update it frequently and I look forward to adding readers' suggestions as well. I've been compiling resources like this for years and dividing them into categories. I've posted these in various places. The College Music Society has posted my resources for the past 5 or 6 years. I've also included some of these in some of my course syllabi at different universities. As of tonight, the first installment resides here at my site.The first of my Resources is a list of music and entertainment industry sites that I visit - almost all of which I value. Some might be included for good reasons - because I like or love the content at the sites, others because I feel that they should be there, and still others because they will irritate or irk people. And why not? Doesn't the Bible suggest that we should afflict the comfortable?
Did Big Happens Here Do Digable Planets?
I know that many traditional jazz players, especially in the early and mid-1980's, would not likely latch on to a short phrase, repeat it many times and make this small and almost "throw away" motif into something big. This tiny melodic gesture, in the hands of an outsider (with respect to a musical tradition), could become the most important part of the melody, or sometimes the only melody that matters to someone from outside of that tradition. This "how does a foreigner view our music" idea is one I will explore later. I'll include myself in this - how and why did I get into hip hop, or Senegalese, Malagasy, Brazilian or Cuban music.All of this to get back to that famous Digable Planets song that samples some jazz.
Igor Got Game: A Musical and Legal Comparison of The Beastie Boys and Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” (1918) drew heavily upon music composed by Giovanni Pergolesi and others in the early 18th century. The Beastie Boys, an extremely popular rap/hip hop music group since the mid-1980’s, in their best-selling CD, Hello Nasty (1999) drew upon the music of Stravinsky by means of the digital sampling of Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Both of these “borrowings” share important similarities and differences. Furthermore, these borrowings shed light on several seemingly unrelated disciplines and fields of study. These include music composition and the nature of creativity and originality, the intellectual property law of different times and societies created to protect authors from appropriations of their original works, the means by which borrowed music may be used and transmitted (sampling, digital streaming, MP3, etc.), and the business (financial, licensing, retail, broadcast, etc.) considerations involved in such borrowings.
As Apple Annoys Again
Apple is a great company for brilliant U.I. and ease and fun of use of their shiny silver toys. This feature and its obscure location, however, makes one realize that Apple plays by rules that aren't benevolent or consumer-friendly (Apple loves us, don't they?). Apple has sold us another expensive toy, so that we can buy into an expensive monthly marriage with a telecom and then sell us to as many advertisers as possible. And in addition, millions of us are now choosing to rent the music and books we have already purchased.
Angie Aparo v. Five For Fighting (Part 3 of 3)
PART 3 of 3We left off in this cliffhanger with the promise of an ending in this highly abbreviated fictionalized account of what could have been a copyright infringement action brought by Angie Aparo and affiliated parties against Five For Fighting and affiliated parties.Plaintiff: What country song features 1-2-3-5?Defendant: “Tomorrow Never Comes” by Ernest Tubb does. Conway Twitty’s “I’m Not Through Loving You Yet” also features 1-2-3-5.Plaintiff: What rock song features 1-2-3-5?Defendant: “I’ll Follow The Sun” by The Beatles.” The Beatles‘ “You Won’t See Me” also features 1-2-3-5
Does Five For Fighting's "Superman" Infringe Angie Aparo's "Seed? (Part 2 of 3)
Defendant’s expert states that the melody in common is not copyrighted because it can be found in many songs written before the Plaintiff’s song.Plaintiffs demand Defendants’ expert witness prove that the melody in question is not copyrighted.Defendant’s expert witness shows that the melody is found in the music of: Bach, Borodin, Brahms, Dvorak, Foster, Guonod, Haydn. Lear, Mendelssohn and Mozart.Plaintiff demands specificity.Defendant specifies....
Does Five For Fighting’s “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” Infringe Angie Aparo’s “Seed?”
We teach our children to STEAL other peoples' thoughts without asking permission. (I'm referring to what some teachers and professors do - make their students write "papers" that consist of their own thoughts mixed with the (better, older and more respected) thoughts of others. We FORCE THEM TO STEAL. All we ask is that our students have to correctly indicate (cite) their exact source(s). We would not allow them to even ask for permission.