Who you Gonna Call? Law Enforcement and Artists’ Rights   Amanda Williams, Songwriter, Songwriter Advocate Detective Superintendent Peter Ratcliffe, Police IP Crime Unit City of London Police Carlos Linares, VP Anti-Piracy Legal Affairs RIAA Ellen Seidler, Filmmaker, Writer, Producer, Digital Citizens Alliance Kevin Phelan,  Senior Supervisory Agent, FBI Palo Alto CA 1:15- 2:15 PM Chris Castle of MusicTech Policy … Continue reading →

  The UGA Terry College Music Business Certificate Program hosted an Artists’ Rights Symposium Jan 22-23 2018.  Over 250 people attended the symposium. Above is the video of the Grassroots Artists Advocacy Panel. An Overview of the State of Grassroots Artists’ Rights Advocacy Mala Sharma, Georgia Music Partners Blake Morgan, Performer, #IRespectMusic Miranda Mullholland, Performer, … Continue reading →

David Israelite of the NMPA and Mitch Glazier of the RIAA  have penned an op-ed for Variety Magazine, in which they extoll the virtues of various copyright reform proposals before congress.  While I agree with them about the Classics Act (fixes pre-1972 loophole)  AMP act (helps producers/engineers receive royalties from digital royalty streams) every day … Continue reading →

This is a guest post by Volker Rieck.  Mr. Rieck has spent considerable time investigating Private Layer a web hosting company that seems to be favored by many copyright infringing sites. Unfortunately Rieck’s investigation has been stonewalled by the quasi governmental organization RIPE.    According to Wikipedia: “RIPE or The Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre … Continue reading →

  Guest Post from the legendary guitarist Marc Ribot. One point that Mr. Ribot makes we would like to further emphasize at the outset: without DMCA reform there is no “market” for Copyright Royalty Judges to set rates under the MMA. This comes on the heels of a paper from Stan Liebowitz at the University … Continue reading →

Dear Mr. Israelite, I received your point-by-point response that you apparently shared with legislators and interested persons in response to my 10-point critique of the MMA. Thank you for your perspective. Perspective is important. But in my opinion, your letter contains misdirection, many important omissions, and inaccuracies. I explain this below, and in much greater … Continue reading →

Readers of this blog know that that Terry College of Business at University of Georgia hosted the inaugural Artists Rights Symposium Jan 23 2018.   All the panel videos are now available on the Terry College of Business YouTube Channel.  Here is Jonathan Taplin’s Keynote.  It’s fantastic.  Funny, concise and likely to make your blood … Continue reading →

This study showing the negative economic effects of safe harbors is great timing as we are reviewing multiple brand new safe harbors proposed to great fanfare in the Music Modernization Act that protect Spotify.  More on this to come as we review the welcome study by economist Stan Liebowitz, Ashbel Smith Professor of Economics at … Continue reading →

The SX Works NOI lookup database shows how major music services claim not to identify the top 5 songs on the Billboard singles chart. Continue reading →

Anybody who has been in the fight for Artists Rights knows that one of our biggest enemies is the astroturf group Fight for the Future.   We’ve been following them for some time and have covered FFTF funding from the mysterious London Trust Media.  What we didn’t realize until yesterday is that that London Trust … Continue reading →