clear english?

Music and Internet radio.

domjuan — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:13:20 +0000

Small print

Copyright Royalty Board to Decide Internet Radio Music Royalties By March 4

While recent press reports talk about the growth of Internet Radio and the increasing presence of terrestrial radio companies on the net, the amount of the music royalties that will have to be paid by Internet radio companies for the 2006-2010 period remains unresolved. The trial phase of the proceeding to set the rates, held before the Copyright Royalty Board, is now completed, and the upcoming decision of the Board may have a profound impact on the economics of the Internet radio industry. Final briefs in the case were filed with the Board in December, and an oral argument was held on Thursday, December 21. With the completion of the argument, the decision is now in the Board’s hands, and the amount of the royalties for the use of the sound recordings will be decided by the Board on or before March 4.

In the on-line world, and in most digital communications channels other than over-the-air digital broadcasts, a royalty for the use of the “sound recording” (the actual recording made by a particular artist) must be paid in addition to the royalty for the use of the composition (i.e. the underlying words and music) that is paid to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Our summary of the royalty rates that Internet radio stations should currently be paying can be found on our firm’s website, here. As we make clear in that memo, the rates that are currently being paid expired at the end of 2005, so the rates that are adopted in the current proceeding will be retroactive to January 1, 2006.

The proceeding to determine the new rates has been underway for more than a year. Written cases were filed by the parties in October 2005. Discovery, including depositions and document discovery, took place in the early part of 2006. A trial began in May and lasted through the first week in August, with a rebuttal phase that ended the week after Thanksgiving.

The Copyright Royalty Judges will be left with a choice between two vastly different positions. The Recording Industry (represented by its collective SoundExchange) has suggested that the rates essentially triple, to a rate that would be the higher of 30% of gross revenue or a per song rate that would grow over the 5 year royalty period from .08 cents per song per listener to .19 cents per song per listener (plus a CPI increase). SoundExchange has also suggested a 25% surcharge for performances which are received by a wireless receiver. Essentially, SoundExchange argued that Internet Radio confers little promotional benefit to most performers, and that there was a large risk of “stream ripping” which would result in lessened sales of CDs and legal downloads. Moreover, the Recording Industry argued that the economics of webcasting are improving and that this higher royalty should be able to be paid by an “efficient” webcaster. In their proposal, no distinction is made between large or small webcasters, or between commercial and noncommercial entities.

Seven different groups of webcasters participated in the proceeding. Four represent noncommercial interests (NPR, the National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Licensing Committee, and two groups of college broadcasters). Three groups of commercial webcasters also participated – one representing the large commercial webcasters (including AOL and Yahoo), one representing broadcasters who stream their over-the-air signal on the Internet, and a third group representing “small commercial webcasters” (independent webcasting companies such as AccuRadio, RadioIO and Digitally imported Radio). I represented the last group in this proceeding.

Each of the webcasting groups asked for a royalty that was similar in amount to what they pay to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for the right to stream music on the Internet, reasoning that the sound recording and the musical composition have equal value to the webcaster as, without both rights, a song cannot legally be played on a webcaster’s station. The services all took issue with the Recording Industry’s contention that there was little promotional benefit from webcasting. All argued that the current rate was already too high given the current economics of webcasting, and that the rate proposed by the SoundExchange would put the services out of business. This was especially true for the small commercial webcasters and the noncommercial entities, which currently pay at rates different (and almost always far lower) than the standard rate, as these entities have been covered by rates negotiated pursuant to the Congressionally-enacted Small Webcasters Settlement Act.

The Board will have to reconcile these starkly contrasting views of the webcasting industry and come up with a rate that represents the rate required by statute – the one that “a willing buyer and willing seller” would agree to in a marketplace transaction. In the next two months, we will know where the future of the Internet radio industry lies.

http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/archives/internet-radio-copyright-royalty-board-to-decide-internet-radio-music-royalties-by-march-4.html

Daniel Castro

May 2007

http://www.itif.org/files/InternetRadio.pdf

Internet Radio and Copyright Royalties:

Reforming a Broken System

Publishing.

domjuan — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:06:51 +0000

Small PRINT.

Tate’s Copyright Policy

Tate is committed to respecting the intellectual property rights of others. We have therefore taken all reasonable efforts to ensure that the reproduction of all content on these pages (including but not restricted to images, text and audio), is done with the full consent of copyright owners.

Any queries in this respect should be addressed to:

The Copyright Officer
Tate Britain
Millbank
London SW1P 4RG

The contents of this website can be viewed for your enjoyment and so you may freely access and download the contents on a temporary basis for the sole purposes of viewing, interacting or listening to them.

However, the following acts are prohibited in respect of any of the content featured on this website:

public performance or display
any rental leasing or lending of any material obtained or derived from the website
any form of reproduction whatsoever, including without limitation, the extraction and/or storage in any retrieval system or inclusion in any other computer program or work
any reproduction whatsoever of details, alterations and adaptations of works

http://www.tate.org.uk/about/media/copyright/

Public Data.

domjuan — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:51:55 +0000

Small print

Public data.PublicData was started on September 1, 1997 and was originally incorporated outside the United States. In 1997, government attitude toward making access to public records easy and inexpensive was to confront those who did so with threats of prosecution and civil penalties. Ultimately, after some lobbying and law changes; PublicData was moved into the US in 2004.

Governments (federal, state, local) within the US generally remain opposed to the idea of PublicData.com and look for ways to discourage general public access to Public Records (simply put, governments view this as a loss of their power and control). It is common for opportunistic politicians or bureaucrats to jump onto manufactured stories of a criminal element using information from PublicData.com to perpetrate a crime. These “keepers of the public trust” are motivated by their own quest for power by duping the public into demanding that access to Public Records be restricted. Now to be sure, criminals have used PublicData.com but we work very aggressively with law enforcement to help assure conviction.

We remain dedicated to the idea that all citizens of our free society should have access to all of the records that government collects (except information critical to national security and information involved in ongoing criminal investigation). Likewise we will continue to lead the industry in “low cost” real-time access to Public Records. We will continue to add to the number of database offerings while providing better performance and more value. PublicData.com purchases all of its data from various government entities (directly and indirectly) and is in no way subsidized by any government.

http://publicdata.com/About.html

INSPIRE:

INSPIRE is the Proposed European Commission Directive on European Spatial Data Infrastucture. Its website is here: http://inspire.jrc.it/

INSPIRE is the most recent in a long series of attempted EC Directives that have tried to establish a common framework for annotating and sharing geographic data between member states – a spatial data infrastructure. It emphasises the environmental reasons to share data between official agencies in different EC countries, rather than focusing on access to that data as a way of promoting wider involvement in civic issues.

INSPIRE also describes a set of implementing rules that member states MUST follow, except INSPIRE doesn’t describe these implementing rules; it just says that Member States will be obliged to follow them, once they are decided on. Given that the National mapping agencies have significant vested interests in applying copyright to their geospatial data, and influence in parliament, this is a potentially worrying aspect of the directive.

The InspireTimeline shows some key events in the life of INSPIRE as it has gone through the EU co-decision process. During its lifetime it has acquired an increased emphasis on licensing and copyright, even for viewing of data, and the essential data sets that it’s meant to cover have slowly been dropping away.

The InspireTimeline illustrates how some of the language has changed as it goes through the EU legislative process.
Status of INSPIRE in the OEIL legislation progress database
INSPIRE text with amendments on first reading

Why act on Inspire?

This site hopes to inspire anyone in Europe who considers themself to have a stake in GeographicInformation, no matter how small, to be able to get involved in the European lobbying process that surrounds the InspireDirective.

Giving copyright over public data collected at taxpayers expense to the NationalMappingAgencies who collect it will have a negative effect on the profitability and innovation of industry, academic, local government and open-source software groups who have not been consulted.

If you care about European citizens’ ability to participate in the GeospatialWebBoom that is driving social and economic activity in the US and Canada right now; even if you like the idea that NationalMappingAgencies such as the UK’s OrdnanceSurvey should be granted intellectual property rights and copyright on geographic data that you paid to help collect in the first place, this site hopes to help you to ActOnInspire.

WhatIsInspire really trying to achieve? It’s been created through a non-transparent process of consultation with the NationalMappingAgencies who have collected geodata on behalf of governments at tax-payers’ expense, and are now trying to gain copyright and intellectual property rights over that geodata, in order to sell it back to small businesses, academics and citizens to “recover their costs”.

Licenses.

domjuan — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 15:34:05 +0000

Creative Commons licenses

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S. non-profit corporation founded in 2001.

Many of the licenses, notably all the original licenses, grant certain “baseline rights”,^[1] such as the right to distribute the copyrighted work without changes, at no charge. Some of the newer licenses do not grant these rights.

Creative Commons licenses are currently available in 43 different jurisdictions worldwide, with more than nineteen others under development.^[2] Licenses for jurisdictions outside of the United States are under the purview of Creative Commons International.

Original licenses

The original set of licenses all grant the “baseline rights”. The details of each of these licenses depends on the version, and comprises a selection of four conditions:

Attribution (by): Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author or licensor the credits in the manner specified by these.

Noncommercial or NonCommercial (nc): Licensees may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only for noncommercial purposes.

No Derivative Works or NoDerivs (nd): Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it.

ShareAlike (sa): Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work. (See also copyleft.)

Mixing and matching these conditions produces sixteen possible combinations, of which eleven are valid Creative Commons licenses. Of the five invalid combinations, four include both the “nd” and “sa” clauses, which are mutually exclusive; and one includes none of the clauses. The five of the eleven valid licenses that lack the Attribution element have been phased out because 98% of licensors requested Attribution, but are still available for viewing on the website.^[3] There are thus six regularly used licenses:

Attribution alone (by)
Attribution + Noncommercial (by-nc)
Attribution + NoDerivs (by-nd)
Attribution + ShareAlike (by-sa)
Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivs (by-nc-nd)
Attribution + Noncommercial + ShareAlike (by-nc-sa)

Uk Copyright Law

domjuan — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:13:52 +0000

The approbation of Intellectual property for control and use, is covered in four areas.

Design-Designs protect the visual appearance or eye appeal of products.

Patents-protect the technical and functional aspects of products and processes.

Trade Marks-Trade Marks protect signs that can distinguish goods and services of one trader from those of another. However IP also covers ’KNOW-HOW’, performer rirghts and so on.

www.ipo.gov.uk/whatis.htm

Copyright law originated in the United Kingdom from a concept of common law; the Statute of Anne 1709. It became statutory with the passing of the Copyright Act 1911. The current act is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

There is a clear distinction between the genesis of an idea and an actual creation. An idea for a book would not be protected but the actual content of a book would be. You are allowed to write a book around an idea.

The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states the duration of Copyright varies according to the type of work.

e.g Broadcasts – 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the broadcast was made.

Benefits of design protection

Registering your design gives you exclusive rights for the look and appearance of your product. The existence of your design registration may be enough on its own to stop others from trying to exploit your design. If it does not, it gives you the right to take legal action to stop them exploiting your design and to claim damages.

A registered design allows you to:

sell your design and the intellectual property (IP) rights to it
license your design to someone else and retain the IP rights to it.

The public will also benefit from your design as it will be published. Others can gain useful information and see the latest developments in design technology which can be used freely once the design registration ceases.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/design/d-applying/d-should/d-benefit.htm

Patents:

An application for a patent should include a full description of your invention (including any drawings), a set of claims defining your invention, a short abstract summarising the technical features of your invention and a filled in form 1.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patent/p-applying/p-apply.htm

What is a trade mark?

A trade mark is a sign which can distinguish your goods

and services from those of other traders. A sign includes,

for example, words, logos, pictures or a combination of

these.

You can use your trade mark as a marketing tool so that

customers can recognise your products or services.

Points to consider before making your application:



The following are the main points you need to think about

carefully before sending us your application.



•

Is your trade mark a distinctive word, logo, picture

or other sign that will clearly identify your goods or

services from those of other traders?

If we don’t think it is, we will object to your mark.

•

Has someone else already registered or applied to

register a trade mark which may be confusingly similar

to yours? For example, does it:

•

look the same as (or similar to) yours for the same

(or similar) goods or services; or

•

sound the same as (or similar to) yours .

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-essentialreading.pdf

April 1st

domjuan — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:52:04 +0000

Well actually 210 +days (How time flies?)
First duty was to do the sensor tests again. Put in my shoes. Walk 20 m up and back five times. Results- my readings from my right foot are the same as my left foot. Yippee! I can walk normally again(no limp) and i transfer the weight from my heel to the sole ( as left foot). I have no stiffness or soreness in my ankle/tendon or calf.However I am aware when walking that I don’t have the same bounce or power as my left leg. Its imperceptible sometimes. However the strength in my right leg has increased almost at tiny increments. Its much different to January.

Since January I have attended the’Foot and ankle class’ every tuesday (never miss). We are a merry bunch. A third ATR’S and the rest include fell of a pool table, motor bike accidents, jumping a gate, falling in holes. We have a laugh when new people attend. Bolts, screws and plates are a many. We often do circuit courses. For instance, trampets, wobble boards, walking with eyes closed over an uneven surface and squatting against a 45 degree board + others. A good one for the calves is to sit on a chair and put your bare feet on two bits of carpet. Then go slide forwards and backwards. Even sitting down its hard to do it for more than a minute. Gets the quads, knees and calves.

Massaging your leg (lying down) with leg in air is great for the blood supply. I have learnt a lot down there. I always had a dodgy ankle which meant my foot use to stick out a bit(lazy). Now I walk straighter. I can feel my inner ligaments adjusting.

I asked the Doctor about my progress. She said, “If you keep on track , you will be discharged in 3 months”. I still have to do the follow up questionaires at 12 and 18 months(fine).

Regarding my calf size and power. She said, “As you realise its a slow progress but you will be stronger in 9 and again in 12″. I can wait as I can do most things now. Go to the gym regular again. I can single calf raise my whole 13 stones to 2 or 3 inches and hold it there. I also can repeat the exercise many times ( no hands). My good leg is much more bouncier and stronger but why state the obvious! This game is about the ‘hard inches’ and not the ‘hard yards’. Results come slowly but every result is nearer to the 100% or previous levels, pre injury.

I’m 50% there times wise and feel over 60% power wise(hard to tell really). I wish everybody in the club perserverance, do what your body thinks it can do and most of all….patience. The repaired achilles was not built in a few months!

I have now been discharged from the Foot and Ankle class.

Achilles Tendon sites (URL’s)

domjuan — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:00:12 +0000

http://www.achillestendon.com/Achilles.html

h http://www.marfell.me.uk/nuke/modules.php?name=Forums

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2006/11/09/hmarr09.xml

http://www.youtube.com/v/YAIYswRWwxE&rel=1/x-shockwave-flash

The Trojan war.

domjuan — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:17:49 +0000

“Ask me for a true image of human existence,”

Final sequence of photographs.

Photography Assignment

domjuan — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:23:40 +0000

’French dressing’ (15)

This set references my Achilles tendon rupture. The theme is implicit to the viewer. ‘French dressing’ is my choice set for the assignment. The props have been included to imbue a light hearted narrative. A self-parody of my injury.

I must also congratulate SOLL on persuading the BBC to commission the series ‘The Genius of Photography’ to run in parallel. A timely call!

The photographs by Henri Lartigue of people jumping are not my favourite set but they are inspirational.