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Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol opens today to a chorus of negative reviews and a rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A particularly harsh assessment comes from Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal: To put it bluntly, if Scroogely, Disney’s 3-D animated version of “A Christmas Carol” is a calamity. The pace is predominantly glacial—that alone would be enough to cook the goose of this premature holiday turkey—and the tone is joyless, despite an extended passage of bizarre laughter, several dazzling flights of digital fancy, a succession of striking images and Jim Carrey’s voicing of Scrooge plus half a dozen...

Ben Shapiro at Big Hollywood has an interesting report on the Alma Thomas painting "Watusi (Hard Edge). For those who may not recall, the Thomas painting closely resembled the Matisse painting "L'escargot," causing some to say it was copied. Of course this has absolutely nothing to do with the decision to remove the painting from the White House: According to Semonti Stephens, Michelle Obama’s deputy press secretary, the painting was moved “because it didn’t fit the space right.”

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says: * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability. * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that...

Say what you want about Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, but he knows a little something about the good people of New Jersey. In Texas, they may like candidates who strongly defend the right to bear arms. And in Wisconsin, a fine knowledge of dairy issues might secure you votes. But in New Jersey, it's all about referencing vintage British comedy. Why else would Christie's campaign have produced a spot lifting old Monty Python footage wholesale while attacking Senator Corzine's alleged plans to hike tolls? It's all about giving the people what they want. And in a rough and tumble...

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a bill to require radio stations to pay royalties to performers when their music is aired, a top priority for the recording industry. The Senate committee vote marks the furthest congressional progress yet for the measure, although it is still far from becoming law. Broadcast radio stations now pay song royalties to songwriters and producers, but they don't pay performance fees for playing the artists' music. In contrast, cable, satellite and Internet radio pay performance royalties. Under the bill, large radio companies such as Clear Channel Communications Inc. and Cox Radio Inc. would...

. . Once Again, Entertainment Industry Looks To Force Massive Copyright Changes Via Int'l Treaties from the how-the-game-is-played dept By now you should know that one of the entertainment industry's favorite tools for forcing ever more draconian copyright laws around the world is to use international treaties. Such treaties are not put together by elected officials, but appointed diplomats, often with tremendous input (to the point of allowing them to write the details) from industries that are protected. Then, once those treaties are in place, copyright maximalists just get to sit back and say "but we must make our copyright...

...Subtitled "The Commercial Revolution in American Music," Suisman's book (Harvard University Press) focuses on the 1880s through the mid-1920, a period that saw the growth of sheet-music publishing from a printer's sideline to a wildly profitable New York-based industry... These innovations made professionally composed and performed music available to a wider range of Americans than ever before. At the same time, music increasingly became something to be passively appreciated rather than actively made. (This story could have been different, if Edison's wax cylinders, which allowed convenient home recording as well as playback, had won out over Emile Berliner’s disc technology.)...

"...The artists deserve it, ...With things the way they are today, everybody needs every little penny they can get." ...Radio personalities such as Tom Joyner, whose "Tom Joyner Morning Show" is owned by Radio One Inc., a black-owned conglomerate, oppose the bill, generating support from their vast listening audiences.... There is also a division within the civil rights community. The NAACP recently passed a resolution supporting the bill, while activists Al Sharpton, whose radio show is syndicated by Radio One, and Jesse Jackson, whose show is syndicated by a subsidiary of Clear Channel Corp., oppose it... The bill's sponsor, Rep....

Jackson Browne has settled a lawsuit and received an apology from Sen. John McCain and the Republican Party over use of his song "Running on Empty" during last year's presidential campaign. The settlement announced Tuesday includes a pledge by the GOP not to use any musicians' work without proper permission in future campaigns, a statement that Browne said he hoped would benefit other artists. Browne sued McCain and the Republican National Committee and the Ohio Republican Party last year over use of "Running on Empty" in a Web ad mocking Democrat Barack Obama's proposed energy policies. McCain's loss in November...

<p>The National Association of Broadcasters said Wednesday that a majority of U.S. House members are now opposed to imposing new fees on radio stations to pay performance artists.</p> <p>Such a bill passed the House Judiciary Committee last month, but the NAB hopes the show of opposition will prevent it from being brought to the House floor for a debate and vote. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office is monitoring support for the issue but officials there said the speaker has no immediate plan to take action.</p>

Broadcasters are vowing to fight legislation requiring radio stations to pay royalties to performers, even as the recording industry and artist coalitions say the effort is gathering steam. The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday passed a modified version of a performance royalty bill that gives some exemptions to small broadcast stations. Broadcast radio stations now pay song royalties to songwriters and ...

So the Copyright Office is currently in the middle reviewing proposed exceptions to the DMCA, and one of the proposals on the table would allow teachers and students to rip DVDs and edit them for use in the classroom. Open and shut, right? Not if you're the MPAA and gearing up to litigate the legality of ripping -- it's trying to convince the rulemaking committee that videotaping a flatscreen is an acceptable alternative. Seriously. It's hard to say if we've ever seen an organization make a more tone-deaf, flailing argument than this. Take a good look, kids. This is what...

...These grass-roots music events... have come up against the demands of US copyright law, as enforced by a handful of companies who act as collection agents for songwriters and composers. The law states that no performer in a public venue can present someone else's copyrighted music without their permission and, usually, without compensating them. A number of agencies, chief among them... BMI and... ASCAP, charge music venues an annual copyright "license fee" ranging from $300 to nearly $10,000 for the privilege of presenting someone else's music. Much of the music at those Ragged Edge open mics was written by the...

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the "free culture" movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party. That was then. As president-elect, one of Obama's first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America's favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department. And Obama's pick as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position, is the lawyer who oversaw the defense of the Copyright Term Extension Act--the...

LOS ANGELES — The rowdy Bratz dolls have been evicted. Barbie has regained control of the dollhouse. Toy giant Mattel Inc., after a four-year legal dispute with MGA Entertainment Inc., touted its win in the case Wednesday after a federal judge banned MGA from making and selling its pouty-lipped and hugely popular Bratz dolls.

A video message on behalf of 38,000 UK musicians has been sent... many of whom have worked with major artists, say they risk losing their income under current laws. Performers' copyright runs out after 50 years but for composers and authors it extends for 70 years after their death. The European Commission is backing an extension to 95 years from release, but the UK government is not supportive. Under current copyright laws, royalties will soon dry up for session musicians who played on classic tracks released in the 1960s, campaigners say... Phil Pickett, a musician who played with '80s band...

By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek Thu May 29, 7:25 PM ET Online media company Revision3 says that it is the victim of a cyberattack launched by MediaDefender, a company that fights illegal peer-to-peer distribution of media on behalf of major entertainment companies. Revision3, the host of Internet shows such as Diggnation, was inaccessible over the weekend. Company CEO Jim Louderback blames the outage on a denial-of-service attack initiated by MediaDefender. In a blog post, Louderback explains that with a bit of network sleuthing, his IT staff discovered the source of the attack. "But instead of some shadowy underground criminal syndicate, the...

Mind Your Business: You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art April 10, 2008 By Mark Simon Printable Version Mark Simon. As you know, I usually handle the subjects in my articles with a sense of humor. That is not the case this month. I find nothing funny about the new Orphan Works legislation that is before Congress. In fact, it PISSES ME OFF! As an artist, you have to read this article or you could lose everything you've ever created! An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released...

An Urgent Message From Marilyn Bergman Copyright Royalty Board Begins Critical Mechanical Rates Hearing January 28, 2008 To All ASCAP Members, Over the years, ASCAP has worked tirelessly to convince Congress and the courts that all songwriters, composers and music publishers are entitled to fair compensation for their copyrighted musical works. As you know, ASCAP represents the performing right, a large and growing part of your compensation. But mechanical and synchronization rights are also a critical element of your livelihood. Today, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) begins a hearing that will determine mechanical rates for every songwriter and music publisher...

Not content with the current (and already massive) statutory damages allowed under copyright law, the RIAA is pushing to expand the provision. The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully. Sound fair? Proportional? Necessary? Not really, but that doesn't mean it won't become law. The change to statutory damages is contained in the PRO-IP Act that is currently up...

Chances are that as you read this article, it is passing over part of AT&T's network. That matters, because last week AT&T announced that it is seriously considering plans to examine all the traffic it carries for potential violations of U.S. intellectual property laws. The prospect of AT&T, already accused of spying on our telephone calls, now scanning every e-mail and download for outlawed content is way too totalitarian for my tastes. But the bizarre twist is that the proposal is such a bad idea that it would be not just a disservice to the public but probably a disaster...

TORONTO (Billboard) - A revolutionary plan that would effectively legitimize file-sharing here has been slammed as "a pipe dream" by Canadian labels. The Songwriters Assn. of Canada proposes to allow domestic consumers access to all recorded music available online in return for adding a $5 Canadian (2.5 pound) monthly fee to every wireless and Internet account in the country. The SAC claims that the proposal, which has been presented to labels' bodies the Canadian Record Industry Assn. (CRIA) and Canadian Independent Record Production Assn. as well as publishers' groups, would raise approximately $1 billion Canadian ($993 million) annually. Although the...

Owners of digital music players will be acting lawfully when they transfer music from their computer to a digital player or copy a CD for their own use, under proposed amendments to bring copyright law into the digital age. Consumers who have been technically breaking the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 by copying tracks from CDs to their PC or digital player, or making an extra copy to play in the car, will now be able to do so for private use. Record labels accept that consumers should not be punished for shifting music from one format to another,...

Well, well, well. This morning when we pointed out that the RIAA's responses to the whole Howell affair were rather lacking, we missed an important point. In the NPR debate between the RIAA's Cary Sherman and the Washington Post's Marc Fisher, while Sherman may have had the stronger case (this one time!), he did make one interesting statement that could have much wider implications. When pushed on the Howell case, rather than admitting he was wrong, Fisher moved on to a different situation: the infamously incorrect statements by Sony BMG exec Jennifer Pariser, who said on the stand, in response...

CAIRO (AFP) — In a potential blow to themed resorts from Vegas to Tokyo, Egypt is to pass a law requiring payment of royalties whenever its ancient monuments, from the pyramids to the sphinx, are reproduced. Zahi Hawass, the charismatic and controversial head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AFP on Tuesday that the move was necessary to pay for the upkeep of the country's thousands of pharaonic sites. "The new law will completely prohibit the duplication of historic Egyptian monuments which the Supreme Council of Antiquities considers 100-percent copies," he said. "If the law is passed then it...

Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), also known as Congressman Hollywood, is one of the most powerful members of the House when it comes to intellectual property issues, so when he muses aloud about "revisiting" the DMCA, people listen. Unfortunately, Berman wants to reform the DMCA because it doesn't go far enough, and his ideas sound like they're ripped right from the pages of the Big Content playbook. Berman chairs the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, and this morning oversaw a hearing on the PRO-IP Act, a bill that could boost statutory damages for copyright infringement and create...

The full legal filing is here: http://www.savage-productions.com/Savage_CAIR_suit.html The truth-challenged unindicted co-conspirators of the Council on American Islamic Relations have been targeting radio host Michael Savage, as they have targeted so many others before him. They've been pressuring advertisers to stop advertising on his show, and they've been succeeding. Background here. But Savage, unlike Fox, unlike National Review, unlike so many others, is unwilling to play the dhimmi and kowtow to these lying Islamic supremacist thugs in their continued assaults on the freedom of speech. It's about time that somebody with the resources to do so has fought back. The text...

Back in April, a court found that Kaleidescape's high end DVD jukebox was perfectly legal, despite complaints from the entertainment industry. The DVD jukebox clearly was not for pirating materials. It would rip DVDs and store them on a hard drive, but it included all kinds of copy protection and cost $27,000. This wasn't for kids ripping DVDs in their bedrooms. When that lawsuit came out, the group in charge of the DVD spec, DVD-CCA whined that the lawsuit would delay the rollout of the latest DVD specs -- though it wasn't clear why. Now we know. PC Magazine has...

The copyright holder of George Orwell's classic novel 1984 may sue over the video that used Apple's 23-year-old Macintosh advertisement to jab at Senator Hillary Clinton, a lawyer for Rosenblum Productions said Wednesday. "We're not filing [a lawsuit] at this point; we're monitoring the situation," said William Coulson, who represents Rosenblum Productions. "But we certainly reserve the right to do so in the future." Coulson did not specify whom Rosenblum might sue -- the video's creator, YouTube or both. The 74-second video, a mashup that substitutes the droning Big Brother of the original Apple television ad with images and words...

The Internet has been buzzing over the last few months with discomfort about various new controls and impositions placed on the user in the different versions of Vista. We realised that like many users, we really hadn’t spent much time (OK any) looking at the End User License Agreement (EULA). What we did find when we read the EULA of the home premium version (the version most home/Soho power user will use) was a surprise. As users of Apple’s new Intel computers we were happy that we could use virtualization software like Parallels to run windows software at the same...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Viacom Inc. on Friday demanded that Google Inc.'s online video service YouTube remove more than 100,000 video clips after they failed to reach a distribution agreement. ADVERTISEMENT Viacom said it sent a notice to YouTube on Friday morning, asking the popular video-sharing site to remove clips from Viacom-owned properties including MTV Networks and BET. The media company controlled by Sumner Redstone said its pirated programs on YouTube has generated about 1.2 billion video streams, based on a study from an outside consultant. A YouTube representative could not immediately be reached for comment. "Filtering tools promised repeatedly...

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070201/LOCAL/702010431/

Copyright ruling puts hyperlinking on notice Asher MosesDecember 19, 2006 A court ruling has given the recording industry the green light to go after individuals who link to material from their websites, blogs or MySpace pages that is protected by copyright.A full bench of the Federal Court yesterday upheld an earlier ruling that Stephen Cooper, the operator of mp3s4free.net, as well as the internet service provider that hosted the website, were guilty of authorising copyright infringement because they provided a search engine through which a user could illegally download MP3 files.The website did not directly host any copyright-protected music, but the court held...

Digital radio receivers without government-approved copy-prevention technology likely would become illegal to sell in the future, according to new federal legislation announced Thursday. Rep. Mike Ferguson, a New Jersey Republican, said his bill--which would enforce a so-called "broadcast flag" for digital and satellite audio receivers--was necessary to protect the music industry from the threat of piracy....

Internet giant Google Inc. infringed copyright rules by posting thumbnail-size photos from other websites on its search results pages, a US judge said in a ruling issued. US District Judge Howard Matz's ruling, handed down in Los Angeles, stems from a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the pornography firm Perfect 10 Inc., which accused Google of breaching on its copyrights. The type of search with which Perfect 10 took issue is Google's "Image Search" function, which returns a page with tiny images -- known as thumbnails -- that fit the searcher's query. The image search function also allows searchers to...

Is it simple selling or selling out? We report on a band at odds over ad revenue THE drummer of the Doors has infuriated his former bandmates by turning down nearly $20 million to use their music to sell computers and cars. John Densmore has a legal right to veto the use of the band’s music for advertising. And that is exactly what he is doing. He says that he is holding out to honour the memory of the band’s lead singer, Jim Morrison, who died in Paris from a suspected heroin overdose in 1971, aged 27. “People lost their...

Last year, singer Melissa Etheridge promised to love and protect her new partner, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, until death do them part, but she may not be able to leave her songs to Michaels. U.S. copyright law discriminates against homosexuals by not allowing songwriters and other artists to determine conclusively who gets the rights to their work at the time of their death. No matter what an artist's intention, spouses, children and grandchildren, in that order, are the first in line to recapture the copyrights, followed by next of kin, executors and administrators. Since most states do not recognize gay...

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an international copyright fight over the alleged misuse of videotaped images of truck driver Reginald Denny being pulled to the pavement and beaten during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The pictures showed several black men pulling the white driver from the cab of his truck, kicking and beating him, then smashing his skull with bricks and a fire extinguisher. The Denny beating came at the start of riots that erupted when white police officers were acquitted in the earlier beating of black motorist Rodney King. A Los Angeles couple filmed the scene...

Congress has taken a step toward revising the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has attracted extensive criticism over the past six years. A House of Representatives subcommittee convened Wednesday for the first hearing devoted to a proposal to defang the DMCA, a 1998 law that broadly restricts bypassing copy-protection technologies used in DVDs, a few music CDs and some software programs. Called the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act, the amendments are backed by librarians, liberal consumer groups and some technology firms. But they're bitterly opposed by the entertainment industry, including Hollywood, major record labels and the Business Software Alliance. "It...

<p>The Dollywood theme park has asked a gay and lesbian group to immediately stop advertising ''Gay Day at Dollywood'' for an upcoming event that attracted about 1,000 gays and lesbians, mainly from Tennessee, last year.</p> <p>The Dollywood attorney's letter, paraphrased and forwarded by activists to fellow gays and lesbians via e-mail around the state and nationwide, has sparked anger.</p>

As most of you are aware, we've recently received several copyright complaints. In the last few weeks, we've received complaints from the SJ Mercury News, Independent (UK), SF Chronicle and The Boston Globe. Just a couple days ago the Post-Gazette send a cease and desist notice and yesterday I heard from the Tribune-Review. Tonight, I got a call from Amy and there were two more registered letters at our PO Box. The McClatchy News (Sacramento Bee) and USAToday are now added to the list of publications that have complained about copyright violations. Well, folks, the handwriting is on the wall....

NEW YORK The New York Times angered hundreds of freelance photographers last week when it distributed a contract some are calling "outrageous," "insulting" and just plain "sad." The contract asks freelance photographers to assign joint copyright ownership to the Times (Click for QuikCap), giving the newspaper the absolute right to exploit the photographs for the life of the copyright and collect all licensing fees, without payment to the photographer. The Times had no previous written agreement with freelancers. Photographers, copyright lawyers and industry trade groups have objected to the new contract, saying it puts the freelancer at a distinct disadvantage....

A US student is being sued for showing how to get around anti-piracy technology on a new music CD. Princeton graduate John Halderman published a paper online showing how to defeat the copy-protection software by pressing a single computer key. This has angered the company behind the software, SunnComm Technologies, which is now planning to sue him. It is just one of the firms working on ways to make it harder to copy and trade music over the internet. Press shift Mr Halderman found that SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 software could be bypassed by simply holding down the shift key on...

The Copyright Cage Bars can't have TVs bigger than 55 inches. Teddy bears can't include tape decks. Girl Scouts who sing "Puff, the Magic Dragon" owe royalties. Copyright law needs to change. By Jonathan Zittrain A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO I WAS TALKING WITH A LAW SCHOOL COLLEAGUE about cyberlaw and the people who study it. "I've always wondered," he said, "why all the cyberprofs hate copyright." I don't actually hate copyright, and yet I knew just what he meant. Almost all of us who study and write about the law of cyberspace agree that copyright law is a big...

(CNSNews.com) - When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a copyright law last month, the decision had little to do with gun owners. But the ruling sent a signal to Second Amendment supporters, who say they now have another means with which to defend the individual right to bear arms. The court's 7-2 ruling on Jan. 15 in Eldred v. Ashcroft dealt with the copyright and patent clause of the Constitution and whether Congress had the right to arbitrarily extend copyrights, like it did in 1998 with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. While nothing in the language of the...

European copyright protection is expiring on a collector's trove of 1950's jazz, opera and early rock 'n' roll albums, forcing major American record companies to consider deals with bootleg labels and demand new customs barriers. Already reeling from a stagnant economy and the illegal but widespread downloading of copyrighted music from the Internet, the recording companies will now face a perfectly legal influx of European recordings of popular works. Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in European Union countries, compared with 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America. So recordings...

Representative Howard Berman has introduced legislation that would grant copyright holders near-immunity from the law while attacking a citizen's computer. The bill protects copyright holders from legal action stemming from denial-of-service attacks on people whom they suspect of using material in an unauthorized way on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network.continue...

<p>Nearly a century ago, the music industry argued that its future was threatened by a new method of creating and distributing multiple copies of a performed song.</p> <p>The new technology? The player piano roll.</p> <p>Two decades ago, the movie industry fought against an innovative device that it claimed was as dangerous as the Boston Strangler: Sony's Betamax videocassette recorder.</p>