This week on Digital Music Trends I had the pleasure to welcome Kristelia Garcia (Washington Law School), Zack Greenburg (Forbes) and Zach Carter (Huffington Post). We chat about the new private initiative lead by the White House that saw web giants like Google, Yahoo! and AOL commit to cut advertising payouts to websites that contain primarily pirated content. We also discuss the Center for Copyright Information with its the six-step warning system to illegal downloaders that has been agreed in the US by a few ISPs, a new music gaming startup called Gig-It, the upcoming hearings for the Copyright Review, Pandora and the potential of new Internet Radio-related bills reaching Congress this year, Aimee Mann's lawsuit against MediaNet and the issues around orphan works.
I hope you enjoy the show, have a great week and 'till next time!
Andrea Leonelli
http://www.digitalmusictrends.comhttp://www.twitter.com/digimusictrends00:15Â Guests introduction
01:30Â The White House Intellectual Property coordinator Victoria Espinel announced a new privately-led initiative to reduce the amount of ad money flowing to piracy-based websites.
How do you feel about this new development, is it a victory for the music industry and will it have any effect?
04:20Â How do you feel the labels are going to perceive this move?
06:09Â In light of the PRISM revelations over the past month one has to wonder if it's a good time to talk about a joint initiative between the government and the biggest internet service providers in the world, is that a fair comment to make?
09:25Â In February a six-strikes system started seeing the light in the US as part of the Center for Copyright Information which includes RIAA, MPAA and 5 of the largest ISPs. What do you know about the Center and what it its mandate?
Maybe we should start thinking about a rewards system, the stick hasn't really worked so far.
13:00Â Talking about Time Warner (which from what I've heard in New York does not have shining reviews anyway) how will consumers react when they start receiving these notices?
14:40Â Is this just an appeasement proposition and does it exist for any reason other than making the RIAA and MPAA happy?
16:26Â Kristelia talking about the Copyright Review you mentioned there are going to be some hearings tomorrow from artist that you'll be going to, can you tell us a bit more about what's going to happen?
19:05Â Is there a place where you can keep track of what's happening on that front and at the hearings?
20:06Â Zack you recently published a story on Forbes on the company Gig-it which is a Rockband meets Farmville concept as you describe it, can you tell us a little bit about it?
28:35Â Pandora, is the company going to push for a rehash of the Internet Radio Fairness Act this year?
32:00Â How do you see Pandora moving to improve its PR over the next few months?
36:20Â On the other side of the spectrum there are people within the industry pushing to get terrestrial radio to start paying for use of music, is this a feasible outlook?
41:30Â Aimee Mann has filed a lawsuit against MediaNet for distributing her works without a license. Are we going to see more of these lawsuits in the next few years as more artists start looking granularly at where their music has ended up and track payments from individual services?
45:09Â Orphan works is an issue that could be addressed early on in the copyright review, as part of that a database holding data on copyright would be an important step towards working out who owns what, is this a feasible project or is it too big of an undertaking for a government agency to take on?
50:25Â From what you hear on the ground are companies still finding it hard to seek out rights holders?
51:40Â Guest projects, outdo
