#NewMusic Weekend: Jess Moskaluke, Storm Queen, St. Spirit, Axis Of, Life Size Maps

Staff picks from Semaphore Music

1.  Jess Moskaluke (Langenburg, Saskatchewan) “Catch Me If You Can” @jessmoskaluke

2.  Storm Queen (Brooklyn) “Look Right Through”

3.  St. Spirit (Crystal Palace) “Pigeon” @stspirituk

4.  Axis Of (Port Stewart) “We Dine on Seeds” @axisof

5.  Life Size Maps (Brooklyn) ”Weird Luck” @lifesizemaps

360 Deals and the Talent Agencies Act

We’ve been banging the table about the changing scope of the term recording artist agreement and the various state laws that regulate talent agents for about 10 years now.  Erin Jacobson’s excellent article “360 Deals and the California Talent Agencies Act: Are Record Labels Procuring Employment” published in the ABA Entertainment & Sports Lawyer is a must-read for anyone who practices in this area.

Thanks to Erin for providing these important insights.

Revenge of the Trip: Lessig gets it wrong again

[Editor Charlie says: Today "Star Wars: Phantom Menace" crossed $1 billion in worldwide box office.  This is a repost from July 15, 2007

In his continuing quest to undermine the interests of copyright owners, Professor Lessig is at it again with his op-ed: Lucasfilm's Phantom Menace in which he takes on Lucasfilm and George Lucas for the rules they established for allowing users to “remix” some Star Wars footage with other works. Lucasfilm takes the not unreasonable position that in consideration for letting people have access to Star Wars, Lucas owns the results. Lester Lawrence Lessig III doesn’t like this. Lucas should give up copyright ownership to those creating derivatives from some of the most valuable motion pictures of the 20th Century--or 21st for that matter.

And wait for it…according to LLL III, Lucas should pay these users for anything they create that Lucas wants to use.

Trip Lessig starts picking through the end user license from Lucasfilms and goes off on an anti-lawyer jag just like someone who’s never worked with an artist would. According to the Tripster, it’s the HOLLYWOOD LAWYERS who have fought innovation and lead little directors like George Lucas around on a leash.

Schmuck—it don’t work that way. Does Lessig think no one asked Lucas what he thought about who could own his property? Does Lessig also think that if there was something really cool and usable that got created as a result of permitting users to get their hands on Star Wars that the players involved would rely on a freaking click through end user license agreement as their grant of rights? Maybe these things happen in the world of the confused Creative Commons--which must be like being at the executive session of the board of directors of a lemonade stand--but in the bigs it is highly unlikely.

In the world outside of Stanford, things like this typically do not happen. Someone would find the user, make a deal, and pay them off. Or they wouldn’t use it.

I love this line from the Tripster: “How better to revive a 30-year-old series than by enlisting armies of kids to make the content interesting again?”

Ah yes. How better to "revive" the franchise than to allow an "army of kids" to get into the act. Lessig must think that Star Wars is in dire need of resuscitation. That 2005 opening weekend of Revenge of the Sith conclusively demonstrates that the franchise is in deep wookie chips. That would be the $108 million weekend that was then the second biggest opening EVER in the US and the biggest opening EVER outside the US. Another little datapoint for the Tripster: Revenge passed $300 million in global box office faster than any movie in history.

(Lessig also describes these “armies of kids” as free labor, and uses the highly offensive term “sharecroppers” to describe our little suburban friends Corky and Muffy playing with Star Wars “remixes” on their cozy side of the digital divide safe in their Stanford dorm room. Considering the source, I'm willing to believe he just doesn't know how insulting this is. But then he probably claps on the 1 and 3, too.)

Here’s a newsflash for the Stanford madrassah: It’s not like Lucas needs help with selling the Star Wars franchise. $2.6 BILLION in box office alone. Rumor has it that a chunk of Star Wars net profits goes to support the USC film school (not quite as rich as the Google/Stanford relationship, but we Hollywood types have to stumble through life somehow.)

So Lucas has been supporting "remixing" for quite sometime, albeit in the controlled environment of the excellent film school at USC in sharp defiance of L3III obsession with letting all amateurs have a crack at other peoples property (so well described in Andrew Keen's The Cult of the Amateur, an excellent book.) Of course film schools honor copyright and create new generations of professional creators, but unbridled "remixing" by amateurs destroys copyright, and de-incentivises new generations of professional creators. One gives us greatness the other gives us...YouTube. Which shouldn't be surprising given that Google is the benefactor of Professor Lessig's business unit at the Stanford Law School.  [Editor Charlie says: Remember this was written in 2007--YouTube recently announced it was spending $150 million in the US and millions more in the UK to develop premium channels for YouTube.  Only a handful of the "YouTube stars" are participating--which probably says more about Google's ulterior motives in subsidizing the YouTube data collection honeypot than it does the work of the YouTube artists.]

Once again a major media organ gives Lessig a megaphone for what is simply gibberish. I really wish they’d check their facts before they publish this kind of thing. I know it’s not as interesting as watching Farting in Public on YouTube, but I thought it was called journalism.

So yes Lucas wants to own anything created with his work. Yes it’s supposed to be fun for fans. And yes, life would go on if no one ever “remixed” a thing.

Like any good wannabe demagoogle, Professor Lessig likes to speak for “armies of kids” to create the impression he has a mob of “sharecroppers” in the wings.

What a joke.

Adword Search: How Many People are Searching for Free Movies?

Here’s a little experiment:  Try using Google Adwords ”keywords tool”–a program that suggests Google Adwords matched to keywords you enter.  Meaning, if you want to buy an Adword because you are selling, for example “harry potter movie”, it will tell you the most popular Adwords you can buy.

Just to cut to the chase, try searching for “free harry potter movie” and see what happens.  Let me save you the trip (it requires CAPTCHA):

“free harry potter movie”  gets 90,500 global monthly searches (up from 60,500 a year ago when we first tried this experiment).

But “free movies”?  Holding steady at 45,500,00 global monthly searches (right next to “free movie for free”).

“torrent” had 226 million global monthly searches

“torrent movie” had 6.12 million.

A keyword search based on the website www.grooveshark.com revealed some interesting opporunities with over 30,000,000 global monthly searches, and of course that old chestnut www.thepiratebay.org pushed global monthly searches for certain keywords over 500,000,000.

You get the idea.  How would Google ever know it was profiting from Adwords advertising for illegal goods until the creators track down all their torrents?

Must See Creators Conference Panel

This is a video of a great panel at the Creators Conference including a keynote by Robert B. Levine and our friends Rick Carnes and Helienne Lindvall, as well as many other thoughtful speakers.  This is about an hour long, but you should watch the whole thing if you can.

Please allow me to introduce myself…Shareholder Suit against Google filed Over Drug Sting

COMPLAINT (Summons Issued); jury demand; against Nikesh Arora, Sergey Brin, L. John Doerr, Google, Inc., Paul S Otellini, Larry Page, Patrick Pichette, Eric E Schmidt, K. Ram Shriram, Shirley M Tilghman ( Filing fee $ 350, receipt number 34611064016). Filed by Patricia M McKenna. (bw, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 8/29/2011) (Entered: 08/30/2011)

Summons Issued as to Nikesh Arora, Sergey Brin, L. John Doerr, Google, Inc., Paul S Otellini, Larry Page, Patrick Pichette, Eric E Schmidt, K. Ram Shriram, Shirley M Tilghman. (bw, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 8/29/2011) (Entered: 08/30/2011)

Google Sued Over Adwords for Canadian Drug Imports

“The Internet allows messages to be better focused on particular groups of potential customers. With that ability comes the growing possibility that the Justice Department will view search engines as more than mere passive conduits of information, and instead as potentially active participants in conduct that may violate the law.”

For every lawyer who argued with me when I forbade them board memberships.  It’s not a gym.

#NewMusic Monday: @jessieBaylin, @AtlasEmpireUK, @Forest_Fires, @missFrankieRose, @KeyboardKid206

Staff Picks by Semaphore Music

1. Jessie Baylin (Los Angeles) “Hurry Hurry” @jessiebaylin

2.  Atlas : Empire (Glasgow) “At the Edge of the Ravine” @atlasempireuk

3. Forest Fires (Aberdeen) “Best Intentions” @Forest_Fires

4.  Frankie Rose (Brooklyn) “Soma” @missfrankierose

5.  Keyboard Kid (Seattle) “Breathe In”  @keyboardkid206

The Joe Camel of Search Brands: Are YouTube and Google Music Just Honeypots for Data Collection?

MTP readers will remember that we have beat the drum about how Google will make “non display uses” of data associated with music and videos that they use as part of YouTube, Google Music and any other legal or illegal music services.  This has never been more apparent than now given the revelations about Google’s consolidation of its privacy policies–combined with a rumored home entertainment center which no doubt will try to integrate Google Music with Google TV.  Do you want your mp3 player or big screen TV reporting your listening and viewing habits to Joe Camel in The Cloud?

The ever-transparent (or rather never-transparent) Google did not want to testify before the House Energy & Commerce Committee but instead wanted a closed-door meeting with members.  Google offered this up in record time after receiving a letter from a number of members of the Energy & Commerce subcommittee chaired by Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack, widow of Sonny Bono, who was a favorite whipping boy of Poker Prof Lawrence Lessig whose organizations have received millions from Google.  Coincidentally, that letter was co-signed by Congresswoman Jackie Speier, who represents the San Mateo district near Google’s Mountain View offices.

Of course, Google doesn’t want anyone, particularly not the government, to know what they are doing after the Google Drugs debacle, so it is not surprising that the meeting was unsatisfactory.  “‘At the end of the day, I don’t think their answers to us were very forthcoming necessarily in what this really means for the safety of our families and our children,’ Bono Mack told reporters after the closed-door briefing.”

Don’t be surprised to see a new tussle break out over whether Larry Page should testify about this, too.  And that will be interesting indeed.

However, in the meantime, everyone dealing with YouTube or Google Music should understand the real value of music to Google–as a honeypot for data collection that attracts a wide demographic group, starting with teens and kids.  This is why Google is the Joe Camel of search.  Now about that Google Home Entertainment Center….

(Connecting the dots:  This was the same Jackie Speier who Lessig briefly planned to challenge in the Congressional primary after Tom Lantos died in office–a bid for public office backed by Beth Noveck who was later the White House Chief Technology Officer for Open Government and who left the White House after former Google lobbyist Andrew McLaughlin was punished for having improper communications with Markham Erickson (Net Coalition lobbyist), Alan Davidson (Google lobbyist and former Center for Democracy and Technology, Ben Scott (Free Press) and others.  Jackie Speier was also an aid to Congressman Leo Ryan who was murdered in the Jonestown massacre, and Speier herself was shot five times and had to wait nearly a day before she received medical attention.)

News from the Goolag: The Incomparable Mike Lombardo on Life, Art and File Bartering

[A blast from the past, first posted Oct, 2010.]

Felix “BYOB” Oberholzer-Gee take note–nobody believes you.

Check out Mike Lombardo Music and follow @mikelombardo

Good News: Patronism.com

Update:  Read more about Patronism.com in our Huffington Post interview and listen to the Innovation Central podcast.

Patronism.com (and @patronism) allows artists to create a patron-type relationship with their fans and give their fans steady access to the artist’s music.  Each artist decides how to structure that relationship, how much to give and how much to charge.  The site is the brainchild of Austin artist John Pointer, truly one of the most gifted performers and vocalists I’ve ever heard (or seen).

Not a surprise–Patronism is not trying to be all things to all people and there is an A&R process to being able to participate in the site.  We like that–no get big fast here, just get good faster.

Although I’ve heard a lot of claims for “new income streams”, Patronsim may actually be a completely new income stream that doesn’t “cannibalize” any others.

Check out the good news at Patronism.com and listen to the MTP podcast interview with John Pointer.