David Bowie has taken a direct line to fans to who bootleg his material, and the line is "be creative." The musician's Web site invites fans to take material from "Reality" (his latest album) and mash it up with other tracks.
I'm also pleased with the way he addresses the issue of ownership and creativity head on, pointing out that mash-ups are "a great appropriation idea waiting to happen." That is, yes, it is a taking of someone else's work, but that in and of itself is not an evil thing. Art and creation has never happened in an isolated tower - it's always done in the context of a milieu of popular culture, whether that's the pop culture of now or of Shakespeare's time.
Bowie calls himself a "hybrid maker" - another way of looking at an appropriation artist. I don't think any one person or any one event is going to rescue the dialog from its hijacking by the Cartel, but I'm very pleased to see a well-respected name in creativity taking a view that may help broaden the debate.
In addition to verbal encouragement, Bowie is also sponsoring a contest for the best mash-up (ends May 17th). The winner gets a new car and get his or her track released as a new Bowie+? single, which I think is just awesome.
If you need software to help you with your contest entries, Bowie provides a helpful link to a free downloadable desktop tool.
http://www.davidbowie.com/
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com
In the "I guessed this might happen but I'm kinda sad now that it did" department, MS dipped a pinky in its huge bankroll and paid off InterTrust to go away. For a mere $440 million, it gets unfettered acess to the patents and other intellectual property that are the only living remains of what was once a nice startup. But after buying off Scott McNealy, this is really no surprise. Microsoft has finally figured out that these endless lawsuits are a distraction and it's simpler to pay up and make the bad press go away.
Cringely has also joined on the "dear gods with that much money they can buy anyone" train. It's simply not possible for anyone smaller than a government or a multi-billion-dollar corporation to do anything Microsoft wants to do (they'll steal it) or doesn't like (they'll obstruct it and threaten all your customers).
http://www.siliconvalley.com/story
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040408.html
A recent Law.com article discusses the legal issues related to Copycat Websites, which are sites that copy another site's design features, HTML code and meta data used to identify the site for search engines.
Copycat sites have been going on for a long time now. To their own detriment, these sites copy everything, including registered trademarks and copyrights. And by stealing another's IP, they put big targets on their own backs. This type of site is easily dealt with by shooting off a stern Cease and Desist letter and CC'ing the site's ISP for leverage.
Of course, this approach may be too bold for some attorneys, who are worried about exposing their client to a tortious interference with a business relationship claim. A further complication can occur when the copycat site belongs to an international company or is hosted by an off-shore ISP.
Regardless of whether you employ the shoot-first C&D tactic, a lengthy arbitration or an appeal to the State Attorney General, be sure to take plenty of screen shots of the copycat site and save its HTML source screens as evidence.
Posted by AZ on April 29, 2004 04:25 PMAlso known as: Someone split the baby.
Here's the story, as I understand it. MP3.com sold its assets, including a big digital music archive to Vivendi. That Cartel member almost immediately announced plans to kill the service and archive. Two efforts to "save" the service have now had some success, each in different arenas. However, they'll likely end up competing with each other.
In the red corner, we have several of the founders of MP3.com who have purchased some of their assets back and put up a site called http://www.mp3isback.com/ in conjunction with garageband.com. The key here is contacting the musical creators and getting their permission to continue distributing their stuff and new stuff. There's a lot of stuff they could be distributing and garageband.com has high cachet with indie musicians, at least in the US.
In the blue corner, CNET has weighed in with a purchase of the remaining MP3.com assets from Vivendi. They've announced plans to use their extremely popular download.com site to distribute free digital music, again largely from independent and unsigned artists. Currently, it has only a few thousand tracks, but comes with a much higher profile and large user base.
In the short term I think this is going to be a win for everyone. In the long term it's going to become absolutely necessary for musicians to have a centralized authority (along the lines of ASCAP) with which they can register music for legal download. Otherwise, every creator is going to have to personally sort through the tangle of deals an options each competing service will offer. That level of overhead would turn off all but the most stalwart download promoters.
http://p2pnet.net/story/
http://www.theinquirer.net/article