Megaupload to Sue Universal, Joins Fight Against SOPA

http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-to-sue-universal-joins-fight-against-sopa-111212/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

by llambda • 15 years ago

248 59 15 years ago

torrentfreak.com

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

The camel's back has been broken. Because of the label's stupidity, this trial will un-do a lot of the stuff the labels have been pushing for over the years. It will not only stop the trend of more restrictions dead in its tracks, but also reverse it. Megaupload will bring the necessary attention to the labels' abuses of DMCA and their other proposed bills, and we'll probably going to end up with laws that strengthen our online liberties.

tiles• 15 years ago

It's important that we don't let this happen in a bubble. We have to show that citizens are behind Megaupload (in this case). The recording industry has no qualms on speaking on behalf of public interest, and I can imagine they'll suggest the public would prefer censorship with false positives than to risk "hurting musicians" through piracy.

If there have been other cases where artists have had music taken down by recording labels that did not own copyright, now would be a good time to bring them back to light.

jasonlotito• 15 years ago

While we are fighting the recording companies, why not put pressure on the people that give them power: the artists themselves? UMG is speaking on their behalf, acting on their behalf. If they are going to play the musicians card, why not strike back. It's one thing to hear the music industry wants to silence your speech. It's another thing when your favorite artist supports the same efforts.

EGreg2• 15 years ago

This reminds of me of the hotfile vs warner brothers

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111110/10135116708/glimps...

VonLipwig• 15 years ago

This isn't an isolated case.

In a similar story Warner Bros abused the DMCA to take down HotFile content that didn't infringe their copyright.

http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-admits-sending-hotfile-f...

Label's and studio's have every right to defend their products. However, they must do it in a responsible way. Stories like this make it difficult for politicians to legislate for more power's when the existing ones are already being abused by those they are set up to protect.

mattmanser3• 15 years ago

This isn't really like that at all.

To be honest I found Warner Bro's mistake, apart from the OSS takedown, to be not that odious, you can't on the one hand have the web industry say that trying to deal with so much infringing content is almost impossible because there's too much of it, and on the other moan that Warner Bros make a few mistakes when trying to deal with that vast amount of infringing content, not on one site but on hundreds of sites.

There's a happy medium somewhere and safe harbour isn't it, for example YouTube knows that hence the auto filtering software they've developed.

Universal's action, however, is pure censorship in a massively misguided attempt to further their own goals. Ultimately it has resulted in utter failure.

Vivtek2• 15 years ago

If I recall correctly, Warner Bros was issuing DMCAs without even cursory research into whether they had rights to the IP or not. The problem isn't even so much that Warner Bros was cutting lawyer fees - fine - but that they weren't held to the minimum of responsibility provided by the DMCA for issuing fraudulent (OK, or at the very least incorrect) notices.

Dylan16807• 15 years ago

I find setting up a bot to scan for keywords and submitting legal documents under penalty of perjury without checking its output, even when notified of its mistakes, to be pretty odious.

tomjen3• 15 years ago

That is bullshit an you know it.

There is no happy medium anymore than a few rapes now and then are acceptable because you can't always be sure about what the other party wants.

The only solution is to the claimant (human, not script) throughtly research it beforehand and then bill the infringer for the time it took when they go to court.

Iv• 15 years ago

> Label's and studio's have every right to defend their products

Labels and studios should not be allowed to move without the express content of the artist who produced the work. Better yet, labels and studio should just move when solicited by an artist.

RyanMcGreal• 15 years ago

Unfortunately, the industry standard recording contract leaves artists with no rights over their own music. They can ask nicely, and a smart label may be reluctant to offend a cash-cow artist with a maverick streak, but legally the arrangement is totally one-sided.

On the off-chance you haven't already read this: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

timerickson• 15 years ago

I believe you mean 'consent' not "content"

skore2• 15 years ago

I find it particularly curious that this was taken down. It was supposed to be something that the music industry is smart enough to understand for the "attack that you need to sit out for now" that it is - instead, they took the bait and went into attack mode themselves.

The reaction, of course, shows how disgustingly superior (to logic and reason, really) the industry perceives itself - basically everything that an artist creates and is related to the profit of the music industry must fit into a narrow idea of control. When they produce music that sells, the industry wants control. When it's only an appearance that could funnel traffic to something they can sell, they will allow it, because they know they will have control down the line. But if it is something like the Megaupload case - having the artists create something that does neither, but also seemingly "strengthen the enemy", they are caught outside of their logic.

Now, anybody who isn't with their back to the wall would work with such a situation creatively. But with the media industry, we have a curious case of not needing to get defensive (after all, they still turn record profits), but having bought into the idea that that is the attitude they have to display in order to survive.

It would be interesting to hear precisely how much standing they have on this, really. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the artists that appeared in that clip do have contracts that say - whatever you do, we own, if we don't like it, we will fight it. After all - the industry isn't stupid and they certainly have the access to the best legal defenses you can get these days.

The good thing about this hack by Megaupload is that it's a loose-loose for the industry and while they have no shortage of material in that area (it seems like we hear a horribly backwards story like this every month), that steady drip really may end up give us some progressive approaches.

throwaway643• 15 years ago

I am almost certain the DMCA take-down request was at least semi-automated via tag searches on youtube and rubber stamped by one of their employees. You can see this yourself by submitting a video with tags that contain artists they have on contract.

I am also almost certain that MegaUpload understood this, and their video was specifically engineered to trigger these bots....

skore2• 15 years ago

Interesting - if that is the case, kudos to them!

This also makes me wonder whether there is are bots to search for all those "no copyright intended" videos.

EGreg2• 15 years ago

Yeah, but I would like to hear about the back and forth with MegaUpload 'demanding" that this be put back up ... so what happened? Were they met with HUMAN opposition?

regularfry2• 15 years ago

That would explain why the first takedown request was made, but not the second.

Natsu3• 15 years ago

They can't just use a bot to DMCA stuff, they have to have a lawyer sign off on it. Granted, in practice, I think they pretty much rubber stamp it, but the law says that they're supposed to be acting in good faith. If they're not, well, they have nobody but themselves to blame. I mean, how can they expect YouTube or the government to police their stuff if even they can't get it right?

Copyright infringement hinges on permission. If even they don't know who has their permission to do what, nor even what they actually own, it seems ludicrous to suggest that the government or other companies should be expected to know.

If they're confused here, it's because they thought they owned these people, only to find out that they do not.

w1ntermute3• 15 years ago

It seems to me that the only way to end the labels' dominance over the music industry is to deprive them of their sole revenue source - popular and successful artists.

What services exactly does a label continue to provide, now that the internet has made it much easier for artists to self-promote? I presume that large portion of what the labels used to do can now be done very easily by the artists themselves.

There may be an opening for a tech startup here (maybe there's already one (or more) in this field) to take whatever the labels still need to do and undercut them on price and ease of acceptance (the labels are pretty picky about which artists they take). It seems to me that the labels have spurned a lot of the technological advances that have been made possible over the last decade or two in favor of clinging to an increasingly outdated business model in the hopes of squeezing a final dollar or two out of their musicians.

untog5• 15 years ago

What services exactly does a label continue to provide, now that the internet has made it much easier for artists to self-promote?

Promotion.

Artists can self-promote all they want, but they're up against thousands of other artists that are also self-promoting. Labels pay people to listen to artists, work out which ones are actually talented (or, in reality, which ones will make the most money) and focus their promotion on those artists only. The signal to noise ratio is totally different, and they can afford to put far more resources behind this smaller pool of artists. They also have a lot of experience in promotion, which up and coming bands simply don't have.

There isn't a tech startup solution to everything. Maybe you could set up a site that crowdsources this artist selection process but I wouldn't be optimistic- there is no personal reward in listening to hours upon hours of awful music. Maybe you could give those initial listeners a stake in the bands they vote for? That could be an interesting idea.

I've long thought that MySpace might yet have a life as some sort of band-centric site. Since it died a horrible death nothing has really come up to replace it.

jgroome2• 15 years ago

>I've long thought that MySpace might yet have a life as some sort of band-centric site. Since it died a horrible death nothing has really come up to replace it.

I don't know about that. I only really follow the UK electronic/urban music scene with any enthusiasm, but for what it's worth a lot of bands/performers use Twitter as their main point-of-contact, Facebook to post shows and releases, and Soundcloud for hosting online media.

waterlesscloud• 15 years ago

People always say that, but what magic promotion sauce do labels provide that couldn't be provided much more cheaply by a less arrogant and power-grabbing entity?

Why wouldn't artists benefit from a promotion-only "label" that took a much smaller cut of their earnings?

ChuckMcM• 15 years ago

Tech companies hire PR firms to do their promotion. They don't give the PR firm a cut of all the revenues the company makes, nor do they give them equity necessarily (it does happen but its not the rule).

The 'labels' have no reason to exist, there is however a great market for Artist PR firms. We need that first disruptive one though, where an artist 'signs' with them meaning that they do the promotion but they don't own the music copyright. And as it is a new business model for the music industry it will take some time to work out.

gospelwut• 15 years ago

It's also a complex network of scouts, producers, and the like. Sure, plenty of bands produce and self-promote. Plenty of bands put their stuff on sites like bandcamp which (IIRC) give close-to-all the sales to the artists (with MP3 v0 and FLAC options for consumers). Amazon's MP3 store also has similar distribution (albeit at a higher cut for Amazon).

Distribution is solved (even when you throw stuff like iTunes, etc). But, you're not going to get top producers, recording studio sessions (which aren't cheap), and other things necessary for mastering a "high production value" album.

As popular as indie music and listening to Stephin Merritt sing over an 8-track is, popular music is usually heavily produced/mastered. These costs are simply outside the ability of most people.

Sure, you could say they should "bootstrap" it (to use a popular term amongst programmers) or seek "angel investors". But, look at how many programmers work for big companies.

I've seen a few bands here and there promote strictly on MySpace and SongCloud and do well. Word of mouth can be powerful. But, they almost ultimately sign up with a big label to get access to resources.

GFischer• 15 years ago

Several services tried to automate just that (artist selection, filter the "good" music), see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphonic_HMI and its followup http://www.musicxray.com/

I'm not sure if it's the right approach, but they're trying.

masklinn• 15 years ago

> What services exactly does a label continue to provide, now that the internet has made it much easier for artists to self-promote? I presume that large portion of what the labels used to do can now be done very easily by the artists themselves.

Labels are VCs: they provide initial funding, connections, PR, and they ream artists. The difference between VCs and labels is that VCs make their money when the company goes public, whereas labels make their money by fleecing the artist directly and using hollywood accounting.

jberryman• 15 years ago

Note that there are (naturally) many more small/indie labels than there are giant labels like EMI. AFAICT they're usually run by music lovers, sometimes musicians themselves, who can promote and advise artists, as well as curate for fans i.e. find interesting, special bands.

NameNickHN• 15 years ago

I would be 100% behind this if it weren't for that stupid Kim Dotcom.

xer0• 15 years ago

This is part of a trend to abandon due process. In some cases it's the government itself, with ICE seizing domains without having to go to trial and prove their case. In this case it's government abdicating their role in due process, telling corporations to do what they will.

This is leading to vigilantism, by the government and by corporations.

nocipher• 15 years ago

This is leading to vigilantism, by the government and by corporations.

This is one the most pointed comments I've heard about copyright litigation and wanton take-down notices.

bigohms2• 15 years ago

I'm surprised to learn Megaupload is a Kim dotcom, aka Kimble production.

Element_• 15 years ago

I always wondered who owned the mega label sites and why they were never talked about in the mainstream media. Then your comment led me to the following article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20087753-261/the-mystery-m...

bigohms2• 15 years ago

Cool. I would opine that a good 50% of the internet money made out there is very unsexy, hidden and underground. The people behind the businesses have absolutely no incentive to draw attention to themselves but occasionally they do slip through the cracks.

rmoriz• 15 years ago

Money laundry....

=> Hongkong => BVI

http://imgur.com/a/7fqbg

Megaupload to Sue Universal, Joins Fight Against SOPA

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