Hello and Welcome to Medi8tor,
Medi8tor is a blog dedicated to understanding all aspects of the entertainment industry. Our goal is to help up and coming entertainment business professionals, and lovers of the entertainment industry, further comprehend the business. Today we will be discussing digital business models, and how they relate to copyright law, artistic creative control, and licensing.
Recently at Medi8tor, we have taken a special interest in learning about the legal aspect of the entertainment industry. As we continue to grow and expand our brand here at Medi8tor, we are considering venturing into more artistic directions, within digital mediums. We wanted to explore the rights, issues, and concerns that we might potentially face as a result of that decision, and so throughout the week, we listened to three podcasts that shed light on these issues, and opened our eyes to the realities of legality in entertainment.
The first podcast we listened to was entitled “Can Content Survive Online?” by: Intellectual Property Colloquium. This podcast explored the issues, concerns, and possible solutions, for new online business models. The podcast begged the question; can online businesses specializing in creating new or original content flourish, and generate sustained revenue? The panel of speakers on the blog which included: a UCLA Law Professor, The General Counsel of Microsoft, The Vice President of Intellectual Property at Paramount Pictures, and the Vice President for Business and Legal Affairs at MySpace all chimed in on the issue. The panelists all delved into the issues prohibiting online business models with original content from flourishing, and generating sustainable revenue. These issues included:
1.) The outdated and inflexible copyright laws, which do not account for current technological advances. The panelist described in great detail how much of the federal copyright law, when original created, did not account for any of the technological capabilities that are accessible to us now. They also felt that many of these copyright laws should be re-evaluated by our lawmakers in Congress, in order to help push online business models forward.
2.) The panelists also addressed the issue of piracy. The panelist felt that as consumers’ appetites for free online content increases, the ability to generate revenue from original online content would cripple the online business model as well. Also highlighted in this podcast was the observation that the success stories of online business models in recent years, have been from established companies. These entities are not reinventing the wheel or creating new content; they are merely making their established catalog of content more readily accessible to their built in consumer base.
3.) Lastly, the panelists brainstormed possible solutions to these problems, by stressing communication. The panelists suggested combining the new and ever evolving desires of consumers, with the will of lawmakers and established companies, as well as the new online businesses that create content to reason with each other. As technology continues to evolve, and online users/consumers begin to demand more original content all of the aforementioned parties, will have to work together to ensure the survival of the industry and the creation of original content, and innovative business models. Although these panelists did not have the exact answers to all of these overarching problems, they were committed to communicating and observing the upcoming technological and economic changes in order to find one.
The next podcast we explored, here at Medi8tor, was called “Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling” by: Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola. This podcast sat down with author Peter DiCola to discuss his book “Creative License,” which discusses copyright law, and sampling in the music industry. The book, as well as the podcast begged to answer the question, “Is copyright law prohibiting musicians who primarily make their music, using other people’s music, from creating music at all?”
The rest of the podcast explored the copyright laws surrounding musical compositions vs. sound recordings, and how copyright law was not designed with sound recordings in mind. This oversight poses many difficult questions for the electronic music and Hip Hop genres that rely heavily on sampling to create new music, because musicians in these genres are unsure of how much of a sample constitutes actual copyright infringement. Peter DiCola makes reference to the infamous case that seemed to settle the sampling debate; Bridgeport in 2005, where legendary musician George Clinton sued, legendary group N.W.A., for copyright infringement and won the case, based on three notes the group looped into one their songs. DiCola maintained that sampling and copyright are still being heavily debated in the music industry and in law, then continued the podcast by discussing: the lack of definition for the “Fair Use Act,” as well as complications and concerns regarding licensing for artists. Throughout the podcast DiCola reiterates his aim is to properly compensate musical artists for their work, and attempts to think through, with his book and this podcast, the appropriate way to do that. Dicola suggests either licensing musical content in full copyright with a record label, in which all licensing rights belong to the copyright owner, or utilizing a Creative Commons license, which allows a user and creator some flexibility in their licensing agreement.
The third podcast that we received legal information from was not given be a lawyer at all, but by a student who was studying to become a lawyer, Jim Rennie. Jim Rennie spent the entirety of his podcast, explaining several details of the creative commons licenses. He explained many of the benefits and disadvantages of this type of licensing, and sought to educate content creators about their rights and licensing deals through Creative Commons, and inform users about their expectations and rights through the license as well. A few of the highlights from this podcast were:
1.) A Creative Common’s License CCL allows content creators to license their work to the general public, with certain rights still attached.
2.) The CCL requires that all users of CCL content give proper attribution to the rightful content creator.
3.) The CCL is a legal and binding contract that is to be followed by the content creators and the content users alike.
4.) Users are not obligated to use the CCL in order to have access to the content creators works on Creative Commons. The license is simply an option, as users of Creative Commons licensing can always opt to use a creator’s content under “Fair Use.”
5.) The CCL is a worldwide, royalty free, non-exclusive, and a perpetual license.
6.) If a breach of contract occurs between either the content creator, or the user, the user automatically terminates the license, but Creative Commons still owns the license to the work.
Through these brief legal podcasts, we here at Medi8tor have learned, that in entertainment a lawyer is your best friend. The world of entertainment is not always the allure of glamour and glory that many perceive. It is also a dense and often difficult to navigate business industry, especially legally. Therefore having the right guide, a lawyer, for protection is vital. As our technological landscape and capabilities as a society and world continue to grow, we all must educate ourselves and enlist the correct help to ensure that our businesses, and livelihoods are protected under the law. This is especially true as more and more business models begin to emerge online. We here at Medi8tor will utilize the information we obtained on these podcasts, as we move forward in expanding our brand to include original artistic content that will be available to the public through online distribution.
As always, thank you for visiting Medi8tor. See you next time!
Sources:
1.) Can Content Survive Online? By: Intellectual Property Colloquium. http://www.ipcolloquium.com/current.html.
2.) “Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling” by: Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola. http://newbooksinlaw.com.
3.) Defcon 13: Jim “FlaconRed” Rennie, Licensing Agreements 101: The Creative Commons License. http://www.defcon.org.
5.) The CCL is a worldwide, royalty free, non-exclusive, and a perpetual license.
6.) If a breach of contract occurs between either the content creator, or the user, the user automatically terminates the license, but Creative Commons still owns the license to the work.
Through these brief legal podcasts, we here at Medi8tor have learned, that in entertainment a lawyer is your best friend. The world of entertainment is not always the allure of glamour and glory that many perceive. It is also a dense and often difficult to navigate business industry, especially legally. Therefore having the right guide, a lawyer, for protection is vital. As our technological landscape and capabilities as a society and world continue to grow, we all must educate ourselves and enlist the correct help to ensure that our businesses, and livelihoods are protected under the law. This is especially true as more and more business models begin to emerge online. We here at Medi8tor will utilize the information we obtained on these podcasts, as we move forward in expanding our brand to include original artistic content that will be available to the public through online distribution.
As always, thank you for visiting Medi8tor. See you next time!
Sources:
1.) Can Content Survive Online? By: Intellectual Property Colloquium. http://www.ipcolloquium.com/current.html.
2.) “Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling” by: Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola. http://newbooksinlaw.com.
3.) Defcon 13: Jim “FlaconRed” Rennie, Licensing Agreements 101: The Creative Commons License. http://www.defcon.org.
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