Tracking copyrights: golden
p2pnet news | P2P:- If your site carries song lyrics, you could be in facing a major difficulty or two sometime in the fairly near future.
And the Music Publishers Association won’t necessarily be behind your troubles.
The corporate world sees the Net as a golden goose laying fat copyright eggs from a huge nest of lovely, expensive, potential infringements.
Lawyers benefit the most, as always, but also cashing in are the many remora-like hangers-on such as online spoofer MediaSentry which, speaking of eggs, is responsible for having a large amounts splashed on the faces of the entertainment cartels. [Warning - this link leads to a p2pnet counter-spoof post.]
Now, “Publish with confidence,” declares Attributor, a California start-up which not only promises it has a way to identify online copyright infringements, but also says it’ll automatically send out nasty letters when it finds one.
It says in its site:
Google, Yahoo and MSN all profit from ads placed on unauthorized copies of original works – revenue that never reaches newspapers, magazines or individual writers.
Our recent study on music lyrics illustrates the magnitude of this issue very well. First some background – last April, Yahoo Music partnered with Gracenote and became the first site to publish ‘official’ song lyrics. The USA Today reported that Yahoo shares with the copyright holders the revenue from the ads that will be displayed alongside the lyrics. Just last week, MTV and AOL announced that they would also promote official lyrics on their web sites.
Why so much attention to song lyrics? It all comes down to Search. According to an Ask.com study, the term ‘song lyrics’ was the 6th most popular search query last year.
So, “Request a link back to your original improving your search engine ranking,” says the company, then, “Ask the site to deposit a % of the revenue they make from your content into your AdSense account.” And then, “Send a formal DMCA takedown notice – we will ensure that it gets taken down from search engines.”
To would-be users, “At any time, view your dashboard to see who is copying your content – including a host of insightful reports that include contextual factors like ads, links, amount copied and estimated site traffic – factors that allow you to focus on the matches that matter. We’ll even send you regular alerts to tell you when your content has been copied.”
And Attributor has already signed up one corporate media biggie.
Reuters has just started using it and Chris Ahearn, president of Reuters Media, “said that first he wants to learn how his company’s thousands of customers are using the vast stream of information it sends their way,” says the New York Times, going on:
“But finding unauthorized use ‘clearly is a big opportunity for us,’ Mr. Ahearn said, both to drive traffic to the Reuters site and to turn cheaters into customers. He added, ‘Our attitude is there are enough lawyers in the world, so why don’t we turn this over to our sales people’?”
That dry, rasping sound you hear in the background is the legal community rubbing its collective hands in eager anticipation ……
Also See:
Music Publishers Association – Lyric sites and jail time, December 14, 2005
p2pnet – MediaDefender boss Randy Saaf arrested, September 22, 2007
New York Times – Publishers See a Way to Track Their Content Across the Net, November 5, 2007
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November 5th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Some people are going to have to learn that they need to work for money, not try and leech it off others like the **AAs.
This whole debate about copyright is coming to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if a company started trying to sue (read extort) people for humming the verses from a popular song.
As it is, people have stopped using many famous songs in their everyday life, for example “Happy Birthday”, and teachers are steering students away from using music or video clips in school papers and reports because of misinformation towards “fair use”.
I have been working with a group of children who are learning how to make a video that would promote their town, yet we have run into the problem of what music and or video clips they can use in their video, without the risk of prosecution.
And now there are companies like this, who are just “looking for excuses” to hire a lawyer and extort people on the net-
Get a life guys!
Just my two cents
November 6th, 2007 at 10:11 am
It’s not a golden goose in the old story, it’s “the goose that laid the golden egg.”
November 6th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
fowl
November 11th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
so pathetic