YouTube seals UK music royalty deal -- a short quote:
The agreement to license 10m pieces of music to YouTube - in exchange for a flat fee which has not been disclosed - is the first of its kind, said Steve Porter, chief executive of the MCPS-PRS Alliance.
This has been awhile coming, but many scholars and organizations like Electronic Frontier Foundation have been advocating it for years. In fact, EFF has just published a report on 4 years of RIAA lawsuits against consumers (predictably unsuccessful if the goal were to reduce p2p usage or stem the tide of consumer rejection of the recording industry's business model recalcitrance) in which they, again, suggest that there's another way. For a look back at some of the proponents of alternatives such as this YouTube deal, see, for example, the EFF Report, Neil Netanel's NUL proposal, and Terry Fisher's book, Promises to Keep.
At the heart of all of these proposals is the simple idea that trying to count copies, control copies, and pay for copies in an age when copies are ubiquitous is, well, it's crazy. P2p and the host of other ways people make and distribute copies can be taken as a given and we can still find ways to compensate copyright owners. In fact, these proposals argue more or less that we have to find other ways. The UK-YouTube deal might show the way.
Comments (1)
EFF also points to an MTV article that reviews the response of colleges and universities to P2P file sharing. As you say, trying to manage copies is "crazy" in a P2P world. As long as colleges and universities have to attempt to manage these copies, however, vast amounts of resources must be directed away from other areas of campus. Providing solutions like the UK YouTube deal could allow the various resident life directors and administrators cited in this article to concentrate on other academic matters.
Link:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1567539/20070821/index.jhtml
Posted by Ariel Deiaco-Lohr | August 31, 2007 8:45 AM
Posted on August 31, 2007 08:45