July 3, 2006
Volume 13, Issue 12
MGM v. Grokster: One Year Later
Excerpted from LA Times Editorial
A year ago, the entertainment industry hailed the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case as a milestone in its battle against online piracy. Maybe so – but if it was, the industry has little to show for it. If only the major labels and studios cared as much about serving customers as protecting copyrights.
The court’s ruling said that companies such as Grokster, which enabled users to share files over the Internet, could be held liable for promoting copyright infringement. Many of these firms no longer exist, but the software they distributed still works. In addition, there are still plenty of non-commercial file-sharing programs, maintained and updated by a decentralized cadre of volunteers.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) argues that this picture would have been much worse without the lawsuits against file sharing. In the last few years, the percentage of US Internet users who share files has remained about the same, while the percentage buying music at legitimate online stores has grown substantially.
Nevertheless, free downloaders represent a lost opportunity for the entertainment industry. The number of legitimate outlets for music, TV shows, and movies online may be growing, but file-sharing networks continue to attract a much larger audience. By one estimate, almost 10 million people around the world are using file-sharing networks at any given moment. Evidently, the industry-backed services haven’t come up with an offer as compelling as free files that can easily be played on any device.
The Grokster ruling wasn’t simply a nudge for companies like Grokster to get out of the file-sharing business. It was an invitation for the entertainment industry to get in. By clarifying the legal obligations of file-sharing companies, the Grokster ruling created a road map for partnerships between tech and entertainment companies.
So far, however, talks between leading file-sharing firms and entertainment conglomerates have yielded few tangible results. Labels and studios have warmed a bit to popular but bootleg-heavy sites such as YouTube, where users post most of the videos, yet they remain extremely cautious about letting users redistribute their works.
The industry needs much more experimentation with approaches that give users the control and freedom to consume that make file-sharing networks so attractive. Instead of hoping that millions of Internet users on file-sharing networks will go somewhere else and pay for their downloads, it’s past time to try to do business with them where they are.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Progress has been made in the emerging peer-to-peer (P2P) distribution channel during the year that has transpired since the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the MGM v. Grokster case.
But more work remains to be done before this, the world’s most widely-adopted and cost-effective content transport medium, reaches its full potential commercially.
Consumer usage of P2P file-sharing applications of all kinds has continued steadily to expand, with average simultaneous users of popular open P2P software programs, such as eDonkey and Kazaa, continuing at double-digit year-upon-year growth and, while reflecting market share shifts among individual brands, now about to set a new record by breaking the 10 million mark for the first time in history.
Although Grokster the company ceased operations rather than continue a costly legal defense, Grokster the P2P software continues to operate for those users who previously downloaded it or who now obtain it from third parties.
Accompanying the growth in open P2P activity has been rapid adoption of more efficient swarming P2P technology, such as BitTorrent, which is now estimated to represent at least an additional 3.5 million average simultaneous users.
Closed P2Ps, such as the white-label GNAB, have also launched, further increasing consumer acceptance, with average simultaneous usage to date of these applications now nearing 1.5 million.
Monthly cume usage of each sub-category has also grown, and now is estimated at 215 million for open P2Ps, 65 million for swarming P2P, and 5 million for closed P2Ps.
Globally, P2P now represents 67% of all downstream Internet traffic and 75% of upstream traffic.
Continuing technological advances have included caching and content acceleration to improve the efficiency of P2P distribution over public networks, live P2P streaming to reduce costs of video transmissions, and hybrid centralized download and decentralized P2P redistribution platforms to provide increased security for content protection.
The social networking phenomenon and user originated content have also expanded the scope of P2P offerings, with such new file-sharing entrants as Blitzfile, Orbis, Pando Networks, and Perenety, entering an arena established by MySpace, YouTube, Xanga, and others.
To put the year into perspective in terms of its impact on content industries, the number of music files redistributed via P2P during the past year has been five-hundred times the number of tracks downloaded from iTunes, according to data from the recording industry and Apple.
The motion picture industry has been increasingly progressive during the year, with major studios negotiating with many P2P distributors, already licensing several, and exploring a range of business models.
With respect to business model development, adware has continued to be the primary revenue driver, primarily because major labels are still in the process of implementing conversions related to settling pre-Grokster ruling disputes, and approving business models that will permit their licensing and harnessing of open P2Ps.
It has become increasingly evident during the year that total P2P industry revenue could increase by an order of magnitude, with content still by-and-large free to consumers, if major labels and studios would license a critical mass of popular entertainment for ad-supported P2P distribution industry-wide and support a displacement initiative such as the one outlined below.
This would not foreclose the possibility of then layering premium subscription offerings and paid downloads as tiered services on top of ad-supported P2P to further increase revenue, but would satisfy consumer demand and expectation for choice and convenience of a broad selection of free digital content options, and therefore have a greater likelihood of success than many alternatives, including less popular non-P2P offerings.
Reducing infringement clearly remains a priority, with the most promising approach one that would accompany an industry-wide initiative to displace unauthorized versions of copyrighted works with licensed ad-supported versions of such works massively seeded into the channel at the head of search results across all P2P networks.
This approach would involve the optimization of protection technologies at the file level, filtering at the client level, and forensics at the network level – the three "Fs" that are needed to operate in tandem in order to secure the P2P distribution channel.
For new content, the greatest promise lies in digital watermarking, and the P2P Digital Watermark Working Group (PDWG) is actively pursuing a pilot study involving this technology. For legacy content, acoustical fingerprinting may well play a parallel role, and the DCIA is in the planning stages for a working group to further develop this technology side-by-side with the PDWG.
In the second year after Grokster, we will support and closely follow the examples of LTDnetwork, with its coming relaunch of Qtrax as a free ad-supported music offering; and INTENT MediaWorks, with its integration of MyPeer and several other innovations capable of greatly accelerating positive change across multiple P2P networks.
There is the real possibility for exponential growth in commercial development of the P2P distribution channel, with revenue finally approaching the pace of this medium’s continually expanding consumer adoption and technological advancement.
Key to continued progress will be acceptance by major entertainment companies of the realities of both the online consumer marketplace and P2P file-sharing technologies, and the potential advantages available to rights holders based on fully embracing and harnessing this most widely accepted and uniquely efficient distribution channel. Share wisely, and take care.
LimeWire Regains Top Download.com Position
Excerpted from Slyck.com Report by Tom Mennecke
LimeWire is once again the most downloaded-per-week application on Download.com. After nearly 3 years and 86 million downloads, LimeWire has managed to edge out other worldly applications such as AdAware, Spyware Doctor, Morpheus, and BitComet. Last week, LimeWire managed 926,598 downloads. The next file-sharing client, Morpheus (which ranked 5th) scored 380,872 downloads.
Development of the LimeWire client is also gearing up for its next iteration. On the LimeWire blog, which announced the arrival of version 4.12, the development team touched on the upcoming BitTorrent and "custom" DHT (Distributed Hash Table) integration.
The custom and open source DHT will be specific to LimeWire and the Gnutella network, and will function to enhance the indexing ability and cohesiveness of the network, along with adding more security features, better spoofing-checks, etc. It will have no interoperability with the Mainline or Azureus DHT network.
"It’s important to understand that the DHT and BitTorrent are being developed as two separate features," LimeWire developer Mark Kornfilt told Slyck.com. "In the future, one of the uses of our DHT will very likely be to support trackerless torrents, but we are not developing it for this sole purpose.
"Over the last few months, we have developed the Mojito DHT, which is our own flavor of a Kademlia DHT. It is going to be used as an additional structured overlay on top of Gnutella. What this means is that we are going to have a hybrid system, where the unstructured network will be used to bootstrap and perform initial maintenance on the structured network, and where the structured network will be used by Gnutella peers as a query structure. Both networks will therefore be independent (after initial bootstrap), but will be used simultaneously to get the best out of both worlds."
LimeWire developers also hope their Mojito DHT layer will be utilized independently by alternative developers and networks. Staying true to LimeWire tradition, Mojito DHT will be open source, allowing for developers to improve and implement the technology as they see fit.
MediaZone Unveils P2P Streaming Platform
With the beta launch of its secure P2P streaming platform, MediaZone helps digital media companies overcome the high cost of bandwidth, which is the single largest barrier to scalability and profitability in online broadcasting. Through the platform, content streams are securely shared across multiple users accessing content via a downloadable client. Broadcasters no longer incur additional bandwidth costs to deliver service to every new user. Instead, as demand for content increases and new users are added, the ability to scale increases.
The new platform allows content owners to realize substantial cost savings, particularly for popular live streaming events, and enables content owners and distributors to distribute video and audio content in a new way by developing Internet-only linear channels. The beta launch of the service can be found at http://www.mediazone.com/p2p/index.jsp.
"With the introduction of our P2P delivery platform, we are further delivering on our mission to help content owners generate maximum revenues from their assets," said Michelle Wu, MediaZone’s CEO.
iBloks Raises $3 Million
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire
iBloks, a provider of an online community where users can purchase and mix media and share their creations, announced on Thursday that it has raised $3 million in its second round of venture capital financing, from Maveron LLC.
iBloks released its consumer beta application earlier this month, which includes a store that provides free and paid premium content such as music, videos, and games.
The site lets users mix media together, save personalized iBloks and then share their creations via e-mail, IM, web pages, or blogs. The company will use the funds to further develop its application.
NBC Partners with YouTube
Excerpted from TechNewsWorld Report by Jennifer LeClaire
"YouTube is the perfect online media partner to promote NBC’s marquee entertainment to its audience and explore new and creative ways to harness the power of viral video in a manner that respects copyrights," said John Miller, Chief Marketing Officer for the NBC Universal Television Group.
In yet another sign that traditional television broadcasters are intent on staking their claim on the web, NBC and online video company YouTube on Tuesday announced a strategic partnership.
The alliance will promote NBC’s fall television lineup and other NBC shows over the next year. The agreement also includes an integrated, cross-promotional advertising relationship, with on-air promotion of YouTube provided by NBC.
"The YouTube and NBC partnership symbolizes what can happen when traditional media companies and new media companies find common ground," said Miller.
NBC is hoping to cash in on the YouTube phenomenon. People now watch more than 70 million videos per day on the service. It is the 17th most-trafficked website in the world, according to the company, and it is still adding more than 60,000 new videos daily.
NBC plans to launch a contest centered around "The Office." People can submit their own creative 20-second promotional videos to NBC’s YouTube Group. NBC will publicize the campaign on air regularly during the first three weeks of the contest, encouraging YouTube users to enter.
YouTube users are the latest target of copyright enforcement action by the RIAA. Many YouTube users have recently been the recipients of cease-and-desist orders.
Warner Bros. Licenses Video Sharing Site
GUBA, an online multimedia entertainment site, this week announced its new video service featuring Warner Bros. Entertainment content. This premium offering allows users to rent and buy, on a download basis, movies and television shows online. With the launch, GUBA becomes the first US video sharing community to distribute licensed Warner Bros. Entertainment’s content online.
GUBA enables its users to search, upload, and share video posted to GUBA and Usenet. GUBA transcodes video so that users can view content on a wide range of video formats and portable devices. Now GUBA also enables users to download DRM-protected films and TV shows from Warner Bros. Entertainment.
More than two hundred of Warner Bros. Entertainment’s latest movie releases will be available from GUBA, including "Syriana," "Good Night and Good Luck," "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," and "Everything is Illuminated," as well as catalog titles such as "The Matrix," "Batman Forever," and "Best in Show." TV programming includes "Babylon 5," "Dukes of Hazzard," "The Flintstones," and "The Jetsons." All video content can be downloaded and played on compatible home computers, streamed to the TV, and loaded onto portable devices.
"GUBA has been working directly with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and has instituted filtering and security measures to ensure the protection of copyrighted films and television content," stated Darcy Antonellis, Executive Vice President, Distribution Technology and Operations, Warner Bros. Technical Operations.
Rental prices start at $1.99 per movie for unlimited views during a 24- hour period. Viewers can buy extra viewing days for reduced fees without the need to download the film again.
GUBA also allows users to buy movies and television shows. Catalog films will retail for $9.99 and new releases, available on the same date that DVDs are released in stores, will retail for $19.99. Television shows will retail starting at $1.79 per episode. Users may keep permanent copies of purchased titles, load purchased titles onto portable devices, and stream purchased and rented content through their home network.
FOX Also Licenses P2P
Select movies and television titles from Twentieth Century Fox as well as Warner Bros. Entertainment are now available via yet another closed P2P software program. Consumers can download television shows such as "The Loop," "Firefly," "The Dukes Of Hazzard," and "Babylon 5" for a 24-hour viewing period for 99 cents per episode. Movie rentals are also available and include current and library titles for $2.99 to $3.99 through Peer Impact (PI) 3.0, which adds a video component to the already diverse content offering previously available.
"This is another step in our overall strategy to bring the world’s premiere content to our audience on emerging digital platforms," said Peter Levinsohn, President, Fox Digital Media. "Through this deal, we can enjoy the benefits of P2P technology, while offering yet another legitimate alternative."
PI provides a secure, high quality environment for rental and purchase of digital content, including music, video games, and with this announcement, major film and television titles. For the benefit of both users and content publishers, all originating files are placed on the P2P network by PI developer and distributor Wurld Media, providing protection from corrupt, unwanted, or illegitimate files.
P2P Still Thrives After Ruling
Excerpted from AP Report by Alex Veiga
File-swapping software seemed in peril a year ago when the US Supreme Court gave the entertainment industry a legal bullet: its ruling reopened the door for lawsuits over programs used to share music, movies, and other copyrighted files.
The Supreme Court, reversing lower court rulings, said developers of such programs could indeed be held liable for unauthorized sharing by their users – if the technology companies were somehow encouraging customers to infringe copyright.
Yet a year later, P2P, sharing continues to thrive with favorite applications such as eDonkey, LimeWire, Morpheus, and Kazaa, among others.
The average number of simultaneous file-sharing users was about 9.7 million worldwide in May, with about 6.7 million from the United States, according to DCIA industry data resource BigChampagne, which tracks file-sharing activity. In the same period last year, BigChampagne tracked 8.6 million average users globally and 6.2 million in the United States.
The RIAA credits the so-called Grokster ruling with helping to clarify the legal roadmap for copyright in the Internet Age and motivating some of the file-sharing operators to close down or go legit.
Without it, or the music companies’ roughly 18,000 lawsuits filed against individual file-sharers since 2003, online infringement would be even worse, said Mitch Bainwol, chairman of the Washington-based group.
"We don’t suggest that unauthorized file-sharing has been conquered, far from it," Bainwol said. "But it’s not fundamentally decapitating the legal marketplace from growing in a pretty robust fashion."
One slice of the online music market that didn’t grow as expected was that of licensed file-sharing services. The idea was some free-for-all networks would make deals with entertainment companies to sell music downloads and limit what users could share online.
Sam Yagan, President of MetaMachine, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last year that he would transform his firm’s eDonkey software into a licensed music service rather than face the threat of litigation in the wake of Grokster.
But with 2006 nearly half gone, eDonkey remains an online free-for-all.
"The licensed P2P market did not evolve in the way a lot of people thought it would," said Ali Aydar, Chief Operating Officer of Snocap. "A lot of the unauthorized P2P networks are still out there operating just as they were a year go."
Snocap – founded by Shawn Fanning, who had pioneered file sharing with his creation of the original Napster – positioned itself two years ago as key to legitimate P2P services. To date, however, no one is using its technology for allowing recording labels to manage what songs could be shared on such services.
Grokster ultimately settled out of court and stopped distributing its software. Although users could still run copies they downloaded before, the programs are no longer supported or kept up to date, meaning users are likely to flock elsewhere.
Meanwhile, litigation continues against StreamCast, which distributes Morpheus.
The case is back in federal court in Los Angeles. Ongoing attempts to settle have led to postponement of court proceedings, but a settlement has yet to be announced. The next hearing is scheduled for July 10.
Confusion Slows P2P Deals
Excerpted from Washington Internet Daily Report by Greg Piper
A year after the Supreme Court Grokster decision, P2P companies still are struggling to contract with the content industry and make business decisions due to legal uncertainty, speakers told the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT.
MPAA Executive Vice President Fritz Attaway agreed on the lag in P2P’s evolution from infringing to licensed, but said "it’s always too slow" and disputed the idea that Grokster paralyzed the market.
Entertainment lawyer Joshua Wattles called the climate "schizophrenic," with latent deals complicated by continuing suits against XM and others. "The content industry has not given up on exactly what they want to get," he said.
Congress has left P2P legal issues alone since Grokster, probably because the high court gave "the rules of the road and everyone is adjusting to the new climate," Attaway said. Innovation hasn’t been stifled, he added, citing a "steady stream of folks coming into my office showing me business models based on a partnership with content owners."
But Phil Corwin, who represents Sharman Networks, the Kazaa client’s maker, said Grokster left "greater incoherence" especially via its highly subjective determination of intent-based inducement. Apart from the MPAA-BitTorrent deal, he has only heard "anecdotal tales" about start-ups with promising deals, he said: "Hopefully that will change but it’s not changing rapidly."
Even the content industry is confused on what it legally can develop, Wattles said: "It’s impossible to counsel" clients on whether particular business models or features are legit.
"We may have to go through this thing all the way back to the Supreme Court," said Michael Weiss, CEO of StreamCast, which makes the Morpheus client and was a Grokster co-defendant. The biggest change was that his company lost competitors, Weiss said to laughter.
At the same time, P2P is "fast becoming the orphan everyone wants to adopt," Weiss said, quoting a recent Strategy Analytics report.
Attaway held to his role as poster child for the industry deemed the lesser of 2 evils for P2P firms, calling the film industry’s nascent relationship with P2P a "marriage made in heaven."
Weiss called MPAA "more open" than RIAA and "more on the cutting edge," citing its BitTorrent deal and Disney’s move to add free TV episodes to its website.
Suits against technology firms – most recently an RIAA suit against XM for its new receiver’s recording capabilities – have slowed the market, P2P speakers agreed. But Attaway, standing in for absent panelist RIAA Exec. VP Steven Marks, called the XM case "not as simple as you may have been led to believe." MPAA hasn’t taken a position on whether the new XM devices’ recording function constitutes downloading, and thus requires additional licenses, but Attaway called it a "reasonable argument."
Congress can spur P2P by erasing damages for secondary infringement, Corwin said. Given the right case, today’s "astronomical" penalties would bankrupt even Microsoft, he said. Enactment of network neutrality will also help; as ISPs identify packets on their networks and limit patterns, P2P is certain to be targeted as bandwidth-heavy and possibly competitive to an ISP’s services, he said. Though it has no official position on neutrality, Cisco and other vendors are likely to oppose neutrality, as they want to sell products that identify and block packets, Corwin added.
Attaway played to the prevailing anti-govt. mood, attacking the neutrality preference. MPAA hasn’t taken a position "yet," he said, but "we are very suspect of government regulation of the Internet."
Absent US attention, EU bureaucrats are "not shy to make these decisions" about file-sharing and licensing, and US agencies are taking their cues from European law "whether we like it or not," Wattles said.
Public reaction in Sweden after a brief shutdown of P2P site The Pirate Bay has favored a compulsory license for downloads, Attaway said. The only way to do that and honor treaty obligations is "equitable remuneration... They are going to tax your business and your equipment" to pay for blanket licenses, he said: "That is not good for us and that is not good for you either."
The lesson dating to his roots in the home video industry is "technology’s going to win and incumbent content companies are going to profit," Weiss said. Content firms go through 3 phases: stopping new technology through lawsuits, controlling it through laws, and then embracing and profiting on it, he said: "It does seem like we’re taking a long time to get there."
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the "embodiment" of a bridge between content and tech, but that bridge has a direction, Wattles said: "The future HBO is more likely to be sitting in this room than any content company in Los Angeles."
Not all P2P is built on others’ work, Weiss said. The Patent & Trademark Office recently granted a patent to Morpheus, and P2P can be seen as "the first major social networking site," since users could browse one other’s folders and "strike up friendships." Litigation erased that early sense of P2P community, but when it returns and challenges industry darling MySpace, it will be "bigger than anything that anyone’s seen to date," Weiss said.
File Sharing Continues to Grow
Excerpted from San Jose Mercury News Report by John Boudreau
A year after the Supreme Court’s landmark Grokster decision – which set out to curb online infringement of music and movies – file sharing is as popular as ever even as Silicon Valley technologists and Hollywood moguls continue their awkward embrace.
The court’s unanimous decision that Internet file-sharing services can be sued if they encourage people to use their sophisticated software to infringe copyrighted material was hailed as a victory by the entertainment world.
But the ruling, which also detailed protections for technology companies, hasn’t stopped the lawsuits and acrimony between the two sides. The RIAA continues to file lawsuits against tech companies. And in just the last year, the association has filed some 6,000 suits against individuals it says are stealing material.
But changes are occurring, if for no other reason than the entertainment world needs the new distribution channels Silicon Valley can provide, while technology companies depend on content from rock stars and Hollywood to attract audiences.
"There are some people inside of record labels who admit that they are not doing the right thing in certain cases. There is some resistance to the digital era," said Ali Aydar, the first employee of Napster, the pioneering P2P music sharing network that eventually went bankrupt after battling the record industry.
"But if you are able to show them how you can make them money, increase their exposure, and respect their copyrights, then it’s really a no brainer," he added.
In the spring, Warner Bros. agreed to offer video through BitTorrent, the P2P technology company whose software code has been used for unauthorized trading of movies and music.
"It was never BitTorrent’s intent to circumvent copyrights," said Ashwin Navin, President of BitTorrent. "That made us a partner, rather than an enemy."
These early deals with Internet companies do not mean the entertainment industry has abandoned using its courtroom muscle as a weapon. Other file-sharing services have shut down since the Supreme Court’s MGM v. Grokster ruling. And the recording industry recently filed a lawsuit against XM Satellite Radio over its new device that allows people to store music.
P2P file-sharing companies are not "consuming all the digital oxygen in the marketplace," said Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the RIAA, whose members saw CD sales plummet 30 percent after Napster’s 1999 launch. "The legal marketplace is getting some traction, and that is a basis for our hope in the future."
Technologists, though, don’t see dragging file-sharing companies into court as the answer.
"Shutting down P2P networks was like taking a half-course of antibiotics every six months," said Tom McInerney, co-founder of GUBA, a video site that just announced an agreement with Warner Bros. to distribute TV shows and movies. "It just led to the evolution of more decentralized networks that are more efficient and more difficult to shut down."
Meanwhile, file sharing continues to grow. Nearly 10 million users worldwide simultaneously clicked into P2P technology last month – 12 percent more than May, 2005, according to DCIA industry data resource BigChampagne.
"The social networking aspect of the Internet is continuing to blossom and no landmark court decision or watershed event changes that," BigChampagne Chief Executive Eric Garland said.
Michael Weiss, chief executive of StreamCast, which makes Morpheus software and was a Grokster co-defendant, believes the two worlds can work together and create business models. Weiss pointed to a 2005 survey by UK research company, the Leading Question, which found people who download music are voracious consumers of digital media – so much so they are apt to spend more than four times more on paid downloads than those who never engage in infringing activity.
After years of legal skirmishes, StreamCast and the entertainment industry will be back in court next week, though Weiss said he is "cautiously optimistic" the two sides will eventually find common ground.
"Everyone in the P2P space and in the entertainment industry would like to find that magic solution," Weiss said.
He added, "It’s a shame we have to go through all this pain and suffering to get there."
Paris Approves Digital Content Law
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Thomas Crampton
French legislators gave final approval on Friday to a copyright law that could force Apple Computer to make songs purchased from its iTunes Music Store compatible with music players of its rivals.
The Senate and the National Assembly both voted to approve the law, which will also reduce the penalties for the unauthorized downloading of music to little more than a parking fine.
The law could go into effect within a month.
Legal experts and industry lobbyists said that the resulting law was a messy compromise that would make it difficult to achieve the goal of the legislation — to force Apple, or other companies with proprietary music formats, to make their offerings compatible with rivals’ digital music devices.
While the law states that copy protection software cannot hinder access to a legally purchased digital work, there are a number of conditions that must be met before a company like Apple can change its format.
The vote brought to an end more than six months of heated debate that has led to a broader European discussion about governments mandating access to digital cultural content.
Coming Events of Interest
-
Building Blocks 2006 – August 15th–17th in San Jose, CA. The DCIA is pleased to participate in this premier event for transforming entertainment, communication technologies and the global communications network: TV, cable, telco, consumer electronics, mobile, broadband, search, e-mail, VoIP, RSS, blogs and websites: "Disruptive Thinking – Change Agents That Transform the World –Where Content is King and Technology Rules."
-
6th Annual Future of Music Policy Summit – October 5th–7th at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. FMC sees hosting this Summit in Canada as an opportunity to expand its perspective on a range of issues – from copyright, to sampling, to digital royalties, to radio, to how various musical communities are managing change. The music marketplace has become truly global, and some of the biggest challenges are navigating the assortment of legal and licensing schemes that encourage and/or impede the promotion and sale of music.
|
