FEBRUARY 2006
Mark Vinet website
COPYRIGHT - Google in trouble over copyright infringement - Los Angeles, Feb 22 2006 -- Internet giant Google Inc infringed copyright rules by posting thumbnail-size photos from other websites on its search results pages, a US judge has said in a ruling. Us district judge Howard Matz's ruling yesterday, handed down in Los Angeles, stems from a lawsuit filed in 2004 by pornography firm Perfect 10 Inc, which accused Google of breaching on its copyrights. The type of search with which Perfect 10 took issue is Google's ‘image search’ function, which returns a page with tiny images - known as thumbnails - that fit the searcher's query. The image search function also allows searchers to view the image as it appears on the page. The judge ruled that because Google receives advertising money from offering search functions, it is not entitled to the same level of free use of the images as other entities would be. uch of Google's revenues come from so-called keyword searches that link advertisers to users by their search criteria. He said Google's use of pictures was different from that Arriba Soft Corp. - which a US court of appeals in California ruled earlier was operating within ‘fair use’ principles by creating and using thumbnail images on its site. Matz's ruling also notes that because Perfect 10 sells similar-size versions of its images to cell phone users through a separate company, Fonestarz Media, Perfect 10 stands to lose revenue if its request for a court order blocking Google's use of the thumbnails is not granted.
MUSIC - New Brunswick Bar Owner Suing Promoters of Rolling Stones' Moncton Concert by CP, February 16, 2006 -- SAINT JOHN, N.B. -- A New Brunswick bar owner is suing promoters of last summer's wildly successful Rolling Stones concert in Moncton. Blake Armstong alleges the promoters, including Donald K. Donald, ran with his idea to bring the Stones to the city and then pushed him out of the deal. The suit, yet to be proven in court, names Donald Tarlton Productions, Donald K. Donald Tours Inc., Michael Cohl of TNA International Ltd. and TGA Entertainment Ltd., WPC Piecemeal Inc. of the U.S. and Concerts Production International of Toronto. In his statement of claim, Armstrong says that on Sept. 10, 2004, he presented Cohl with a confidential proposal to bring the Rolling Stones to Moncton and the Magnetic Hill concert venue. A year later, on Sept. 3, 2005, the Stones took to the Magnetic Hill stage. Tarlton, better known as concert promoter Donald K. Donald, denies a deal with Armstrong ever existed. "Oh, please, I've been promoting concerts for the last 40 years of my life," Tarlton said from Montreal. "I don't need someone to tell me it's a good idea to bring the Rolling Stones anywhere in the world. "He (Armstrong) proposed ideas and thoughts pertaining to the show and his proposal was not accepted." Before specifying a dollar figure, Armstrong has petitioned the court to force the promoters to reveal financial statements surrounding the concert. He also seeks a cut of future proceeds for concerts produced by the defendants at Magnetic Hill, interest and court costs.
MUSIC - BRIT AWARDS - On Feb15, 2006 the Brit Awards were held before a music industry audience of 3,900 and an international TV audience. The Brit Awards are the annual United Kingdom pop music awards founded by the British Music Industry. The awards began in 1977 as the BPI Awards and were renamed The Britannia Awards, or Brit Awards, in 1989. Brit is also a backronym for British Record Industry Trust which supports youngsters in the arts and education mainly at the BRIT School in Croydon, London. In addition, an equivalent awards ceremony for classical music, called the Classical Brit Awards, is held each May.
TV - CBC cancellations blamed on lockout - Feb. 14, 2006 Toronto Star -- Cancellation of three CBC series without naming replacements is a short-sighted decision that will cost hundreds of jobs and imperil Canadian English-language TV drama, the union representing Canadian actors said yesterday. CBC management is punishing these shows for a decline in ratings — a decline clearly brought on by its own brutal decision to lock out 5,000 professional workers last fall," Stephen Waddell, executive director of the 21,000-member Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, said in a statement. ACTRA condemned the cancellations as "a startling display of incompetence by irresponsible CBC brass." CBC spokeswoman Ruth-Ellen Soles, who said Da Vinci had been averaging 394,000 viewers, Wonderland 376,000 and Tournament 268,000, disputed the claim that low ratings resulted from the lockout. She says the numbers decline had started well before that. "These are three programs that CBC believed in and attached significant resources to," she said. "Unfortunately the audiences for all three have been in steady decline and did not resonate with Canadians. These decisions are always difficult, but they had to be made. "It's a shame because they're terrific programs. It just doesn't seem to be what Canadian viewers want to watch," Soles said. "We're in continuing discussions now regarding all of the arts and entertainment programming, everything." Sources told the Canadian Press that the cancellations were not the work of the English network's new programming executive director, Kirstine Layfield, who was brought in from the private sector recently to replace the departed Slawko Klymkiw. Klymkiw had championed the two drama shows. Sources said the decisions to cancel were made by executive vice-president Richard Stursberg. "It was just a year ago that ... Stursberg proclaimed that `only the CBC can be the cornerstone of a solution' to the crisis in Canadian drama,'' said Waddell. "I'd like to know to how Mr. Stursberg feels his cancellation of three acclaimed series without naming replacements is going to end the drama crisis. One has to ask whether there can ever be responsible decision-making with the current regime."
MUSIC - What makes a hit song: musicians need luck for stardom - Indo-Asian News Service, London, Feb11, 2006 -- This one might hurt aspiring artists. While talent distinguishes good from bad, social pressure and pure dumb luck are also big influences on which musicians gain most fame, says a new study by Duncan Watts, a sociologist at Columbia University, and colleagues, who wanted to know whether peer pressure contributes to bands going platinum. Watts started by collecting 48 songs from unknown but real bands listed on a garage band website. Visitors could listen to any of the rock songs and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5 on the website. They could also download them free if they liked. Some songs were downloaded much more than others, and because all the visitors' judgments were independent, the researchers termed these as good songs. After tabulating the results of 14,000 visitors, the researchers learned that there was some accounting for taste - good songs always ranked high, and bad songs ranked low. According to the researchers, when visitors had access to information about what other people were downloading, they were much more likely to download songs with high download rates, even if they were not the highest quality, and pushed the highest-ranked toward superstardom. "Stardom is indeed a crapshoot," Watts said. So, if the independent rankings show that there actually is some accounting for taste, why does it lose out to popularity? "There's a social function to all of us liking the same thing," he said. "It's not the thing that's important, but having something to share." Sociologists have called the experiments "path breaking" as they illustrate how a small advantage can snowball, making popularity hard to predict. "Successful things tend to be more successful, once an author has a best seller, the next book he writes is likely to also become a best seller, and once a brand name has recognition it is more likely to do well." "The (study) results are certainly consistent with the motivations for payola. ... Getting it out there and getting it on people's radar screens increases its likelihood of it becoming popular," said Watts. Payola involved marketers bribing disc jockeys to give their records more air time.
MUSIC & COPYRIGHT -- Know your rights under Canadian copyright law by Ancaster News, Canada -- Most people do not know what their rights are under the current law, and are unaware of proposed changes. If all that a person wanted to do was download music for personal and private use, then the right to do so exists and is paid for by a levy on blank audio recording media such as blank CDs. These copies must be private copies, meaning they are never sold, loaned or shared. He could not share these files, meaning he could not use BitTorrent or other P2P tools which automatically share as files are received as the copy he would be making would no longer be a "private copy." There is also misinformation on the other side. There is a common mistake in believing that if unauthorized downloading is legal, then unauthorized file sharing sharing is also legal. All the misinformation that the past government and the major labels have been spreading claiming that there was a need to change the law to make unauthorized file sharing illegal didn't help. When the major labels sued to try to get the names of 29 people who had allegedly been sharing music, the reason that they lost was because of a lack of evidence. It is obvious that if you are going to claim unauthorized sharing that you are going to need to at least download a song and listen to it - something the labels failed to do.MUSIC - Canadian's at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles by Guy Dixon, Globe&Mail, 10feb06 -- Canadian artists disappointed at this year's ceremony, but those with crossover appeal big winners. Canadian legend Neil Young, who has never won a Grammy, had been nominated for two categories, but he lost to Bruce Springsteen for best solo rock vocal performance and to U2 for best rock album.Montreal scene stealers Arcade Fire, despite critical acclaim for injecting indie rock with extra verve, lost out in the two categories in which they were nominated: best alternative album for Funeral, which instead went to the White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan, and best song for film or TV for Cold Wind, which went to Josh Groban's Believe from the soundtrack for The Polar Express. Mr. Bublé's album It's Time lost in best traditional pop vocal album to Tony Bennett's The Art of Romance. While making his way into the evening show, Mr. Bublé jokingly made a show of being disappointed. Also among the Canadian nominees, Sarah McLachlan lost in the best short music video for World of Fire to rapper Missy Elliot, while producer-performer Daniel Lanois was edged out of in the category best pop instrumental performance by the guitarist and legendary innovator Les Paul and in the category best instrumental album by Burt Bacharach. While Canadian nominees such as Montreal indie rockers Arcade Fire and Vancouver crooner Michael Bublé were shut out early, the Grammys were busy awarding Ms. Carey and other multiple nominees with wide crossover appeal. Ms. Carey had already won three trophies before the evening broadcast had begun -- for best female R&B vocal performance, best contemporary R&B album and best R&B song. All night Ms. Carey's presence loomed large, even when not on stage. It's a familiar pattern. The Grammy Awards loves to laud a stunning female singer. In a revealing gown, she is loaded up with multiple trophies to balance awkwardly for the backstage photographers. Last year, it was R&B singer Alicia Keys. The year before, it was Beyoncé. Before that, Norah Jones. Yet with Ms. Carey -- who won two Grammys in 1991, but none since -- the back story is particularly weighty. She has a five-octave voice and is one of the top-selling artists of the 1990s, but in 2001, she fell to such a career low with her star-vehicle film Glitter and the widely panned rap-ballad-R&B soundtrack, that her record label later paid her $28-million (U.S.) to get out of a four-album record deal. Around the same time, she suffered a highly publicized emotional and physical breakdown, and posted troubling personal messages on her own website. She became instant tabloid fodder and her voice grew tired and wispy. Fast forward to her latest album, 2005's The Emancipation of Mimi, with its sexy R&B air aimed at lifting her back up to A-list diva. Critics may differ on whether it succeeds, but its huge sales total is enough proof of success for the Grammys -- and the troubled recording industry, itself in need of an uplifting story.
MUSIC - Spitzer widens music probe to radio groups - NEW YORK (Reuters) Feb9, 2006 -- New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has issued subpoenas to nine of the largest U.S. radio groups as he widens a probe into illegal payoffs in the music industry The report, which cited Spitzer as its source, said subpoenas had been issued to Clear Channel Communications. The pay-for-play schemes under investigation include air time for songs by Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson and John Mayer, the report said. Spitzer's probe has already targeted major record labels, with accusations that they used improper tactics to influence radio programmers.
FILM - Quebec's Prix Jutra -- The Jutra Awards were established in 1999 by the Association des Producteurs de Films et Télévision du Québec (APFTQ) to honour the talent in and behind Quebec films, with several industry associations sponsoring the event. The APFTQ represents the vast majority of independent film and television production companies in Quebec, acting on behalf of its members with government and industry organizations and encouraging close cooperation among all stakeholders. The APFTQ’s mission is to promote independent film and television production and ensure that its members uphold the highest possible standards of professionalism and production quality. Michel Cote, president of the Jutra awards, praised the growing vigour of Quebec cinema demonstrated by the dominance of Quebec films in the Canadian Genie Awards nomination process. The Jutra awards will be announced March 19 in a ceremony to be broadcast live on Radio-Canada television.
MUSIC - Stones Super Bowl Performance Censored: Exposure Should Increase Record Sales by Hugh Davies, Telegtraph, 07/02/2006 -- It was only rock 'n' roll, and the 72,000 fans at the American football Super Bowl in Detroit seemed to like it. But four decades after CBS in New York forced the Rolling Stones to change the lyrics of Let's Spend The Night Together to "Let's spend some time together", censors at the Walt Disney-owned ABC network stepped in during a half-time performance by the band to remove sexually explicit lyrics.The Super Bowl game is America's top-rated broadcast event but it has been the subject of controversy since 2004, when there was an outcry about indecency after Janet Jackson bared her breast in what was described as a "wardrobe malfunction". The Rolling Stones delivered their usual slick performance with Mick Jagger stalking the stage, grinding his hips and pouting like a man half his age. But during Start Me Up, the line "you make a dead man come" was cut short and a barnyard reference to "cocks" in the new song Rough Justice also disappeared. "The Rolling Stones were aware of our plan, which was to simply lower the volume on his microphone at those two appropriate moments," said Brian McCarthy, a National Football League spokesman. "We agreed to that plan earlier in the week. The Stones were aware of it and they were fine with it." Intriguingly, Britain's one-time bad boys, now with a median age of 62, were seen as a relatively safe act to put on for 12 minutes during the game. The Stones even decided against singing their anti-war single, Sweet Neo-Con. Just to be sure, ABC, beaming the match to 90 million Americans, and millions more across the world, kept a five-second tape delay in the broadcast. There was no delay last year for the ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, but producers decided to keep a close eye on Sir Mick Jagger. The only song to avoid the editor was (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, a 41-year-old hit about sexual frustration. Curiously, the lyrics have been played countless times on American radio and in Microsoft advertisements, without complaint. In 1967, Ed Sullivan, anxious about the band's reputation as "lewd hellraisers" forced Jagger to alter Let's Spend The Night Together before allowing him to perform the hit on Sullivan's Sunday night CBS show. The same year, Jim Morrison and the Doors were asked by Sullivan's director to modify their hit Light My Fire by not using the line "Girl we couldn't get much higher," for fear the word "higher" would sound like a reference to drugs. Morrison sang the song in its original version, with no changes - and the Doors were never invited back. There had already been a row in Detroit over the Rolling Stones, with the NFL abandoning a plan to ban anyone over 45 from dancing in the middle of the tongue-shaped stage. Then, when it was pointed out that the producers had asked "a bunch of Brits" to perform in the home of Motown, Aretha Franklin was swiftly recruited to sing the national anthem, with Aaron Neville and Dr John, from hurricane-battered New Orleans, helping her out. Stevie Wonder also came on stage to sing his hits, with the R&B singer John Legend, soul's India Arie, and Devon's Joss Stone. Jon Pareles, the rock critic of the New York Times, said that while Sir Mick avoided a "lyric malfunction", ABC allowed him to show his midriff, and "he was as limber as anyone on the field". In a glowing review, he spoke of the band's "greatness" in doing "their job with rowdy ease", adding that the censorship of Sir Mick, 62, Keith Richards, 62, Ronnie Wood, 58, and Charlie Watts, 64, only added to their ability to "still ride a reputation as provocateurs." Their performance is expected to put a new album, A Bigger Bang, back near the top of the charts.Sir Paul recorded a 250 per cent leap in sales after his appearance.
FILM - 58th annual Writers Guild Awards - The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and The Writers Guild of America, west (WGAW) announced the winners of the 2006 Writers Guild Awards for outstanding achievement in writing for the screen, television, and radio in gala ceremonies at The Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles and the Waldorf Astoria in New York on February 4, 2006.MUSIC & COPYRIGHT - Iowans named in music copyright lawsuits by Dave Vickers, KROS, Clinton 03Feb2006 -- Several residents of the state of Iowa are targeted in a series of copyright infringement lawsuits filed by several major music companies. Two lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa, and six lawsuits were filed in other parts of the state. Among those named as defendants were a Scott and a Clinton County resident. The lawsuits allege the defendants shared songs over the Internet without permission. The music companies filing the suits include Arista, Virgin Records, Motown Record Company, UMG Recordings, BMG Music, Sony and others. The defendants are accused of sharing the music of various artists including MC Hammer, Janet Jackson, Phil Collins, Toni Braxton, Whitney Houston and others. In a related note, a group of movie studios filed copyright infringement lawsuits against four Iowans for what they claim was illegal sharing of movies over the Internet.
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