JULY 2006
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TRADEMARKS - Naming your product, service or company -- Branding is the naming of your product, service or company. A brand name is what the end-user will associate with your product. As such, this name should help communicate the product's positioning for the consumer. Here are some other factors to consider when charting a brand name... Is it memorable? Does it provide for the future growth of your brand? Does it possess a positive connotation - meaning, pronunciation and visualization? Reflects the personality of your product or company? Does it have an intrinsic meaning of its own - not an acronym or set of letters that does not signify anything? Not limited geographically or topically as your market grows? Lends itself to creative development of logo and copy? Does it work with your current marketing materials? Is it legally acceptable and protectable? Does it work well in both colour and Black and White formats? Does it have visual impact on both print, Internet and other media? Start by developing a list of all sorts of possible names. Keep an Internet name search engine handy to instantly check out the dot-com availability of your selected name. Ask as many people as possible for their name suggestions (make it exciting and encourage creativity by offering a reward to the person if their name is selected). Alternatively, you can hire a marketing company to come up with a brand name. Expect to pay upwards of $2,000 and still you should be cautious of the suggested names. The number of name possibilities could reach in the hundreds! As your list develops, use your positioning statement and the parameters that you have developed so far in your marketing plan to weed out the inappropriate ones. Keep repeating the process until you have a short list of about 10 names. Share this list with your most trusted friends, associates and customers to ask for their opinion. Ask for their reasoning behind their selection as well. Consider all of these factors in making your final selection. Finally, do the legal name search on about 3 of the names. At this point the brand of your product or company should become apparent. Creating a brand name is much more than something that just sounds good or your personal preference. Remember, it will be used to position your company to your customers and will play a significant role in the marketing and success of your company. Choose well! source: echannelnews
MUSIC - POP MONTREAL was fired on the collective impulse of friends and colleagues to create a meaningful and vibrant music festival. In three years we have grown to include a bold cross-section of art forms and events, never losing sight of our focused mandate to reflect the community to which we belong. In 2004, the festival ran a sleepless super-saturated 5 nights. Fans, journalists, musicians and industry representatives met in common spaces to experience a whirlwind of the best, most captivating, music and underground culture in North America . In addition to nights packed with music of every tone, colour, and sensibility, we staged events to focus attention on political and social activism, independent film and photography (and as always, unhinged loft parties stretching beyond the wee hours of the morning).Pop Montreal remains firmly entrenched in the ethic and aesthetics of the Montreal music community. We are committed to providing opportunities for independent musicians, promoters and fans to participate in this world class event. Because our initiatives began from grassroots efforts, we remain open to all, willingly engaging all ideas and inspiration. We will not become some compromised showcase for untried bands and their big record execs. We challenge this linear equation. We strive to be provocative and encourage artists to involve themselves in making this happen.In 2005, Pop Montreal continues to search for the greatest and most innovative independent musical talents in Montreal and abroad, with the ultimate aim of bringing them together in a festival that celebrates the intangible and transcendent value of music and art. We do this in an atmosphere that challenges industry norms and promotes social awareness and cultural relevance. We are not concert promoters. We are collaborators, co-organizers, and lovers of music in the purest sense. We want nothing more than to help people bring their art to the world. And finally, we will continue to throw the greatest party in the world! for more info see Pop Montreal
BOOKS - Montreal Review of Books, Issue No. 21, Fall/Winter 2006/07 Call for Titles: The Montreal Review of Books (mRb) is looking for your new publications for our fall/winter issue, which will be on the streets after October26. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, criticism, comics, children's books, etc -we're interested in all kinds of books. To have your fall 2006 titles considered for review, please send eligible books or galleys to the following address: Montreal Review of Books, c/o Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec1200 Atwater, Suite 3, Montreal, Quebec, H3Z 1X4 Telephone 514-932-5633 Fax 514-932-5456
Criteria for eligibility:To be eligible for review, books must be either:* Written in English by a Quebec author; or* Published in English by a Quebec-based publisher; or* Translated into English by a Quebec translator (with prioritygiven to translations of books by Quebec authors);or* Have a Quebec illustrator
Deadline: To be eligible for the mRb's fall/winter 2006/07 issue, books or galleysmust be received no later than August 18, 2006.For more information, please contact Margaret or Ian at (514) 932-5633or aelaq@bellnet.ca.
COPYRIGHT & INTERNET - Whose Video Is It, Anyway? YouTube's runaway success has opened a Pandora's box of copyright issues by Heather Green, BusinessWeek 26july2006 -- When YouTube was sued on July 14 for copyright infringement, the shock wasn't that the video-sharing service was being yanked into court. Questions had been swirling for months about whether the upstart, which now dishes up 100 million daily videos, was crossing copyright boundaries by letting its members upload videos with little oversight. What was surprising was that it was an individual who fired the first shot—Robert Tur, an independent photographer famous for filming the 1992 Los Angeles riots—instead of a big Hollywood studio or major music label. The dustup spotlights the role the Internet increasingly is playing in letting artists and other individuals reach out and control media. But more to the point, it shows how YouTube is evolving into a sort of eBay (EBAY) for video: the first place you go to find a clip, but also a place where more folks are itching to get rewarded for supplying it. A growing group of creative types is furiously producing clips, video blogs, and animated shorts with the hopes of making money through advertising or selling DVDs. While YouTube promises huge distribution, the site and its users are just starting to sort out how to apportion the power they've suddenly acquired. Some indies are becoming wary of YouTube, which doesn't share ad dollars with them, unlike rival services. "The exposure is great, but with all the copyright issues and the lack of potential ad revenues, it seems like something that we're not going to get into right now," says Orrin Zucker, co-creator of It's JerryTime, a popular animated cartoon series that is shown, for now, on the artists' own site. NO CLEAR BOUNDARIES. Tur's lawsuit shows the fine line that YouTube is walking as it attempts to build its business model. Tur is suing because his videos of the riot and other events were uploaded without his permission. Although lawyers agree that YouTube should be protected by copyright law as long as it responds to content owners' requests to take down their works, it entered uncharted territory when it recently began adding ads next to search results. The law prohibits a site from benefiting financially from infringement, but the company argues that it's protected since it doesn't sell ads against individual videos. Still, the courts haven't set clear boundaries. "There has to be some way to make money with advertising that doesn't deprive you of the safe harbor. But where that line is, no one really knows," says Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Major media companies are executing a delicate dance with YouTube. The 17-month-old site now accounts for an astonishing 60% of all videos watched online. NBC and E! Entertainment are working with YouTube to promote select clips. And NBC has set up communications with YouTube to expedite the removal of its copyrighted material. Meantime, the music industry is pairing takedown notices with licensing discussions. Barring success there, however, lawsuits are still a possibility, says a music executive. INSTANT HIT. Indie video producers who don't have a battery of lawyers are learning just how freewheeling YouTube can be. They complain that removing clips is onerous. The time lag whittles into an audience that can rapidly build—and disappear—for short clips. It took eight months for Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz to mastermind a now iconic Web video that shows them creating intricate fountains of soda by dropping 500 Mentos into 100 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke. The video became an instant hit after it was published in June on Revver, a service that shares ad revenue. Within days, bootlegs showed up on Google (GOOG) and YouTube. Voltz, a civil litigation lawyer, figured out the process for getting the videos removed. But as copies kept reappearing, Voltz learned that he had to keep contacting YouTube to take down each new version. The Mentos/Diet Coke video was seen 5.5 million times on Revver and made Grobe and Voltz $30,000. But Voltz estimates they lost another $30,000 to pirated copies. And for several days recently, blogs buzzed with attempts to sort out the rights of artists to control uploaded videos. As the prospect grows for making money online, what started as a lark for many is becoming all too serious.
COPYRIGHT & BOOKS - Charles Dickens’ Campaign for Copyright Laws by Mark Vinet
Novelist Charles Dickens [1812-70] was born in Portsmouth, County Hampshire in Southern England. He was the son of a clerk in the navy pay office and spent his childhood in the Rochester countryside. In 1814 he moved to London, then to Chatham in County Kent, where he received some schooling. Painful childhood memories, notably his father's imprisonment in London’s Marshalsea debtor prison, and his own work in a shoe polish warehouse at age 12 in Southwark, were a formative influence on his writings. In 1827, he worked as a law clerk with a solicitor then took up journalism, becoming a parliamentary reporter, and at age 22 joined a London newspaper. He published various papers in the Monthly Magazine, following this up with sketches and papers for the Evening Chronicle. In 1836 his Sketches by Boz and Pickwick Papers were published; and that year he married Catherine, the daughter of his friend George Hogarth. They had ten children, but were separated in 1858. Dickens worked relentlessly, producing several successful novels which created a gallery of characters including Artful Dodger, Fagin, Bill Sikes, Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Uriah Heep, Little Nell. His works also exposed many of the social evils of Victorian England. The novels first appeared in monthly instalments, notably Oliver Twist (1837-9), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9), and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1). Thereafter a great part of his life was spent abroad. His later novels include David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-3), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1), and the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870). In addition, he gave talks and readings, and wrote many pamphlets, plays, and letters. His novels have provided the basis for many successful stage, film, radio and television adaptations.
In January 1842 Charles Dickens and his wife, Catherine, traveled to Canada and the United States. Dickens, 30 years of age, wanted to see the sites, learn about the continent and do research for a future series of articles. He visited several North American cities including Boston, New York, Toronto, and Montreal. While on tour he was received with enthusiastic ovations but awakened some displeasure by his remarks on copyright protection. Dickens actively campaigned for an international agreement concerning author's copyright. He was very much incensed as American companies, which did not believe it was necessary to pay him any royalties, were pirating his works. Dickens first realized that he was losing income because of the lack of international copyright laws in 1837 when The Pickwick Papers was published in book form. At times the novel was reprinted without his permission and sometimes even imitated. Dickens often spoke of the need for an international copyright agreement. The lack of such an agreement enabled his books to be published in the United States without his permission and without any royalties being paid. Dickens' works were published in America, sometimes simultaneously with the British edition and often with little or no compensation to the author or his publishers due to the lack of an international copyright law. This situation also affected American writers like Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's works were published in England without his consent.
Some of Dickens's struggles with copyright laws made it into his fiction. In this scene from Nicholas Nickleby, Nicholas is speaking to a man "who had dramatised in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels as fast as they had come out--some of them faster than they had come out . . ."
"I was about to say," rejoined Nicholas, "that Shakespeare derived some of his plots from old tales and legends in general circulation; but it seems to me, that some of the gentlemen of your craft, at the present day, have shot very far beyond him … whereas he brought within the magic circle of his genius, traditions peculiarly adapted for his purpose, and turned familiar things into constellations which should enlighten the world for ages, you drag within the magic circle of your dulness, subjects not at all adapted to the purposes of the stage, and debase as he exalted. For instance, you take the uncompleted books of living authors, fresh from their hands, wet from the press, cut, hack, and carve them to the powers and capacities of your actors, and the capability of your theatres, finish unfinished works, hastily and crudely vamp up ideas not yet worked out by their original projector, but which have doubtless cost him many thoughtful days and sleepless nights; by a comparison of incidents and dialogue, down to the very last word he may have written a fortnight before, do your utmost to anticipate his plot--all this without his permission, and against his will; and then, to crown the whole proceeding, publish in some mean pamphlet, an unmeaning farrago of garbled extracts from his work, to which your name as author, with the honourable distinction annexed, of having perpetrated a hundred other outrages of the same description. Now, show me the distinction between such pilfering as this, and picking a man's pocket in the street: unless, indeed, it be, that the legislature has a regard for pocket-handkerchiefs, and leaves men's brains, except when they are knocked out by violence, to take care of themselves." - Nicholas Nickleby
In the end, Charles Dickens campaigned unsuccessfully for international copyright during his lifetime - an English-American copyright law would not be enacted until 1891, two decades after his death. In 1896 the American Congress joined the international copyright union, after petitions directed at it by several British novelists including Dickens, beginning in 1837. Their pleas had fallen on deaf ears in the American government until joined by those of American authors such as Mark Twain, who complained that he was fed up with publishers' ignoring American works in favour of those of English writers, whose books could be re-printed more cheaply because there were no royalty costs. A further point of frustration for Twain was Canadian piracies of his works, which he attempted to prevent by establishing temporary residence in Canada on the date of publication of each of his works. The absence of international copyright laws allowed Canadian publishers to exploit Mark Twain's early books. He was exasperated in 1876, when the Toronto publisher Charles Belford issued Tom Sawyer before the American edition even appeared. To combat this problem, Mark Twain spent several weeks in Montreal in November-December 1881 with James R. Osgood to meet a residency requirement to protect his copyright for The Prince and the Pauper.
Bibliography and Sources:
Charles Dickens: The Novels by David A. Perdue, 1997-2006.Charles Dickens Gad's Hill Place: Struggles for Copyright Laws, Perry Internet Consulting, 2006.
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Penguin Classics, 1999.
American Notes For General Circulation by Charles Dickens (1842 trip to North America), Kessinger Pub. 2004.
"Histrionic Montreal" written by Franklin Graham, 1902, Lovell & Son, Publishers.
BootsnAll Travel: The Ultimate Resource For the Independent Traveller by N.Goldman, 2006.
Dickens's 1842 Reading Tour: Launching the Copyright Question in Tempestuous Seas
Dickens's 1867-68 Reading Tour: Re-Opening the Copyright Question
Andrew J. Kappel and Robert L. Patten, "Dickens' Second American Reading Tour and His 'Utterly Worthless and Profitless' American Rights." Dickens Studies Annual7 (1978): 1-33.
S.N.Smith, International Copyright Law & The Publisher in the Reign of Queen Victoria. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.
Juliet O'Neill, "Famous Authors Fought for Law Now Being Used as Trade Battle Fodder." Victoria Times-Colonist (rpt. Canadian Press) 16 June 1986.
Pearson, Hesketh. Dickens. London: Cassell, 1949.
Rasmussen, R. Kent. Mark Twain A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Writings. NY: Facts on File, 1995.
Arts and Entertainment Biographies: Charles Dickens, 1996.
Canadian Theatre Encyclopaedia, Association for Canadian Theatre Research, 2006.
MUSIC & COPYRIGHT - SOCAN's quarterly electronic member newsletter, The Right Note, covers such topics as member benefits, private copying, international royalties, upcoming industry events, helpful "how-to" subjects, and Copyright Board of Canada decisions that affect your royalties. We hope you find this publication informative. Copyright – The Basics: Copyright, literally "the right to copy," is a legal concept that was first introduced in Britain under the 1709 Statute of Anne. Today, the concept is honoured and upheld throughout the developed world and in many developing countries, providing protection and the right to economic remuneration for creators, and access to creative material for users. Copyright is the basic principle that determines who is the first owner of all rights in original musical, literary, dramatic and artistic works, and is set out in Canada under the terms of the Copyright Act. The copyright owner is the only party allowed to produce or reproduce the work in question or to authorize others to do so. Copyright in a musical work (generally residing with the creator) is distinct from copyright in a recording of that musical work (generally residing with the producer of the recording, such as a record company). Read the rest of SOCAN's new copyright brochure.
FILM, TV & MERCHANDISING - And Now, a (Scripted) Word From Our Sponsors: Film, TV Dialogue Puts Product Endorsement In a Troubling Place: Characters' Mouths by Bridget Byrne Washington Post July 21, 2006 -- It's always been there, but it used to know its place. Now it's running riot, out loud. Product placement, or, as the marketing industry likes to call it, "brand integration", has made the leap from props to the mouths of actors in movies and on television. And it's at the point now, says Alan Rosenberg, president of the Screen Actors Guild, that some actors are being asked to speak lines that are essentially commercials, ones you can't TiVo through. "Whereas they used to place product in a fairly innocuous way, they are actually giving actors dialogue extolling the virtues of these products," Rosenberg says. SAG, in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America -- whose members are finding their dialogue can be usurped by the jingles of the ad world -- have been seeking to discuss these issues with the advertising industry, the networks, studios and producers. This past spring, SAG's magazine ran an article headlined "Forced Endorsement: Are you acting . . . or an accessory to advertising?," which proposed guidelines for future contract negotiations and invited members to report examples of inappropriate shilling. In a world obsessed with logos and status, it's only natural that brand names turn up in movies and television. In response to complaints, the Federal Communications Commission is calling for more hard-and-fast rules about disclosure. That might eventually affect the seamless integration of show and product. But for now, the bigger problem with dialogue endorsement may be that it usually isn't seamless enough. For example, Sony Pictures made a deal with the NBC show "Medium" last season and the result was hardly subtle: Main characters Allison and Joe discuss going to see "Memoirs of a Geisha," walk by a poster for the movie and then run into acquaintances who enthuse, "Oh, we just saw that, you'll love it!" Cut to a commercial for: "Memoirs." They used to do it better. In Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954 thriller "Rear Window," when Jimmy Stewart queries Grace Kelly about whether she's brought a suitcase for her overnight stay, she replies: "A Mark Cross overnight case, anyway. Compact but ample enough." Her beauty and the sight of her glorious nightgown and satin slippers spilling out when she snaps the little case open no doubt sent legions of young women hunting for a similar carryall. So why do we worry about similar stuff today? "It's distracting," regular moviegoer Thom Shelden says of the practice in the current summer films he's seen, among them Adam Sandler's "Click," much of which is set in Bed Bath & Beyond. "They are doing it so much," he says. "It's everything, everywhere." Sandler's Happy Madison Productions has long filled its comedies about the crassness and commercialism of modern life with overt product placement, and the fact that Sandler is both producer and star means he's clearly not being forced. But other actors may feel strong-armed, and that's what concerns Rosenberg. "Our members are really being given a triple whammy," he says, noting that ad dialogue can take work away from commercial actors, might be a conflict of interest for an actor who is a spokesperson for another product, and doesn't compensate the actor involved. It's not just about money; it's also raising ethical questions. Rosenberg predicts that product placement eventually may involve political or religious thought and worries that "when at the last minute you're given something that is anathema to you . . . you've got to have the right to say, 'Yeah, I'll do that,' or 'No.' " Traylor Howard of the cable series "Monk," who plays the detective's assistant, notes, "We do it here. It's a pain." She cites the use of a bleach product that none of the actors wanted to be associated with, because it seemed inappropriate to character and story line. A seasoned commercial actress, she recalls she eventually said, "I'll do it. I'll figure a way to make it seem normal." Another example was a car placement that "didn't fit the script . . . but we ended up making it work. . . . But sometimes you just can't do it." She says, "Hopefully it pays the bills for the show, but I don't know. I try not to worry about it, but sometimes it's really annoying." The companies seeking brand integration stress they are sensitive to what seems appropriate. Volvo knew it couldn't get a car into a story that predates autos, so instead created a global multimedia treasure hunt for its sport-utility as a promotional tie-in to Disney's adventure film "Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." But many other recent movies, including "The Da Vinci Code," have featured the company's car on-screen. Dialogue isn't demanded, but clients are happy to hear it, if it's apt. "If it fits into the story line," says Roger Ormisher, Volvo's vice president of public affairs. "There's always the quip, you know, 'Oh, it feels as safe as a Volvo,' or something. It's fine, because it's reality. That's not cheating. But we've never in any product placement asked for a specific name check. If the director, the producer or the writer feels they can roll a joke off the back of it, that's okay." Linda Swick, president of the North Hollywood company International Promotions, which secures "brand integration" for companies such as Volvo, Corona and Heinz, points to dialogue in films that showed up even though no such demands were made. In last year's "Four Brothers," Tyrese Gibson referred to Volvo as "one of the safest cars," and in the original "The Fast and the Furious" Vin Diesel said, "You can have any brew you want -- as long as it's a Corona." "The audience laughed," she says, "and there you go: That's a perfect integration because whenever there's humor behind the integration there's also much more recall value. So there is a way of doing it." Swick sees problems only if there is audience backlash to a movie coming over like one big commercial. She believes the writers and actors should have confidence that the "director is not going to do anything in his film that is going to interfere with its integrity." She adds that branding integration "may be evolving and going through many changes, but it will continue because it's life. It's life!" For now, Rosenberg is looking for compromise on the issue: "If you consult with writers and actors, we will find a way to help you do it seamlessly so it doesn't infringe upon the art," he says. "But to just foist it upon us is wrong, and now they don't even want to compensate us for selling ourselves out like they normally do when we sell ourselves out!"
TRADEMARK & INTERNET -- easyGroup wins easy.com fight with Easynet by Jo Best, Law&Policy 20jul2006 -- URL-hungry easyGroup has won the right to trademark its easy.com domain name after a legal tussle with Sky's ISP arm Easynet. Easynet had appealed a decision by the Trade Mark Registry to grant the easy.com trademark to easyGroup but lost its case in the High Court after the judge ruled the URL was sufficiently distinctive to merit its own trademark. Easynet was obliged to pay both sides' costs for the case. The pair had earlier faced off over another trademark, easyTelecom, with the ISP challenging easyGroup's right to trademark the name. Easynet dropped its suit before the case came to court, however, and easyGroup now owns both the .co.uk and dot-com URLs for easyTelecom. easyGroup has a long history of litigation over domain names, often confronting companies using an easy-prefixed URL with legal action, claiming the rivals were 'passing off' as part of the easyGroup. Among the companies that have had calls from Stelios' lawyers are Easyart, Easybroker, EasyPizza and EIBS, which owns the Easysite content management system. All suits came to naught and the companies have retained their names and respective URLs. easyGroup has itself been on the receiving end of a lawsuit related to branding, France Telecom-owned Orange contesting the use of the colour orange last year.
VIDEO GAMES - Sony patent stirs worry over next PlayStation: Many fear harsh copy protections by Los Angeles Times July 18, 2006 -- Sony Corp. has patented technology that would prevent its PlayStation consoles from playing used, rented or borrowed video games - raising questions about whether the electronics and entertainment giant may attempt to redefine what it means to own something in the digital age. Speculation over Sony's plans for the technology have sparked a furor online as game fans and consumer advocates fret that the company may incorporate it into the PlayStation 3 console due out this fall. They worry that it would wipe out the $1 billion annual market for used games and could prevent someone from playing their games at a friend's house. For its part, Sony has decried the "false speculation" about the technology, patented in Japan before the October 2000 introduction of PlayStation 2. Sony has said little else about the technology or how the company might deploy it. It is not unusual for technology companies to patent innovations and then never incorporate them into products. Documents filed in April 2000 with the U.S. Patent Office describe a method of copy protection by which the game system would verify a disc as legitimate, register the disc to that particular game console, then wipe out verification data so the disc would be rendered unreadable in other PlayStations. "Since only titles for which legitimate software has actually been purchased and which have been initially registered in the machine table can be used, resale (so-called used software purchase) after purchase by an end user becomes practically impossible," according to the patent documents. Although Sony has been vague about its plans for the technology, "I actually think they're toying with this idea," said Michael Pachter, a game industry analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities. Pachter doubts Sony will tighten the software locks on PlayStation 3 games, but might employ bolstered copy protection on other forms of entertainment downloaded to the console over the Internet. "Maybe they'll copy protect movies or music downloads," he said. Whatever Sony's plans, the tempest illustrates the changing nature of ownership as millions of people accumulate vast collections of digital entertainment. Buying a license Few people realize that when they buy software, music or movies, they are actually buying a license to use, watch or listen. That's why it violates copyright laws for people to sell copies of their music collection. Sony was attacked earlier this year for including software on some of its music CDs that surreptitiously installed itself on computers playing the disc. The software was intended to prevent unauthorized copying. Sony later apologized. Taking that sort of copy protection one step further would be, in the words of one analyst, "crazy." "What does Sony get from that?" said John Taylor of Arcadia Investment Corp. "Sony gets a black eye. It doesn't make sense to me." Several analysts said the patent appears to principally be aimed at deterring game piracy. Sony's patent notes that through the complexity of its copy-protection scheme "manufacture of counterfeit software becomes extremely difficult." And it's not unusual for technology companies such as Sony to register patents, either in anticipation of one day collecting royalties from someone seeking to license the technology, or to prevent someone else from using it. "These are all things technologically possible to do in any computing device," said one cryptographer, who requested anonymity. "In the video game business, it would be suicide for someone to do this. It's actually possible Sony filed this because they wanted to keep people from doing that." Persistent online speculation that Sony would use technological or other means to ban sale of used PlayStation 3 video games prompted one analyst, Paul-Jon McNealy, of American Technology Research, to study its potential effect on the industry. "While we believe it is unlikely that SNE will ban PS3 pre-owned games from being sold by the same chains that sell new PS3 games, we believe this issue remains under consideration," McNealy wrote in a research note June 23. McNealy estimated that game fans spent about $990 million buying used games, primarily from GameStop or through eBay. Much of that spending - about $620 million - is for used PlayStation 2 games. Were Sony to ban sale of used games for its next-generation PS3, McNealy concluded the effect on independent video game publishers would be negligible. Used-game sales are a growing source of irritation for game publishers, who receive no proceeds from the resale of games. Executives privately complain that cheaper secondhand games are available for sale shortly after a new game's release. And game publishers, who give retailers marketing money to promote games, end up competing with discounted versions of their titles. Major independent game publishers Electronic Arts Inc., Activision Inc. and THQ Inc. declined to comment. Used games lucrative Used games are a lucrative source of revenue for No. 1 game retailer GameStop, which began reporting pre-owned game sales for the first time after its acquisition of competitor EB. Last year, secondhand game sales accounted for $930 million in revenue and $418 million in profit. The profit margin was 45 percent, compared with 21 percent for new games, according to Arcadia Investment. Analysts say used-game sales contribute to the overall growth of the video-game market, in the same way that the ability to trade in a used vehicle fuels the new-car market. "A used-car market creates currency to buy new cars. Same with games. Everybody acknowledges that," said Pachter, the analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities. "The problem is if the used game is available a week after the new game is out for a $5 discount," he said.
FILM & COPYRIGHT - Copyright lawsuit over Pirates of the Caribbean by Associated Press Los Angeles, July 15, 2006 -- A screenwriter has filed a lawsuit claiming Walt Disney Co and others behind the 2003 blockbuster movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl pillaged drawings and characters he had created for an earlier project about supernatural swashbucklers. Royce Mathew filed the copyright infringement suit in US District Court in Los Angeles on July 7 against Disney, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Jerry Bruckheimer Inc and other defendants. Mathew alleged that beginning in the 1980s, he "created and wrote a number of original works including drawings, screenplays, outlines, blueprints, storyboards and other original materials" for what he termed a "Super Natural Pirate Movie." Material filed with the US Copyright Office included drawings depicting a pirate ship named the Black Pearl, the suit claimed, adding the material was also pitched in Hollywood. Disney denied the allegations. "The suit has no merit," Heidi Trotta, a representative for Disney and Buena Vista studios, said without elaboration. Bruckheimer's publicist Paul Bloch had no comment, referring calls to Disney. The film raked in $305 million domestically at the box office. The sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, earned a record $135.6 million in its opening weekend beginning July 7. Mathew is seeking unspecified damages, and a permanent injunction against the movie or "other infringing works," according to the lawsuit.
MUSIC - Sony BMG deal approval voided; EMI-Warner in doubt by Jeffrey Goldfarb & Michele Sinner July 13, 2006 LONDON/LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - A European court has annulled the European Union's approval of a 2004 merger between Sony Music and BMG in a surprise decision that could force the world's second-biggest music company to be unwound. The unprecedented ruling by the European Court of First Instance on Thursday also cast doubt on the viability of combining EMI Group and Warner Music, which are engaged in a duel to buy each other. The European Commission said it would have to re-examine the merger that created Sony BMG, a 50-50 joint venture between Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. and German media group Bertelsmann AG. It can also appeal the ruling. The decision means Sony Music and BMG, home to such artists as Bruce Springsteen and Kelly Clarkson, would have to submit its merger plan again to the EC, which would then revisit it taking into account updated industry information. "If we were to give a red light, then the joint venture would have to be reversed," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said. The court, in its first rejection of an EU decision, said too cursory an examination was conducted into whether there was already collective market dominance in the music industry and whether that dominance might grow following the Sony BMG deal. "If new evidence or new submissions were to be involved, which they should be to take into account current market conditions, this process could be time consuming -- even without any appeal to the European Court of Justice," said Ben Challis, a music attorney. "So unless the two companies unbundle themselves, it's a waiting game for either the appeal or the new decision." Meanwhile, EMI's shares tumbled 8.2 percent to 281 pence at 1026 GMT, giving back roughly half the gains accumulated since news of a possible deal with Warner first surfaced in mid-April. "The share price is telling you that the deal's off, basically," said one fund manager, who asked not to be named. "The chances of any EMI-Warner deal going through, in percentage terms, are probably less than 20 percent." People close to the deal told Reuters that talks between the two companies were likely to be suspended because of the ruling. EMI and Warner, the world's third- and fourth-largest music companies, respectively, have each offered about $4.6 billion to buy the other, with both bids rejected. "It greatly reduces the possibility of EMI-Warner happening in the short term," Credit Suisse analyst Simon Baker said. "It seems to pile on regulatory risk for EMI and Warner, especially at a time when there was an increasing number of people that would have been backing the inevitability of this deal." London-based EMI said the decision would require detailed study before any conclusions could be reached, while New York-based Warner could not immediately be reached. The case against the creation of Sony BMG was brought by independent record companies, represented by trade group Impala, which claimed that shrinking the industry from five major players to four put too much market power in too few hands. "This shows that small- and medium-sized companies can attack conglomerates and the Brussels technocracy," Impala President Michel Lambot told Reuters in an interview. He said the independent sector could accept a Sony BMG merger if it included conditions that ensured a level playing field for radio advertising, manufacturing, distribution and other costs. Bertelsmann said: "Today's judgment does not affect the validity of the Sony BMG joint venture, which has been up and running since August 2004." It added that it would study the ruling and discuss the next steps with the EC. Sony also said it would carefully examine the decision. Along with Vivendi's Universal Music, the world's largest music company, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner account for about three of every four CDs sold globally.
BOOKS - The Independent Book Publishers Association (PMA) is a trade association of independent publishers. Founded in 1983, it serves book, audio, and video publishers located in the United States and around the world. Its mission is to advance the professional interests of independent publishers. To this end, PMA provides cooperative marketing programs, education and advocacy within the publishing industry. PMA's membership of more than 4,000 publishers continues to grow. It is governed by a voluntary board of directors that meets regularly to discuss and plan the association's business. PMA is the largest non-profit trade association representing independent publishers.
TRADEMARK - Smiley Face Is Serious to Company 06july2006 New York Times - In the battle of the smiley face, it's not just who smiled first that counts, but also where and how. Frown-inducing accusations have been flying in a trademark dispute between Wal-Mart Stores and a company owned by a French family over American commercial rights to the ubiquitous yellow symbol for happiness. Both parties say they expect victory when the United States Patent and Trademark Office rules on the case this summer. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, says the yellow face has long personified its price-reducing policy, while SmileyWorld, the London-based company that first registered rights to the symbol decades ago, says its globally established business stands at risk. "A prehistoric man probably invented the smiley face in some cave, but I certainly was the first to register it as a trademark," said Franklin Loufrani, 63, who says he initially registered the design with the French trademark authorities in October 1971. "When it comes to commercial use, registration is what counts." Unlike most countries in Europe and Asia, however, the United States operates under a system in which being the first to register a trademark bears less weight than being the first to exploit a symbol commercially, said Burkhart Goebel, the global head of the intellectual property practice at the law firm Lovells. "We may live in the era of globalization, but trademarks are still rooted in territoriality," Mr. Goebel said. "A trademark filed in one country has almost no impact in another." Marc E. Ackerman, a New York-based partner at the White & Case law firm and a specialist in United States trademark law, said, "Here in the U.S., we consider how heavily a trademark is used, and that would give SmileyWorld a big uphill battle." The most widely credited claim for inventing the smiley face goes to Harvey R. Ball, for the smiley yellow button he made for the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America, a Massachusetts-based company, in 1963. Mr. Ball, a graphic artist, was paid $45 for creating a button intended to cheer employees during a rocky merger with an out-of-town company, according to his 2001 obituary in The Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts. Although irked by reports that Mr. Loufrani claimed to invent the smiley, Mr. Ball never attempted to trademark the symbol or commercially exploit it. Mr. Loufrani, however, built a business from royalties collected on a symbol he claimed to have trademarked in 98 countries, for use over a wide range of product categories. He makes no monetary claim over the :-) sent in e-mail messages ("That's just punctuation"). But Mr. Loufrani said SmileyWorld did win a case last June against the use of a smiley face on the home page of AOL France. The battle with Wal-Mart was touched off when SmileyWorld filed for a United States trademark in 1997 for the exclusive right to commercial use and licensing of the term "smiley" in conjunction with the face logo. SmileyWorld's original application, which tried to trademark the smiley face itself, was rejected by the Patent and Trademark Office because of the design's common widespread use, according to the company's lawyer, Steven Baron. To Wal-Mart, which has photographs of smiley faces in its stores dating back to 1996, Mr. Loufrani is a trademark troll registering the symbol in as many product categories as possible. "They are applying for rights over the smiley face in product categories that include animal semen," John Simley, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said. "It shows they are trying to trademark everything they possibly can." Wal-Mart lodged a notice of opposition to SmileyWorld's trademark application and then filed a separate application to trademark the smiley face in relation to retail services. In response, SmileyWorld filed a notice of opposition to Wal-Mart's application on the grounds that its own attempt to trademark the face had been rejected. To overcome objections that the smiley face is within the public domain, Wal-Mart asserts a long history of "prior use" in retail services, Mr. Simley said. That a happy face can cause such rancor should be no surprise, said Tom Blackett, the group deputy chairman of Interbrand, a branding consulting firm based in London. "This dispute shows how much value companies put in symbols," Mr. Blackett said. "In the era of distinctive trademarks like the Nike swoosh, companies will go a long way to defend their perceived territory." With legal fees topping half a million dollars, the Wal-Mart dispute is the most costly ever faced by SmileyWorld, said Mr. Loufrani's son, Nicolas, 35, who now runs the company. In addition to the case against AOL France, SmileyWorld was awarded 2,500 euros, or $3,125, this March in a case in a French court against the French retailer Pier Import for sales of balls and balloons with a smiley face. While the company deals with about half a dozen infringement cases around the world at any one time, most involve sending simple cease-and-desist letters to those selling unlicensed smiley faces, Nicolas Loufrani said. To protect its licensees from infringement, the company occasionally hires consultants to scour Hong Kong trade fairs and the European gateway port of Rotterdam for illicit trademarking, he added. The Loufranis date their association with the smiley face to 1971, when Franklin Loufrani headed a campaign by a newspaper to combat French moroseness. "The owner of France Soir newspaper wanted to show French people that there was good news," said Franklin Loufrani, a former journalist who was then working as a freelance business consultant at the paper. "So I came up with the idea of putting a smiley face next to happier stories." Several months before the campaign began, Mr. Loufrani registered his hand-drawn version of the smiley face at the French trademark office. The campaign, which started with a smiley face in the "o" of France Soir, was more infectious than a smile, Mr. Loufrani said. Newspapers outside France joined in, then manufacturers from across Europe started getting in touch to license the image. Within two years, Mr. Loufrani licensed smiley-face jeans to Levi Strauss; Mars printed the faces on Bonitos as M&M's were then called in Europe and the German company Agfa sold film with smiley-face packaging licensed from Mr. Loufrani. "I hit the casino jackpot," Mr. Loufrani said. "I could never have imagined it would take off like this." In 1997, Mr. Loufrani decided to hand the smiley to Nicolas, who was 26 at the time. Since taking over, the younger Loufrani has consolidated SmileyWorld's licensees down to 40 from 400, while total sales of products with a SmileyWorld license has stayed at roughly $100 million a year. Licensees pay royalties that can range as high as 10 percent of the item's retail value, Nicolas Loufrani said. He declined to disclose earnings or revenue of the private company. Large-scale licensees within the last year include the Bic pen company in France and 7-Eleven stores in Asia, he said. Nicolas Loufrani also began the effort in the United States to assert the company's trademark that led to the showdown with Wal-Mart. He said he now intended to inject new vigor into a face formerly associated with the 1970's and acid-rock music by linking the smiley face to high-end products sold in a series of exclusive smiley shops in Paris, Los Angeles and New York opening within the next two years. The merchandising model to which he aspires is the Hello Kitty franchise, which along with other brands earned 7.6 billion yen, or $65 million, in the financial year that ended in March for the Japanese company Sanrio. "Unlike Hello Kitty, we have a clear mission," Nicolas Loufrani said. "Smiley is the brand of happiness." That happiness could be curtailed should Wal-Mart succeed. The retailer warned that its action in the United States was the first step to defend and register its right to use the smiley face around the world. "We don't want to be precluded from using the smiley face anywhere we do business," Mr. Simley, the Wal-Mart spokesman, said. "We feel an obligation to defend the smiley face." For his part, Nicolas Loufrani said that if SmileyWorld won, he would not license the face back to Wal-Mart. "We want to aim our brand more upmarket."
SACD - SOCIÉTÉ DES AUTEURS COMPOSITEURS DRAMATIQUES - Ni syndicat, ni entreprise commerciale, ni société subventionnée par des fonds publics, la SACD est une société francophone internationale qui a été chargée par ses membres, dramaturges, scénaristes, compositeurs, réalisateurs/trices, chorégraphes, metteurs en scène, de négocier, percevoir et répartir leurs redevances. Le répertoire de la SACD se compose d’oeuvres scéniques (pièces, ballets, opéras, opérettes, revues, comédies musicales, mimes, sketches), d’oeuvres télévisuelles (séries, feuilletons, dessins animés), d’oeuvres cinématographiques (courts et longs métrages) et d’oeuvres radiophoniques. Fondée par Beaumarchais en 1777, la SACD compte aujourd’hui plus de 42 000 auteurs dont 900 auteurs canadiens et se consacre à la défense des intérêts matériels et moraux de la profession tout entière. La SACD autorise les radiodiffuseurs à diffuser les oeuvres de son répertoire, en contrepartie du versement de redevances qui sont ensuite réparties en fonction des barèmes établis. C'est ce qu'on appelle la gestion collective qui assure aux auteurs — et à leurs héritiers — d'être liés à la durée de vie économique de leurs oeuvres. La SACD est avant tout une société de gestion collective qui a pour mission de percevoir et répartir les droits perçus auprès des utilisateurs de son répertoire. Au Canada, les auteurs scénaristes et réalisateurs/trices bénéficient d’un système composite : leurs conditions d’engagement et de travail sont régies par les conventions collectives négociées par les syndicats dont ils sont membres et l’exploitation télévisuelle de leurs oeuvres est régie par les licences négociées par la SACD notamment avec les radiodiffuseurs conventionnels et spécialisés. En adhérant, l’auteur fait apport à la SACD de son droit d’autoriser/d’interdire la communication au public par télécommunication et la reproduction par tous procédés de ses oeuvres. C’est sur la base de cet apport que la SACD peut alors négocier des licences avec les radiodiffuseurs et des ententes notamment pour la retransmission par câble des oeuvres de son répertoire. Pour que la SACD enregistre une oeuvre à son répertoire, l’auteur (scénariste ou réalisateur/trice) doit avoir signé un contrat qui permette à la société d’exercer ses droits auprès des radiodiffuseurs et qui comporte la clause SACD. À ce jour, la SACD a négocié des licences avec Radio-Canada, Télé-Québec, Télévision Quatre Saisons, TVA, Vrak.TV, Canal D, Super Écran, Canal Vie, Séries +, Historia, Canal Z, ARTV, Musimax et Teletoon. Elle perçoit également des redevances au titre de la retransmission par câble des oeuvres de son répertoire, en application d’une entente intervenue avec la société de perception Canadian retransmission collective (CRC). En Europe, la SACD a conclu des ententes avec plus de 25 chaînes de télévision européennes (conventionnelles, spécialisées, câblées, satellites). Quant aux pays et à l’exploitation en salle non couverts par la SACD, c’est le producteur qui est responsable de la rémunération due à l’auteur, aux conditions établies par le contrat signé. La SACD répartit aussi à ses membres, les redevances perçues au titre de la copie privée auprès des fabricants et des importateurs de cassettes de plusieurs pays européens. Le secteur audiovisuel est géré collectivement et assure aux auteurs et à leurs héritiers d’être liés à la durée de vie économique de leurs oeuvres. Dans le secteur de la représentation scénique, la SACD ne se substitue pas à ses membres; elle n’a aucun pouvoir pour autoriser ou interdire la représentation de leurs oeuvres et ne peut, dans tous les cas, agir qu’en fonction de leur décision. L’auteur conserve donc la faculté d’autoriser ou d’interdire chaque représentation de son oeuvre. Pour les auteurs d’oeuvres à caractère documentaire, les mêmes services sont offerts par la SOCIÉTÉ CIVILE DES AUTEURS MULTIMÉDIA (SCAM - Canada).
MUSIC & FILM & TRADEMARK - Wyrd Sisters continue Harry Potter legal battle with film studio 04Jul2006 CP -- The Winnipeg folk group The Wyrd Sisters plans to continue its battle against the movie studio behind the Harry Potter films despite another legal setback, a lawyer says. The group has been fighting the movie studio Warner Brothers since late 2005 over a scene in the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that depicts a band of the same name. The group's lawyer, Kimberly Townley-Smith, said Monday that The Wyrd Sisters plan to appeal last week's Ontario Supreme Court ruling that ordered them to pay $140,000 in legal costs for Warner Brothers. "We will be appealing the disposition of costs," Townley-Smith said. The studio, which still faces a $40-million lawsuit brought by the band, welcomed the recent Ontario court ruling. "We're extremely hopeful that we will continue to prevail in this case," Warner Brothers spokesman Scott Rowe said from Los Angeles. It was not clear when the court would hold a hearing for the lawsuit. Failed injunction bid - In November 2005, The Wyrd Sisters failed in a bid to block the release of the film. The group argued that it had owned the trademark to the name in Canada since 1990 and the release of the movie, which featured a band with the same name portrayed by members of Radiohead and Pulp, would ruin its reputation. The film is based on Scottish author J. K. Rowling's hit book, in which there is a band called the "Weird Sisters" — a term inspired by William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Warner Brothers has said it tried to reach a deal with the folk group to use the name, but the sides were unable to come to an agreement. While some have criticized the group and called the legal battle a publicity stunt, Wyrd Sisters member Kim Baryluk has said the lawsuit was meant to protect their trademark and work as musicians.
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TRADEMARKS - Naming your product, service or company -- Branding is the naming of your product, service or company. A brand name is what the end-user will associate with your product. As such, this name should help communicate the product's positioning for the consumer. Here are some other factors to consider when charting a brand name... Is it memorable? Does it provide for the future growth of your brand? Does it possess a positive connotation - meaning, pronunciation and visualization? Reflects the personality of your product or company? Does it have an intrinsic meaning of its own - not an acronym or set of letters that does not signify anything? Not limited geographically or topically as your market grows? Lends itself to creative development of logo and copy? Does it work with your current marketing materials? Is it legally acceptable and protectable? Does it work well in both colour and Black and White formats? Does it have visual impact on both print, Internet and other media? Start by developing a list of all sorts of possible names. Keep an Internet name search engine handy to instantly check out the dot-com availability of your selected name. Ask as many people as possible for their name suggestions (make it exciting and encourage creativity by offering a reward to the person if their name is selected). Alternatively, you can hire a marketing company to come up with a brand name. Expect to pay upwards of $2,000 and still you should be cautious of the suggested names. The number of name possibilities could reach in the hundreds! As your list develops, use your positioning statement and the parameters that you have developed so far in your marketing plan to weed out the inappropriate ones. Keep repeating the process until you have a short list of about 10 names. Share this list with your most trusted friends, associates and customers to ask for their opinion. Ask for their reasoning behind their selection as well. Consider all of these factors in making your final selection. Finally, do the legal name search on about 3 of the names. At this point the brand of your product or company should become apparent. Creating a brand name is much more than something that just sounds good or your personal preference. Remember, it will be used to position your company to your customers and will play a significant role in the marketing and success of your company. Choose well! source: echannelnews
MUSIC - POP MONTREAL was fired on the collective impulse of friends and colleagues to create a meaningful and vibrant music festival. In three years we have grown to include a bold cross-section of art forms and events, never losing sight of our focused mandate to reflect the community to which we belong. In 2004, the festival ran a sleepless super-saturated 5 nights. Fans, journalists, musicians and industry representatives met in common spaces to experience a whirlwind of the best, most captivating, music and underground culture in North America . In addition to nights packed with music of every tone, colour, and sensibility, we staged events to focus attention on political and social activism, independent film and photography (and as always, unhinged loft parties stretching beyond the wee hours of the morning).Pop Montreal remains firmly entrenched in the ethic and aesthetics of the Montreal music community. We are committed to providing opportunities for independent musicians, promoters and fans to participate in this world class event. Because our initiatives began from grassroots efforts, we remain open to all, willingly engaging all ideas and inspiration. We will not become some compromised showcase for untried bands and their big record execs. We challenge this linear equation. We strive to be provocative and encourage artists to involve themselves in making this happen.In 2005, Pop Montreal continues to search for the greatest and most innovative independent musical talents in Montreal and abroad, with the ultimate aim of bringing them together in a festival that celebrates the intangible and transcendent value of music and art. We do this in an atmosphere that challenges industry norms and promotes social awareness and cultural relevance. We are not concert promoters. We are collaborators, co-organizers, and lovers of music in the purest sense. We want nothing more than to help people bring their art to the world. And finally, we will continue to throw the greatest party in the world! for more info see Pop Montreal
BOOKS - Montreal Review of Books, Issue No. 21, Fall/Winter 2006/07 Call for Titles: The Montreal Review of Books (mRb) is looking for your new publications for our fall/winter issue, which will be on the streets after October26. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, criticism, comics, children's books, etc -we're interested in all kinds of books. To have your fall 2006 titles considered for review, please send eligible books or galleys to the following address: Montreal Review of Books, c/o Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec1200 Atwater, Suite 3, Montreal, Quebec, H3Z 1X4 Telephone 514-932-5633 Fax 514-932-5456
Criteria for eligibility:To be eligible for review, books must be either:* Written in English by a Quebec author; or* Published in English by a Quebec-based publisher; or* Translated into English by a Quebec translator (with prioritygiven to translations of books by Quebec authors);or* Have a Quebec illustrator
Deadline: To be eligible for the mRb's fall/winter 2006/07 issue, books or galleysmust be received no later than August 18, 2006.For more information, please contact Margaret or Ian at (514) 932-5633or aelaq@bellnet.ca.
COPYRIGHT & INTERNET - Whose Video Is It, Anyway? YouTube's runaway success has opened a Pandora's box of copyright issues by Heather Green, BusinessWeek 26july2006 -- When YouTube was sued on July 14 for copyright infringement, the shock wasn't that the video-sharing service was being yanked into court. Questions had been swirling for months about whether the upstart, which now dishes up 100 million daily videos, was crossing copyright boundaries by letting its members upload videos with little oversight. What was surprising was that it was an individual who fired the first shot—Robert Tur, an independent photographer famous for filming the 1992 Los Angeles riots—instead of a big Hollywood studio or major music label. The dustup spotlights the role the Internet increasingly is playing in letting artists and other individuals reach out and control media. But more to the point, it shows how YouTube is evolving into a sort of eBay (EBAY) for video: the first place you go to find a clip, but also a place where more folks are itching to get rewarded for supplying it. A growing group of creative types is furiously producing clips, video blogs, and animated shorts with the hopes of making money through advertising or selling DVDs. While YouTube promises huge distribution, the site and its users are just starting to sort out how to apportion the power they've suddenly acquired. Some indies are becoming wary of YouTube, which doesn't share ad dollars with them, unlike rival services. "The exposure is great, but with all the copyright issues and the lack of potential ad revenues, it seems like something that we're not going to get into right now," says Orrin Zucker, co-creator of It's JerryTime, a popular animated cartoon series that is shown, for now, on the artists' own site. NO CLEAR BOUNDARIES. Tur's lawsuit shows the fine line that YouTube is walking as it attempts to build its business model. Tur is suing because his videos of the riot and other events were uploaded without his permission. Although lawyers agree that YouTube should be protected by copyright law as long as it responds to content owners' requests to take down their works, it entered uncharted territory when it recently began adding ads next to search results. The law prohibits a site from benefiting financially from infringement, but the company argues that it's protected since it doesn't sell ads against individual videos. Still, the courts haven't set clear boundaries. "There has to be some way to make money with advertising that doesn't deprive you of the safe harbor. But where that line is, no one really knows," says Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Major media companies are executing a delicate dance with YouTube. The 17-month-old site now accounts for an astonishing 60% of all videos watched online. NBC and E! Entertainment are working with YouTube to promote select clips. And NBC has set up communications with YouTube to expedite the removal of its copyrighted material. Meantime, the music industry is pairing takedown notices with licensing discussions. Barring success there, however, lawsuits are still a possibility, says a music executive. INSTANT HIT. Indie video producers who don't have a battery of lawyers are learning just how freewheeling YouTube can be. They complain that removing clips is onerous. The time lag whittles into an audience that can rapidly build—and disappear—for short clips. It took eight months for Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz to mastermind a now iconic Web video that shows them creating intricate fountains of soda by dropping 500 Mentos into 100 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke. The video became an instant hit after it was published in June on Revver, a service that shares ad revenue. Within days, bootlegs showed up on Google (GOOG) and YouTube. Voltz, a civil litigation lawyer, figured out the process for getting the videos removed. But as copies kept reappearing, Voltz learned that he had to keep contacting YouTube to take down each new version. The Mentos/Diet Coke video was seen 5.5 million times on Revver and made Grobe and Voltz $30,000. But Voltz estimates they lost another $30,000 to pirated copies. And for several days recently, blogs buzzed with attempts to sort out the rights of artists to control uploaded videos. As the prospect grows for making money online, what started as a lark for many is becoming all too serious.
COPYRIGHT & BOOKS - Charles Dickens’ Campaign for Copyright Laws by Mark Vinet
Novelist Charles Dickens [1812-70] was born in Portsmouth, County Hampshire in Southern England. He was the son of a clerk in the navy pay office and spent his childhood in the Rochester countryside. In 1814 he moved to London, then to Chatham in County Kent, where he received some schooling. Painful childhood memories, notably his father's imprisonment in London’s Marshalsea debtor prison, and his own work in a shoe polish warehouse at age 12 in Southwark, were a formative influence on his writings. In 1827, he worked as a law clerk with a solicitor then took up journalism, becoming a parliamentary reporter, and at age 22 joined a London newspaper. He published various papers in the Monthly Magazine, following this up with sketches and papers for the Evening Chronicle. In 1836 his Sketches by Boz and Pickwick Papers were published; and that year he married Catherine, the daughter of his friend George Hogarth. They had ten children, but were separated in 1858. Dickens worked relentlessly, producing several successful novels which created a gallery of characters including Artful Dodger, Fagin, Bill Sikes, Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Uriah Heep, Little Nell. His works also exposed many of the social evils of Victorian England. The novels first appeared in monthly instalments, notably Oliver Twist (1837-9), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9), and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1). Thereafter a great part of his life was spent abroad. His later novels include David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-3), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1), and the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870). In addition, he gave talks and readings, and wrote many pamphlets, plays, and letters. His novels have provided the basis for many successful stage, film, radio and television adaptations.
In January 1842 Charles Dickens and his wife, Catherine, traveled to Canada and the United States. Dickens, 30 years of age, wanted to see the sites, learn about the continent and do research for a future series of articles. He visited several North American cities including Boston, New York, Toronto, and Montreal. While on tour he was received with enthusiastic ovations but awakened some displeasure by his remarks on copyright protection. Dickens actively campaigned for an international agreement concerning author's copyright. He was very much incensed as American companies, which did not believe it was necessary to pay him any royalties, were pirating his works. Dickens first realized that he was losing income because of the lack of international copyright laws in 1837 when The Pickwick Papers was published in book form. At times the novel was reprinted without his permission and sometimes even imitated. Dickens often spoke of the need for an international copyright agreement. The lack of such an agreement enabled his books to be published in the United States without his permission and without any royalties being paid. Dickens' works were published in America, sometimes simultaneously with the British edition and often with little or no compensation to the author or his publishers due to the lack of an international copyright law. This situation also affected American writers like Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's works were published in England without his consent.
Some of Dickens's struggles with copyright laws made it into his fiction. In this scene from Nicholas Nickleby, Nicholas is speaking to a man "who had dramatised in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels as fast as they had come out--some of them faster than they had come out . . ."
"I was about to say," rejoined Nicholas, "that Shakespeare derived some of his plots from old tales and legends in general circulation; but it seems to me, that some of the gentlemen of your craft, at the present day, have shot very far beyond him … whereas he brought within the magic circle of his genius, traditions peculiarly adapted for his purpose, and turned familiar things into constellations which should enlighten the world for ages, you drag within the magic circle of your dulness, subjects not at all adapted to the purposes of the stage, and debase as he exalted. For instance, you take the uncompleted books of living authors, fresh from their hands, wet from the press, cut, hack, and carve them to the powers and capacities of your actors, and the capability of your theatres, finish unfinished works, hastily and crudely vamp up ideas not yet worked out by their original projector, but which have doubtless cost him many thoughtful days and sleepless nights; by a comparison of incidents and dialogue, down to the very last word he may have written a fortnight before, do your utmost to anticipate his plot--all this without his permission, and against his will; and then, to crown the whole proceeding, publish in some mean pamphlet, an unmeaning farrago of garbled extracts from his work, to which your name as author, with the honourable distinction annexed, of having perpetrated a hundred other outrages of the same description. Now, show me the distinction between such pilfering as this, and picking a man's pocket in the street: unless, indeed, it be, that the legislature has a regard for pocket-handkerchiefs, and leaves men's brains, except when they are knocked out by violence, to take care of themselves." - Nicholas Nickleby
In the end, Charles Dickens campaigned unsuccessfully for international copyright during his lifetime - an English-American copyright law would not be enacted until 1891, two decades after his death. In 1896 the American Congress joined the international copyright union, after petitions directed at it by several British novelists including Dickens, beginning in 1837. Their pleas had fallen on deaf ears in the American government until joined by those of American authors such as Mark Twain, who complained that he was fed up with publishers' ignoring American works in favour of those of English writers, whose books could be re-printed more cheaply because there were no royalty costs. A further point of frustration for Twain was Canadian piracies of his works, which he attempted to prevent by establishing temporary residence in Canada on the date of publication of each of his works. The absence of international copyright laws allowed Canadian publishers to exploit Mark Twain's early books. He was exasperated in 1876, when the Toronto publisher Charles Belford issued Tom Sawyer before the American edition even appeared. To combat this problem, Mark Twain spent several weeks in Montreal in November-December 1881 with James R. Osgood to meet a residency requirement to protect his copyright for The Prince and the Pauper.
Bibliography and Sources:
Charles Dickens: The Novels by David A. Perdue, 1997-2006.Charles Dickens Gad's Hill Place: Struggles for Copyright Laws, Perry Internet Consulting, 2006.
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Penguin Classics, 1999.
American Notes For General Circulation by Charles Dickens (1842 trip to North America), Kessinger Pub. 2004.
"Histrionic Montreal" written by Franklin Graham, 1902, Lovell & Son, Publishers.
BootsnAll Travel: The Ultimate Resource For the Independent Traveller by N.Goldman, 2006.
Dickens's 1842 Reading Tour: Launching the Copyright Question in Tempestuous Seas
Dickens's 1867-68 Reading Tour: Re-Opening the Copyright Question
Andrew J. Kappel and Robert L. Patten, "Dickens' Second American Reading Tour and His 'Utterly Worthless and Profitless' American Rights." Dickens Studies Annual7 (1978): 1-33.
S.N.Smith, International Copyright Law & The Publisher in the Reign of Queen Victoria. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.
Juliet O'Neill, "Famous Authors Fought for Law Now Being Used as Trade Battle Fodder." Victoria Times-Colonist (rpt. Canadian Press) 16 June 1986.
Pearson, Hesketh. Dickens. London: Cassell, 1949.
Rasmussen, R. Kent. Mark Twain A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Writings. NY: Facts on File, 1995.
Arts and Entertainment Biographies: Charles Dickens, 1996.
Canadian Theatre Encyclopaedia, Association for Canadian Theatre Research, 2006.
MUSIC & COPYRIGHT - SOCAN's quarterly electronic member newsletter, The Right Note, covers such topics as member benefits, private copying, international royalties, upcoming industry events, helpful "how-to" subjects, and Copyright Board of Canada decisions that affect your royalties. We hope you find this publication informative. Copyright – The Basics: Copyright, literally "the right to copy," is a legal concept that was first introduced in Britain under the 1709 Statute of Anne. Today, the concept is honoured and upheld throughout the developed world and in many developing countries, providing protection and the right to economic remuneration for creators, and access to creative material for users. Copyright is the basic principle that determines who is the first owner of all rights in original musical, literary, dramatic and artistic works, and is set out in Canada under the terms of the Copyright Act. The copyright owner is the only party allowed to produce or reproduce the work in question or to authorize others to do so. Copyright in a musical work (generally residing with the creator) is distinct from copyright in a recording of that musical work (generally residing with the producer of the recording, such as a record company). Read the rest of SOCAN's new copyright brochure.
FILM, TV & MERCHANDISING - And Now, a (Scripted) Word From Our Sponsors: Film, TV Dialogue Puts Product Endorsement In a Troubling Place: Characters' Mouths by Bridget Byrne Washington Post July 21, 2006 -- It's always been there, but it used to know its place. Now it's running riot, out loud. Product placement, or, as the marketing industry likes to call it, "brand integration", has made the leap from props to the mouths of actors in movies and on television. And it's at the point now, says Alan Rosenberg, president of the Screen Actors Guild, that some actors are being asked to speak lines that are essentially commercials, ones you can't TiVo through. "Whereas they used to place product in a fairly innocuous way, they are actually giving actors dialogue extolling the virtues of these products," Rosenberg says. SAG, in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America -- whose members are finding their dialogue can be usurped by the jingles of the ad world -- have been seeking to discuss these issues with the advertising industry, the networks, studios and producers. This past spring, SAG's magazine ran an article headlined "Forced Endorsement: Are you acting . . . or an accessory to advertising?," which proposed guidelines for future contract negotiations and invited members to report examples of inappropriate shilling. In a world obsessed with logos and status, it's only natural that brand names turn up in movies and television. In response to complaints, the Federal Communications Commission is calling for more hard-and-fast rules about disclosure. That might eventually affect the seamless integration of show and product. But for now, the bigger problem with dialogue endorsement may be that it usually isn't seamless enough. For example, Sony Pictures made a deal with the NBC show "Medium" last season and the result was hardly subtle: Main characters Allison and Joe discuss going to see "Memoirs of a Geisha," walk by a poster for the movie and then run into acquaintances who enthuse, "Oh, we just saw that, you'll love it!" Cut to a commercial for: "Memoirs." They used to do it better. In Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954 thriller "Rear Window," when Jimmy Stewart queries Grace Kelly about whether she's brought a suitcase for her overnight stay, she replies: "A Mark Cross overnight case, anyway. Compact but ample enough." Her beauty and the sight of her glorious nightgown and satin slippers spilling out when she snaps the little case open no doubt sent legions of young women hunting for a similar carryall. So why do we worry about similar stuff today? "It's distracting," regular moviegoer Thom Shelden says of the practice in the current summer films he's seen, among them Adam Sandler's "Click," much of which is set in Bed Bath & Beyond. "They are doing it so much," he says. "It's everything, everywhere." Sandler's Happy Madison Productions has long filled its comedies about the crassness and commercialism of modern life with overt product placement, and the fact that Sandler is both producer and star means he's clearly not being forced. But other actors may feel strong-armed, and that's what concerns Rosenberg. "Our members are really being given a triple whammy," he says, noting that ad dialogue can take work away from commercial actors, might be a conflict of interest for an actor who is a spokesperson for another product, and doesn't compensate the actor involved. It's not just about money; it's also raising ethical questions. Rosenberg predicts that product placement eventually may involve political or religious thought and worries that "when at the last minute you're given something that is anathema to you . . . you've got to have the right to say, 'Yeah, I'll do that,' or 'No.' " Traylor Howard of the cable series "Monk," who plays the detective's assistant, notes, "We do it here. It's a pain." She cites the use of a bleach product that none of the actors wanted to be associated with, because it seemed inappropriate to character and story line. A seasoned commercial actress, she recalls she eventually said, "I'll do it. I'll figure a way to make it seem normal." Another example was a car placement that "didn't fit the script . . . but we ended up making it work. . . . But sometimes you just can't do it." She says, "Hopefully it pays the bills for the show, but I don't know. I try not to worry about it, but sometimes it's really annoying." The companies seeking brand integration stress they are sensitive to what seems appropriate. Volvo knew it couldn't get a car into a story that predates autos, so instead created a global multimedia treasure hunt for its sport-utility as a promotional tie-in to Disney's adventure film "Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." But many other recent movies, including "The Da Vinci Code," have featured the company's car on-screen. Dialogue isn't demanded, but clients are happy to hear it, if it's apt. "If it fits into the story line," says Roger Ormisher, Volvo's vice president of public affairs. "There's always the quip, you know, 'Oh, it feels as safe as a Volvo,' or something. It's fine, because it's reality. That's not cheating. But we've never in any product placement asked for a specific name check. If the director, the producer or the writer feels they can roll a joke off the back of it, that's okay." Linda Swick, president of the North Hollywood company International Promotions, which secures "brand integration" for companies such as Volvo, Corona and Heinz, points to dialogue in films that showed up even though no such demands were made. In last year's "Four Brothers," Tyrese Gibson referred to Volvo as "one of the safest cars," and in the original "The Fast and the Furious" Vin Diesel said, "You can have any brew you want -- as long as it's a Corona." "The audience laughed," she says, "and there you go: That's a perfect integration because whenever there's humor behind the integration there's also much more recall value. So there is a way of doing it." Swick sees problems only if there is audience backlash to a movie coming over like one big commercial. She believes the writers and actors should have confidence that the "director is not going to do anything in his film that is going to interfere with its integrity." She adds that branding integration "may be evolving and going through many changes, but it will continue because it's life. It's life!" For now, Rosenberg is looking for compromise on the issue: "If you consult with writers and actors, we will find a way to help you do it seamlessly so it doesn't infringe upon the art," he says. "But to just foist it upon us is wrong, and now they don't even want to compensate us for selling ourselves out like they normally do when we sell ourselves out!"
TRADEMARK & INTERNET -- easyGroup wins easy.com fight with Easynet by Jo Best, Law&Policy 20jul2006 -- URL-hungry easyGroup has won the right to trademark its easy.com domain name after a legal tussle with Sky's ISP arm Easynet. Easynet had appealed a decision by the Trade Mark Registry to grant the easy.com trademark to easyGroup but lost its case in the High Court after the judge ruled the URL was sufficiently distinctive to merit its own trademark. Easynet was obliged to pay both sides' costs for the case. The pair had earlier faced off over another trademark, easyTelecom, with the ISP challenging easyGroup's right to trademark the name. Easynet dropped its suit before the case came to court, however, and easyGroup now owns both the .co.uk and dot-com URLs for easyTelecom. easyGroup has a long history of litigation over domain names, often confronting companies using an easy-prefixed URL with legal action, claiming the rivals were 'passing off' as part of the easyGroup. Among the companies that have had calls from Stelios' lawyers are Easyart, Easybroker, EasyPizza and EIBS, which owns the Easysite content management system. All suits came to naught and the companies have retained their names and respective URLs. easyGroup has itself been on the receiving end of a lawsuit related to branding, France Telecom-owned Orange contesting the use of the colour orange last year.
VIDEO GAMES - Sony patent stirs worry over next PlayStation: Many fear harsh copy protections by Los Angeles Times July 18, 2006 -- Sony Corp. has patented technology that would prevent its PlayStation consoles from playing used, rented or borrowed video games - raising questions about whether the electronics and entertainment giant may attempt to redefine what it means to own something in the digital age. Speculation over Sony's plans for the technology have sparked a furor online as game fans and consumer advocates fret that the company may incorporate it into the PlayStation 3 console due out this fall. They worry that it would wipe out the $1 billion annual market for used games and could prevent someone from playing their games at a friend's house. For its part, Sony has decried the "false speculation" about the technology, patented in Japan before the October 2000 introduction of PlayStation 2. Sony has said little else about the technology or how the company might deploy it. It is not unusual for technology companies to patent innovations and then never incorporate them into products. Documents filed in April 2000 with the U.S. Patent Office describe a method of copy protection by which the game system would verify a disc as legitimate, register the disc to that particular game console, then wipe out verification data so the disc would be rendered unreadable in other PlayStations. "Since only titles for which legitimate software has actually been purchased and which have been initially registered in the machine table can be used, resale (so-called used software purchase) after purchase by an end user becomes practically impossible," according to the patent documents. Although Sony has been vague about its plans for the technology, "I actually think they're toying with this idea," said Michael Pachter, a game industry analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities. Pachter doubts Sony will tighten the software locks on PlayStation 3 games, but might employ bolstered copy protection on other forms of entertainment downloaded to the console over the Internet. "Maybe they'll copy protect movies or music downloads," he said. Whatever Sony's plans, the tempest illustrates the changing nature of ownership as millions of people accumulate vast collections of digital entertainment. Buying a license Few people realize that when they buy software, music or movies, they are actually buying a license to use, watch or listen. That's why it violates copyright laws for people to sell copies of their music collection. Sony was attacked earlier this year for including software on some of its music CDs that surreptitiously installed itself on computers playing the disc. The software was intended to prevent unauthorized copying. Sony later apologized. Taking that sort of copy protection one step further would be, in the words of one analyst, "crazy." "What does Sony get from that?" said John Taylor of Arcadia Investment Corp. "Sony gets a black eye. It doesn't make sense to me." Several analysts said the patent appears to principally be aimed at deterring game piracy. Sony's patent notes that through the complexity of its copy-protection scheme "manufacture of counterfeit software becomes extremely difficult." And it's not unusual for technology companies such as Sony to register patents, either in anticipation of one day collecting royalties from someone seeking to license the technology, or to prevent someone else from using it. "These are all things technologically possible to do in any computing device," said one cryptographer, who requested anonymity. "In the video game business, it would be suicide for someone to do this. It's actually possible Sony filed this because they wanted to keep people from doing that." Persistent online speculation that Sony would use technological or other means to ban sale of used PlayStation 3 video games prompted one analyst, Paul-Jon McNealy, of American Technology Research, to study its potential effect on the industry. "While we believe it is unlikely that SNE will ban PS3 pre-owned games from being sold by the same chains that sell new PS3 games, we believe this issue remains under consideration," McNealy wrote in a research note June 23. McNealy estimated that game fans spent about $990 million buying used games, primarily from GameStop or through eBay. Much of that spending - about $620 million - is for used PlayStation 2 games. Were Sony to ban sale of used games for its next-generation PS3, McNealy concluded the effect on independent video game publishers would be negligible. Used-game sales are a growing source of irritation for game publishers, who receive no proceeds from the resale of games. Executives privately complain that cheaper secondhand games are available for sale shortly after a new game's release. And game publishers, who give retailers marketing money to promote games, end up competing with discounted versions of their titles. Major independent game publishers Electronic Arts Inc., Activision Inc. and THQ Inc. declined to comment. Used games lucrative Used games are a lucrative source of revenue for No. 1 game retailer GameStop, which began reporting pre-owned game sales for the first time after its acquisition of competitor EB. Last year, secondhand game sales accounted for $930 million in revenue and $418 million in profit. The profit margin was 45 percent, compared with 21 percent for new games, according to Arcadia Investment. Analysts say used-game sales contribute to the overall growth of the video-game market, in the same way that the ability to trade in a used vehicle fuels the new-car market. "A used-car market creates currency to buy new cars. Same with games. Everybody acknowledges that," said Pachter, the analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities. "The problem is if the used game is available a week after the new game is out for a $5 discount," he said.
FILM & COPYRIGHT - Copyright lawsuit over Pirates of the Caribbean by Associated Press Los Angeles, July 15, 2006 -- A screenwriter has filed a lawsuit claiming Walt Disney Co and others behind the 2003 blockbuster movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl pillaged drawings and characters he had created for an earlier project about supernatural swashbucklers. Royce Mathew filed the copyright infringement suit in US District Court in Los Angeles on July 7 against Disney, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Jerry Bruckheimer Inc and other defendants. Mathew alleged that beginning in the 1980s, he "created and wrote a number of original works including drawings, screenplays, outlines, blueprints, storyboards and other original materials" for what he termed a "Super Natural Pirate Movie." Material filed with the US Copyright Office included drawings depicting a pirate ship named the Black Pearl, the suit claimed, adding the material was also pitched in Hollywood. Disney denied the allegations. "The suit has no merit," Heidi Trotta, a representative for Disney and Buena Vista studios, said without elaboration. Bruckheimer's publicist Paul Bloch had no comment, referring calls to Disney. The film raked in $305 million domestically at the box office. The sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, earned a record $135.6 million in its opening weekend beginning July 7. Mathew is seeking unspecified damages, and a permanent injunction against the movie or "other infringing works," according to the lawsuit.
MUSIC - Sony BMG deal approval voided; EMI-Warner in doubt by Jeffrey Goldfarb & Michele Sinner July 13, 2006 LONDON/LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - A European court has annulled the European Union's approval of a 2004 merger between Sony Music and BMG in a surprise decision that could force the world's second-biggest music company to be unwound. The unprecedented ruling by the European Court of First Instance on Thursday also cast doubt on the viability of combining EMI Group and Warner Music, which are engaged in a duel to buy each other. The European Commission said it would have to re-examine the merger that created Sony BMG, a 50-50 joint venture between Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. and German media group Bertelsmann AG. It can also appeal the ruling. The decision means Sony Music and BMG, home to such artists as Bruce Springsteen and Kelly Clarkson, would have to submit its merger plan again to the EC, which would then revisit it taking into account updated industry information. "If we were to give a red light, then the joint venture would have to be reversed," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said. The court, in its first rejection of an EU decision, said too cursory an examination was conducted into whether there was already collective market dominance in the music industry and whether that dominance might grow following the Sony BMG deal. "If new evidence or new submissions were to be involved, which they should be to take into account current market conditions, this process could be time consuming -- even without any appeal to the European Court of Justice," said Ben Challis, a music attorney. "So unless the two companies unbundle themselves, it's a waiting game for either the appeal or the new decision." Meanwhile, EMI's shares tumbled 8.2 percent to 281 pence at 1026 GMT, giving back roughly half the gains accumulated since news of a possible deal with Warner first surfaced in mid-April. "The share price is telling you that the deal's off, basically," said one fund manager, who asked not to be named. "The chances of any EMI-Warner deal going through, in percentage terms, are probably less than 20 percent." People close to the deal told Reuters that talks between the two companies were likely to be suspended because of the ruling. EMI and Warner, the world's third- and fourth-largest music companies, respectively, have each offered about $4.6 billion to buy the other, with both bids rejected. "It greatly reduces the possibility of EMI-Warner happening in the short term," Credit Suisse analyst Simon Baker said. "It seems to pile on regulatory risk for EMI and Warner, especially at a time when there was an increasing number of people that would have been backing the inevitability of this deal." London-based EMI said the decision would require detailed study before any conclusions could be reached, while New York-based Warner could not immediately be reached. The case against the creation of Sony BMG was brought by independent record companies, represented by trade group Impala, which claimed that shrinking the industry from five major players to four put too much market power in too few hands. "This shows that small- and medium-sized companies can attack conglomerates and the Brussels technocracy," Impala President Michel Lambot told Reuters in an interview. He said the independent sector could accept a Sony BMG merger if it included conditions that ensured a level playing field for radio advertising, manufacturing, distribution and other costs. Bertelsmann said: "Today's judgment does not affect the validity of the Sony BMG joint venture, which has been up and running since August 2004." It added that it would study the ruling and discuss the next steps with the EC. Sony also said it would carefully examine the decision. Along with Vivendi's Universal Music, the world's largest music company, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner account for about three of every four CDs sold globally.
BOOKS - The Independent Book Publishers Association (PMA) is a trade association of independent publishers. Founded in 1983, it serves book, audio, and video publishers located in the United States and around the world. Its mission is to advance the professional interests of independent publishers. To this end, PMA provides cooperative marketing programs, education and advocacy within the publishing industry. PMA's membership of more than 4,000 publishers continues to grow. It is governed by a voluntary board of directors that meets regularly to discuss and plan the association's business. PMA is the largest non-profit trade association representing independent publishers.
TRADEMARK - Smiley Face Is Serious to Company 06july2006 New York Times - In the battle of the smiley face, it's not just who smiled first that counts, but also where and how. Frown-inducing accusations have been flying in a trademark dispute between Wal-Mart Stores and a company owned by a French family over American commercial rights to the ubiquitous yellow symbol for happiness. Both parties say they expect victory when the United States Patent and Trademark Office rules on the case this summer. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, says the yellow face has long personified its price-reducing policy, while SmileyWorld, the London-based company that first registered rights to the symbol decades ago, says its globally established business stands at risk. "A prehistoric man probably invented the smiley face in some cave, but I certainly was the first to register it as a trademark," said Franklin Loufrani, 63, who says he initially registered the design with the French trademark authorities in October 1971. "When it comes to commercial use, registration is what counts." Unlike most countries in Europe and Asia, however, the United States operates under a system in which being the first to register a trademark bears less weight than being the first to exploit a symbol commercially, said Burkhart Goebel, the global head of the intellectual property practice at the law firm Lovells. "We may live in the era of globalization, but trademarks are still rooted in territoriality," Mr. Goebel said. "A trademark filed in one country has almost no impact in another." Marc E. Ackerman, a New York-based partner at the White & Case law firm and a specialist in United States trademark law, said, "Here in the U.S., we consider how heavily a trademark is used, and that would give SmileyWorld a big uphill battle." The most widely credited claim for inventing the smiley face goes to Harvey R. Ball, for the smiley yellow button he made for the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of America, a Massachusetts-based company, in 1963. Mr. Ball, a graphic artist, was paid $45 for creating a button intended to cheer employees during a rocky merger with an out-of-town company, according to his 2001 obituary in The Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts. Although irked by reports that Mr. Loufrani claimed to invent the smiley, Mr. Ball never attempted to trademark the symbol or commercially exploit it. Mr. Loufrani, however, built a business from royalties collected on a symbol he claimed to have trademarked in 98 countries, for use over a wide range of product categories. He makes no monetary claim over the :-) sent in e-mail messages ("That's just punctuation"). But Mr. Loufrani said SmileyWorld did win a case last June against the use of a smiley face on the home page of AOL France. The battle with Wal-Mart was touched off when SmileyWorld filed for a United States trademark in 1997 for the exclusive right to commercial use and licensing of the term "smiley" in conjunction with the face logo. SmileyWorld's original application, which tried to trademark the smiley face itself, was rejected by the Patent and Trademark Office because of the design's common widespread use, according to the company's lawyer, Steven Baron. To Wal-Mart, which has photographs of smiley faces in its stores dating back to 1996, Mr. Loufrani is a trademark troll registering the symbol in as many product categories as possible. "They are applying for rights over the smiley face in product categories that include animal semen," John Simley, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said. "It shows they are trying to trademark everything they possibly can." Wal-Mart lodged a notice of opposition to SmileyWorld's trademark application and then filed a separate application to trademark the smiley face in relation to retail services. In response, SmileyWorld filed a notice of opposition to Wal-Mart's application on the grounds that its own attempt to trademark the face had been rejected. To overcome objections that the smiley face is within the public domain, Wal-Mart asserts a long history of "prior use" in retail services, Mr. Simley said. That a happy face can cause such rancor should be no surprise, said Tom Blackett, the group deputy chairman of Interbrand, a branding consulting firm based in London. "This dispute shows how much value companies put in symbols," Mr. Blackett said. "In the era of distinctive trademarks like the Nike swoosh, companies will go a long way to defend their perceived territory." With legal fees topping half a million dollars, the Wal-Mart dispute is the most costly ever faced by SmileyWorld, said Mr. Loufrani's son, Nicolas, 35, who now runs the company. In addition to the case against AOL France, SmileyWorld was awarded 2,500 euros, or $3,125, this March in a case in a French court against the French retailer Pier Import for sales of balls and balloons with a smiley face. While the company deals with about half a dozen infringement cases around the world at any one time, most involve sending simple cease-and-desist letters to those selling unlicensed smiley faces, Nicolas Loufrani said. To protect its licensees from infringement, the company occasionally hires consultants to scour Hong Kong trade fairs and the European gateway port of Rotterdam for illicit trademarking, he added. The Loufranis date their association with the smiley face to 1971, when Franklin Loufrani headed a campaign by a newspaper to combat French moroseness. "The owner of France Soir newspaper wanted to show French people that there was good news," said Franklin Loufrani, a former journalist who was then working as a freelance business consultant at the paper. "So I came up with the idea of putting a smiley face next to happier stories." Several months before the campaign began, Mr. Loufrani registered his hand-drawn version of the smiley face at the French trademark office. The campaign, which started with a smiley face in the "o" of France Soir, was more infectious than a smile, Mr. Loufrani said. Newspapers outside France joined in, then manufacturers from across Europe started getting in touch to license the image. Within two years, Mr. Loufrani licensed smiley-face jeans to Levi Strauss; Mars printed the faces on Bonitos as M&M's were then called in Europe and the German company Agfa sold film with smiley-face packaging licensed from Mr. Loufrani. "I hit the casino jackpot," Mr. Loufrani said. "I could never have imagined it would take off like this." In 1997, Mr. Loufrani decided to hand the smiley to Nicolas, who was 26 at the time. Since taking over, the younger Loufrani has consolidated SmileyWorld's licensees down to 40 from 400, while total sales of products with a SmileyWorld license has stayed at roughly $100 million a year. Licensees pay royalties that can range as high as 10 percent of the item's retail value, Nicolas Loufrani said. He declined to disclose earnings or revenue of the private company. Large-scale licensees within the last year include the Bic pen company in France and 7-Eleven stores in Asia, he said. Nicolas Loufrani also began the effort in the United States to assert the company's trademark that led to the showdown with Wal-Mart. He said he now intended to inject new vigor into a face formerly associated with the 1970's and acid-rock music by linking the smiley face to high-end products sold in a series of exclusive smiley shops in Paris, Los Angeles and New York opening within the next two years. The merchandising model to which he aspires is the Hello Kitty franchise, which along with other brands earned 7.6 billion yen, or $65 million, in the financial year that ended in March for the Japanese company Sanrio. "Unlike Hello Kitty, we have a clear mission," Nicolas Loufrani said. "Smiley is the brand of happiness." That happiness could be curtailed should Wal-Mart succeed. The retailer warned that its action in the United States was the first step to defend and register its right to use the smiley face around the world. "We don't want to be precluded from using the smiley face anywhere we do business," Mr. Simley, the Wal-Mart spokesman, said. "We feel an obligation to defend the smiley face." For his part, Nicolas Loufrani said that if SmileyWorld won, he would not license the face back to Wal-Mart. "We want to aim our brand more upmarket."
SACD - SOCIÉTÉ DES AUTEURS COMPOSITEURS DRAMATIQUES - Ni syndicat, ni entreprise commerciale, ni société subventionnée par des fonds publics, la SACD est une société francophone internationale qui a été chargée par ses membres, dramaturges, scénaristes, compositeurs, réalisateurs/trices, chorégraphes, metteurs en scène, de négocier, percevoir et répartir leurs redevances. Le répertoire de la SACD se compose d’oeuvres scéniques (pièces, ballets, opéras, opérettes, revues, comédies musicales, mimes, sketches), d’oeuvres télévisuelles (séries, feuilletons, dessins animés), d’oeuvres cinématographiques (courts et longs métrages) et d’oeuvres radiophoniques. Fondée par Beaumarchais en 1777, la SACD compte aujourd’hui plus de 42 000 auteurs dont 900 auteurs canadiens et se consacre à la défense des intérêts matériels et moraux de la profession tout entière. La SACD autorise les radiodiffuseurs à diffuser les oeuvres de son répertoire, en contrepartie du versement de redevances qui sont ensuite réparties en fonction des barèmes établis. C'est ce qu'on appelle la gestion collective qui assure aux auteurs — et à leurs héritiers — d'être liés à la durée de vie économique de leurs oeuvres. La SACD est avant tout une société de gestion collective qui a pour mission de percevoir et répartir les droits perçus auprès des utilisateurs de son répertoire. Au Canada, les auteurs scénaristes et réalisateurs/trices bénéficient d’un système composite : leurs conditions d’engagement et de travail sont régies par les conventions collectives négociées par les syndicats dont ils sont membres et l’exploitation télévisuelle de leurs oeuvres est régie par les licences négociées par la SACD notamment avec les radiodiffuseurs conventionnels et spécialisés. En adhérant, l’auteur fait apport à la SACD de son droit d’autoriser/d’interdire la communication au public par télécommunication et la reproduction par tous procédés de ses oeuvres. C’est sur la base de cet apport que la SACD peut alors négocier des licences avec les radiodiffuseurs et des ententes notamment pour la retransmission par câble des oeuvres de son répertoire. Pour que la SACD enregistre une oeuvre à son répertoire, l’auteur (scénariste ou réalisateur/trice) doit avoir signé un contrat qui permette à la société d’exercer ses droits auprès des radiodiffuseurs et qui comporte la clause SACD. À ce jour, la SACD a négocié des licences avec Radio-Canada, Télé-Québec, Télévision Quatre Saisons, TVA, Vrak.TV, Canal D, Super Écran, Canal Vie, Séries +, Historia, Canal Z, ARTV, Musimax et Teletoon. Elle perçoit également des redevances au titre de la retransmission par câble des oeuvres de son répertoire, en application d’une entente intervenue avec la société de perception Canadian retransmission collective (CRC). En Europe, la SACD a conclu des ententes avec plus de 25 chaînes de télévision européennes (conventionnelles, spécialisées, câblées, satellites). Quant aux pays et à l’exploitation en salle non couverts par la SACD, c’est le producteur qui est responsable de la rémunération due à l’auteur, aux conditions établies par le contrat signé. La SACD répartit aussi à ses membres, les redevances perçues au titre de la copie privée auprès des fabricants et des importateurs de cassettes de plusieurs pays européens. Le secteur audiovisuel est géré collectivement et assure aux auteurs et à leurs héritiers d’être liés à la durée de vie économique de leurs oeuvres. Dans le secteur de la représentation scénique, la SACD ne se substitue pas à ses membres; elle n’a aucun pouvoir pour autoriser ou interdire la représentation de leurs oeuvres et ne peut, dans tous les cas, agir qu’en fonction de leur décision. L’auteur conserve donc la faculté d’autoriser ou d’interdire chaque représentation de son oeuvre. Pour les auteurs d’oeuvres à caractère documentaire, les mêmes services sont offerts par la SOCIÉTÉ CIVILE DES AUTEURS MULTIMÉDIA (SCAM - Canada).
MUSIC & FILM & TRADEMARK - Wyrd Sisters continue Harry Potter legal battle with film studio 04Jul2006 CP -- The Winnipeg folk group The Wyrd Sisters plans to continue its battle against the movie studio behind the Harry Potter films despite another legal setback, a lawyer says. The group has been fighting the movie studio Warner Brothers since late 2005 over a scene in the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that depicts a band of the same name. The group's lawyer, Kimberly Townley-Smith, said Monday that The Wyrd Sisters plan to appeal last week's Ontario Supreme Court ruling that ordered them to pay $140,000 in legal costs for Warner Brothers. "We will be appealing the disposition of costs," Townley-Smith said. The studio, which still faces a $40-million lawsuit brought by the band, welcomed the recent Ontario court ruling. "We're extremely hopeful that we will continue to prevail in this case," Warner Brothers spokesman Scott Rowe said from Los Angeles. It was not clear when the court would hold a hearing for the lawsuit. Failed injunction bid - In November 2005, The Wyrd Sisters failed in a bid to block the release of the film. The group argued that it had owned the trademark to the name in Canada since 1990 and the release of the movie, which featured a band with the same name portrayed by members of Radiohead and Pulp, would ruin its reputation. The film is based on Scottish author J. K. Rowling's hit book, in which there is a band called the "Weird Sisters" — a term inspired by William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Warner Brothers has said it tried to reach a deal with the folk group to use the name, but the sides were unable to come to an agreement. While some have criticized the group and called the legal battle a publicity stunt, Wyrd Sisters member Kim Baryluk has said the lawsuit was meant to protect their trademark and work as musicians.
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