Music Industry 2012 Legal Issues

2012 has seen several legal issues in the music industry; this post covers three in particular. First in the aftermath of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) the large copyright holders in the industry like Universal Media Group and Disney have sought other methods on stopping illegal downloads. These companies, the US Government and industry agencies have engage a software company called MarkMonitor to scan peer to peer sites and record offending user internet addresses then engage volunteering ISPs to send warning and education on theft of intellectual property (IP). This plan also includes service disruptions or slowdowns for repeat offenders. A Wired Magazine article explains the six steps of this plan to discourage the user from downloading copyrighted material. It is my opinion that these measures do put undo burden on the end user through a 35-dollar fee to dispute any claim that MarkMonitor has identified your behavior as illegal. Also I have not seen provisions to protect the work of independent artists and labels. My assumption at this point is that registering works to be monitor would require a fee to MarkMonitor and thus be cost prohibitive to a small artist or label. After this is implemented I will also watch for potential legal issues of consumer privacy rights.

Another issue that has developed this year has been a trend of law suites where the artists are suing their labels over digital royalties. As a label this is a concern, as we do not want to be in a position of conflict over royalties with our own artists. Lee Simmons in his article for Hoovers.com identifies that this recent rise in legal cases as a product of new technology and regulations and the artists need to voice their position on how these profits should be divided. As a label open dialog with the artist roster is important and standards that are fair should be agreed upon. These court cases in particular will be on the rise as revenue streams have shifted to technologies companies leaving less of the profit share for label and artist.

Finally another legal issue to keep tabs on is the dispute of whether streaming videos illegal. Stephanie Rabiner writes about the subject in her article titled: Is Streaming or Watching Movies Illegal? While posting an unauthorized copy of a movie is illegal as is downloading (copying to local hard drive), there is a legal grey area being disputed about streaming the content as no copy is made in totality. This does not make copyright holders happy and we can expect more cases until the issue is resolved.

References

Kravets, David (October, 2012). Copyright Scofflaws Beware: ISPs to Begin Monitoring Illicit File Sharing. Wired Magazine. Retrieved from: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/10/isp-file-sharing-monitoring/

Rabiner, Stephanie (April 23, 2012). Is Streaming or Watching Movies Illegal? Findlaw.com. Retrieved from: http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2012/04/is-streaming-or-watching-movies-illegal.html

Simmons, Lee (May 1, 2012). Music royalty litigation heats up. Hoovers.com. Retrieved from: http://bizmology.hoovers.com/2012/05/01/music-royalty-litigation-heats-up/