A nearly 20-year legal battle over the unauthorized sampling of a Kraftwerk song appears to finally be at an end after the European Court of Justice ruled in favor of the pioneering German group. The long-running case carries potentially large ramifications around the use and licensing of samples in the wider music industry.
Source: European Court Rules In Favor Of Kraftwerk In 20 Year-Long Copyright Dispute
Artrendex’s ArtPI is a new interface or API driven by artificial intelligence that’s poised to transform the way art gets discovered, displayed, and sold. It promises to transform art discovery the way Shazam transformed music discovery. It detects features and patterns using overarching visual style characteristics based in art theory and history.
Source: Artrendex’s ArtPI Uses Artificial Intelligence to Revolutionize Art Discovery | Analytics Insight
STIM and GEMA’s joint licensing venture hub, ICE, has confirmed a new Pan European working group aims to fix digital royalty problems for songwriters. As songwriter royalty payouts remain complicated, the working group agrees on best practice operational processes for – and technical aspects of – multi-territory online music services.
Source: Pan European Collecting Societies Agree on Standards for Digital Royalty Processes
Artificial intelligence is now moving beyond technical and mundane tasks and entering the world of art. Big questions concerning the nature of talent, genius and inspiration still remain unanswered – and the same applies to the dispute of what makes music human. While we witness AI penetrating the art of composing, writing songs, and signing contracts with labels, its role remains undefined.
Source: AI in the music industry is nothing to be scared of – it’s a step towards an exciting new future.
The very concept of copyright and permission is antithetical to social platforms where memes routinely incorporate copyright content and sharing of copyrighted material is done without any consideration for rights or permissions. When it comes to citizen-produced imagery and video, model releases and even verbal permission are almost non-existent.
Source: Social Media Has Normalized The Idea Of Sharing Without Consent
UltraViolet, Hollywood’s original attempt at a cross-platform digital movie locker service, is shutting down this week on July 31st. If you’ve redeemed your fair share of codes that came with Blu-rays or DVDs through the years, you’ll definitely want to make sure you’ve linked your UltraViolet collection to another retailer so you can continue accessing and streaming those titles after the service goes offline.
Source: Reminder: UltraViolet shuts down July 31st, so safeguard your digital movies now
Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of the CASE Act, a new bill that proposes to institute a small claims court for copyright disputes. As the bill moves to the Senate, tensions are rising between supporters and opponents, with familiar names, trying to rally support for their positions. Some see it as the ideal tool for rightsholders to protect their works, while others see it as a copyright-trolling threat.
Source: Tensions Rise as Copyright “Small Claims” Bill Moves Forward – TorrentFreak
The SEC has issued a no-action letter to Pocketful of Quarters (PoQ), a gaming startup looking to issue tokens on ethereum. PoQ may legally sell its Quarters tokens to consumers without registering them as securities, the SEC Division of Corporation Finance wrote.
Source: In First, SEC Clears Blockchain Gaming Startup to Sell Ethereum Tokens – CoinDesk
Within Beggars Group’s latest annual accounts, filed this week on UK Companies House, the firm explains: “During the year we received the proceeds of the sale of our shares in Spotify. We believe that our artists should share equally in that windfall.”
Source: Beggars Group paid artists 44% of its Spotify share money; indie’s own revenues hit $100m in 2018