Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Luc Jacquet (“March of the Penguins”) and producer Sophokles Tasioulis (“Deep Blue,” “Earth”) are partnering to launch Icebreaker, a new production company that uses blockchain technology to create innovative ways to produce and finance films.
featured
Intellectual property assets: Breaking the ice for blockchain-based economic networks
IP assets are digital-first products. Weightless, easy-to-copy files are quite ideal to store and distribute over a network, if file size and bandwidth permits. That ‘easy to copy and distribute’ part of IP is what makes blockchain such an effective companion on the commercial journey.
Source: Intellectual property assets: Breaking the ice for blockchain-based economic networks
Battle for music licensing oversight centers on unclaimed royalties
As the U.S. Copyright Office nears a decision on which nonprofit group will operate the newly created digital licensing organization, the bid widely believed to be the favorite for the work is pushing back against criticism that its application is rife with conflicts of interest.
Source: Battle for music licensing oversight centers on unclaimed royalties
New to Blockchain: Turning In-Game Virtual Goods into Assets
Companies like Forte and Animoca want to use blockchain technology to allow players to trade skins and other in-app purchases. The question is whether the traditional gaming industry will embrace a business model that lets gamers trade—and the nascent tech behind it.
Source: New to Blockchain: Turning In-Game Virtual Goods into Assets
MMF: UK songwriters could be losing out on millions in royalties each year
UK songwriters and composers could be losing out on millions in streaming royalties due to the way in which songwriters’ repertoire is licensed to digital music services. That’s according to a new report from the MMF, produced by CMU Insights.
Source: UK songwriters could be losing out on millions in streaming royalties each year, says new MMF report
Groundbreaking Metadata Alliance Announced Between Music, Film, TV Industries
DDEX, a metadata standards-setting consortium for the music industry, announced in Nashville this week that it is joining forces with the Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR), a similar consortium that focuses on establishing uniform, unique universal identifiers for film and TV assets, in an alliance that could loosen millions in unmatched royalties from films and TV series.
Source: Groundbreaking Metadata Alliance Announced Between Music, Film, TV Industries
UMG Fights Musicians Who Wish to Terminate Copyright Grants
Universal Music Group has a ticking time bomb on its hands. The Copyright Act gives authors the ability to terminate a grant after a 35-year wait, and now there are hundreds of recording artists from the early 1980s who are looking to take advantage of this statutory provision to reclaim ownership rights.
Source: UMG Fights Musicians Who Wish to Terminate Copyright Grants
Record Labels Demand More Money for Songs on TikTok
The three biggest record labels are demanding more money for songs played on TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin, setting up a showdown with the hugely popular video apps, people with knowledge of the matter said. Deals between the labels and the Chinese owner of the services, ByteDance Ltd., expire this spring, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The two sides have made little progress in negotiations that have been going on since last year, they said.
Despite growth, music labels warn: ‘We should never be complacent’
The spectre of the value gap hung over the IFPI’s Global Music Report and press conference this morning, as it has done for the past few years, but the name ‘YouTube’ was not mentioned directly. Instead, it was the elephant in the room. IFPI boss Frances Moore and senior executives from the major labels talked about Latin America and India as key to the next stage of growth, yet it’s also true that YouTube is hugely popular in both territories.
Source: Despite growth music labels warn: ‘We should never get complacent’
Supreme Court Will Be Asked to Permit Resales of Digital Music Files
ReDigi is now before the U.S. Supreme Court in a legal battle over the reselling of digitized copyrighted works. The company, which attempted to launch an online marketplace for secondhand iTunes songs, has written a letter to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg requesting an extension to May 13 to file its cert petition.
Source: Supreme Court Will Be Asked to Permit Resales of Digital Music Files