From the department of bad ideas that won’t die comes word that Canada may be levying a fee on iPods & other portable media players, along with digital media, to meet demands of an organization that represents the interests of the music and movie industries. Legal blogger Dr. Micheal Geist has an excellent rundown on […]

Nearly one out of ten large companies has fired an employee for violating corporate blogging or message board policies, according to a survey conducted by Proofpoint, a company that specializes in corporate messaging security. 19 percent of the companies have disciplined an employee for violating corporate blogging or message board policies. While we haven’t seen […]

A new organization, the Association for Downloadable Media (ADM), announced its formation yesterday. The goal of the ADM is to create standards for audience measurement and advertising for downloadable media. The ADM also hopes to accelerate the growth of podcasting into a commercially viable medium. The ADM plans to focus primarily on the world of […]

Cambridge University PhD candidate Rufus Pollock has published a paper that takes a look at the economics of copyrights, and concludes that the optimum length of copyrights is 14 years, a fraction of their current length. Pollock’s research (pdf) looks at the economic benefits of both copyrighted work and work that has entered the public […]

It looks like the high-profile negotiations between¬†the music industry and¬†commercial Internet broadcasters over royalty rates for netcasting traditionally licensed music is moving from the court system to the backroom. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has denied motions to stay any aspect of the ruling by the Copyright Royalty Judges […]

Creative Commons Canada has published the Podcasting Legal Guide for Canada. More than just an adaptation of the original U.S. Guide, this version required an almost complete rewrite of the copyright sections to describe Canadian law, as well as substantial changes to the discussions of trademarks and publicity rights. Kathleen Simmons and Andy Kaplan-Myrth co-authored […]

From Dean Whitbread, Chairman of the UK Podcasters Association, comes this news of negotiations for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty: “[I]n Geneva this week, so concerted has been the resistance to the much disliked WIPO Broadcast Treaty in its current form, with even the US delegation finding serious fault with it, that at several points today […]

Thousands of U.S. commercial webcasters plan to go silent Tuesday, June 26, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that could threaten the viability of stations that broadcast mainstream music. Earlier in the year, the United States Copyright Royalty Board announced new royalty rates for webcasting traditionally licensed music, to be effective from […]

The Bush administration on Thursday attacked a congressional bill that would help protect the First Amendment rights of news gathers, including bloggers and podcasters. According to a U.S. Department of Justice official, the Free Flow of Information Act (pdf) would pose a grave threat to national security and federal criminal investigations by protecting the free […]

The UK Podcasters Association, a non-profit organization promoting podcasting, has announced that it has come to an agreement with AIM, the UK-based Association of Independent Music, which allows members preferential access to AIM’s podcast license. The AIM podcast license covers over 30,000 tracks licensed by the UK independent music industry and includes labels such as […]