THE COPYKAT

The U.S. House of Representatives HAS voted 410-6 in favor of the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019, or CASE Act.  Seeking to address the high cost of copyright litigation, if passed into law, the CASE Act would create a voluntary 'small claims court'  within the U.S. Copyright Office, called the Copyright Claims Board.  Lawsuits filed under the CASE Act would allow recovery up to $30,000, with a cap of $15,000 for statutory damages per work infringed. Whilst widely supported by content creators and copyright owners,  the CASE Act is not without criticism: the American Civil Liberties Union, argues the CASE Act lacks procedural safeguards and could be abused by “copyright trolls” or by those seeking to silence free speech on the internet - and expose millions of Americans to liability who unknowingly violate copyright law for actions seemingly as petty as sharing photos online.  “There is no gun that is being held to anyone’s head, because the small claims court like tribunal is voluntary in nature,” Rep Hakeem Jeffries, the bill's sponsor, told The Verge. “Any argument made to the contrary, represents a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what’s at stake as part of the effort to do away with the content copyright laws that have been part of the fabric of our democracy since the founding of the Republic and in fact the Constitution.” adding “The internet doesn’t change the Constitution,” The CASE Act now heads to the Senate for a full vote.  

The CoStar Group has settled copyright infringement against rival Xceligent with the commercial real estate data conglomerate being paid  $10.75 million by its competitor’s insurers, although according to court filings that’s a fraction of the $450 million CoStar initially sought. CoStar and Xceligent's court-appointed bankruptcy trustee filed a proposed judgment in Delaware Bankruptcy Court, finding Xceligent liable for $500M in damages for stealing tens of thousands of images from CoStar's databases. Xceligent, which filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in December 2017, doesn't have the assets to fulfill the entire $500M ruling. BisNow says that the parties reached a settlement through which Xceligent's insurers will pay CoStar $10.75M. The bankruptcy settlement and judgment in the copyright infringement case are both subject to court approval.

The settlement of a case between photographer Robert Barbera and CBS over the 'use' of Barbera's photo of Justin Beiber  has left open the question of whether the unauthorised embedding of a social media posts that contain copyright-protected photos amounts to copyright infringement - leaving some of the issues in the Goldman v. Breitbart lawsuit unanswered: That case concerned embedded tweets that featured a photo of football star Tom Brady - but the case was voluntarily dismissed in May.   In a highly-contested decision in early 2018, Judge Katherine Forrest of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York determined that a handful of media companies, including Vox, Time, Yahoo, and Breitbart, among others, had infringed a copyright-protected image that Eric Goldman took of Tom Brady by embedding third-party tweets that contained the image into articles on their websites.  Finding for Goldman, Judge Forrest’s February decision was a stark contrast to the general agreement among U.S. courts that when a party embeds a photo into an article, and thus, does not actually create a copy of the image or store it on its server, there is no new “display” of the photo for copyright purposes, and as a result, no copyright infringement - although case such as Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc in 2007 are themselves not without critics who disagreed with the appellate court ruling that embedding does not require that an image be copied or stored, and thus, does not run afoul of copyright law. More on The Fashion Law website here.  Robert Barbera's Image from complaint. 

Those Turtles and the issue of pre-1972 copyrights in sound recordings in the USA keep going on and on - with the Ninth Circuit appeals court now asking the lower court in California to consider what the Music Modernization Act (MMA) means for any ongoing disputes involving unpaid digital royalties on pre-1972 recordings. CMU Daily reports that the MMA reformed US copyright law in a number of ways and "Perhaps the biggest reforms related to the way the mechanical rights in songs are licensed Stateside. In theory those reforms were meant to bring to an end the long line of lawsuits being pursued against the on-demand streaming services over unpaid mechanical royalties .... Another part of the MMA related to the use of recordings - rather than songs - by online and satellite radio services, including personalised radio platforms like Pandora. Under US-wide federal copyright law AM/FM radio stations aren't obliged to pay any royalties to artists and labels for the recordings they play, but satellite and online stations are. However, recordings released before 1972 are protected by state-level rather than federal copyright law, so digital services argued that that royalty obligation didn't apply to pre-1972 tracks." Probably one of the best known cases on the matter was litigation pursued in the Californian courts against both Sirius and Pandora by Flo & Eddie, former members of 1960s band The Turtles and whilst a settlement was reached in California, and new law removes any debate over the ongoing royalty obligations of services like Pandora moving forward, the question remained over what royalties should have been paid in the past. Now the Ninth Circuit has said that the question of assessing whether Pandora still faces liabilities for past non-payment of royalties in the context of the MMA is matter for the district court that first considered the original lawsuit. The appeals court said in a ruling last week: "Whether the MMA applies to and pre-empts Flo & Eddie's claims, as Flo & Eddie note, cannot be answered on the record before us. The resolution of this issue depends on various unanswered factual questions".

Global record industry trade groups IFPI and WIN have announced a new initiative designed to simplify the way record labels and music distributors provide key data about the sound recordings they own and represent - and the UK record industry's collection society, PPL, will lead on the initiative. With each country in what is now a global market having its own collecting society, with  their own database(s), this presents a number of logistical challenges for the recorded music industry (and indeed the music publishing sector too) not least as new platfors and new technologies develop. The new Repertoire Data Exchange project, or RDx, aims to make it easier for record labels and other owners of the copyright in sound recordings to log their tracks with all the relevant society databases, ensuring databases are updated promptly and efficiently. IFPI and WIN explained: "Record companies have historically used a variety of data delivery processes to supply content to individual [societies] around the world, presenting challenges in the supply of recording data. RDx will offer recording right holders of all sizes, from all countries, a single registration point to supply their repertoire data in a standardised format that can be quickly and easily accessed by all [societies], leading to improvements in data quality" and IFPI boss Frances Moore said: "Record companies continue to invest in and enhance the accuracy and management of music data in many different areas of the industry. RDx is a key example of an initiative that will benefit all parties involved. It will improve operational efficiencies and lower costs for right holders whilst allowing [societies] to retrieve authoritative repertoire data from a single point - enabling more accurate and timely distribution of revenues".

Taylor Swift by George Chin

Taylor Swift’s 2014 hit “Shake It Off” and th controversy over the phrases “playas gonna play” and “haters gonna hate”  s once again at the centre of a legal battle as a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the 2017 a previously dismissed copyright lawsuit from songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who allege the single lifts lyrics from their 2001 composition “Playas Gon’ Play.”. Hall and Butler say Swift's famous lyric "Cos the players gonna play, play, play, play, play/And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate" was a copy of the line "The playas gon play/Them haters gonna hate" from their 2001 track. In February 2018. Judge Michael Fitzgerald in the District Court concluded “By 2001, American popular culture was heavily steeped in the concepts of players, haters, and player haters … The concept of actors acting in accordance with their essential nature is not at all creative; it is banal.” But a 1903 ruling from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes might give some hope to Hall and Butler:  “It would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations, outside of the narrowest and most obvious limits” Holmes wrote . “At the one extreme, some works of genius would be sure to miss appreciation. Their very novelty would make them repulsive until the public had learned the new language in which their author spoke.” In their ruling the appellate court said “originality, as we have long recognized, is normally a question of fact … Justice Holmes’ century-old warning about judges appointing themselves the sole arbiter of originality remains valid. By concluding that: ‘for such short phrases to be protected under the Copyright Act, they must be more creative than the lyrics at issues here,’ the District Court constituted itself as the final judge of the worth of an expressive work. Because the absence of originality is not established either on the face of the complaint or through the judicially noticed matters, we reverse the District Court’s dismissal” and the case goes back to the District Court 

What's all the fuss about? It's those EU copyright reforms

Following on from previous CopyKats, the noise around the proposed changes to EU copyright law has reached a crescendo - and it's not just the tech giants and content behemoths who are lobbying at all levels, the former against changes, the latter very much in favour of the main changes in the Directive for Copyright in the Digital Single Market (known as Copyright Directive) which was approved by the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs on the 20th June 2018.

The most controversial provisions are in the current draft of Article 13, which requires internet platforms to perform automatic filtering of the content that their users have uploaded. As the CopyKat reported, a group of over 70 internet leaders including Vint Cerf and British physicist and computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee.addressed Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) by sharing their concerns regarding the proposed text of the Directive. In their June 12th letter they said “Article 13 takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the Internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users” making the argument that this requirement goes against the previously established balance in the E-Commerce Directive and the ‘Safe Harbour’ provision in Article 15 of the InfoSoc Directive, where users uploading content are solely responsible for its legality, whereas platforms may be required to take down illegal content once it is brought to its attention. 

Julia Reda, Member of the European Parliament, (for the Pirate Party) agreed with the internet gurus, criticising the high error rate expected from the algorithms and the resulting blocking of content. Reda describes on her website a phenomenon called "Startup killer". And Reda suggests that the filters will be so complex that they can only be developed by the big US tech giants. Small companies and start-ups will not be able to afford the programming and so every small platform that offers user-generated content will have to acquire their filter system from the big players. Reda then suggests that this creates a monopoly for the likes of Google. 

Article 11 is the other main focus of attention. This would require of a new level of engagement between platforms and news creators and providers. Reda writes, "The automatic link previews social networks generate when users share links (showing the article headline, a thumbnail picture and a short excerpt) would require a license, as well as anyone analysing news content on the web like news aggregators, media monitoring services and fact checking services." This is the so called 'Link Tax'. Reda also claims that that Article 11 could limit freedom of expression and access to information, boost fake news, discourage startups and small publishers saying "Making it legally risky or expensive to link (with snippets) to news risks disincentivising the sharing of reputable news content. Since “fake news” and propaganda outlets are unlikely to charge for snippets, their content could as a result become more visible on social networks."

But Google, one of the leading lights in the battle against the proposed changes, has faced criticism. The Financial Times reports that Google has been accused of encouraging news publishers participating in its Digital News Initiative to lobby against proposed changes to EU copyright law at a time when the beleaguered sector is increasingly turning to the search giant for help. Google itself opposes the copyright directive, which it says would impede the free flow of information, and in a recent email to publishers suggested they contact members of the European Parliament to express their views. The search engine has developed close ties with publishers via its DNI programme, which provides support for digital journalism as well as innovation grants from a €150m fund. Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European Publishers’ Council, said Google was trying to preserve the status quo. “It seems to be arguing for the news eco-system of today to continue,” she told the FT. “We feel that Google has largely created a news eco-system where it is apparently perfectly acceptable for companies to go around helping themselves to news media content for their own purposes.”

EU-based media organisations have hailed the Copyright Directive in a joint statement calling it “a crucial stand for the future of a free, independent press.” “The internet is only as useful as the content that populates it.” The statement also applauded Article 11, known as the “neighbouring right,” for “encouraging further investment in professional, diverse, fact-checked content for the enrichment and enjoyment of everyone, everywhere.”

So - who else is having a say? Well first off, a group of open science advocates have made the point that the new proposals will conflict with Europe’s principles of open science and freedom of expression. Vanessa Proudman, European Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), a science-advocacy group in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands said “Copyright law must not hamper open science. The EU has made significant headway towards open access of research funded by European citizens. The proposed new rules would clearly impede further progress, threatening the visibility of Europe’s research".  Maria Rehbinder from the Association of European Research Libraries said “We really don’t want further paywalls on top of any research materials libraries have paid for already”. 

Prince

One of the high profile stories circulating the internet is that Article 13 would impact the creation and sharing of memes - not least as memes often use copyrighted images from popular films and TV shows. Global News reports "Pepe the Frog, the “Distracted Boyfriend” meme and Arthur’s balled-up fist are all under threat. So are reactions GIFs such as the one of a confused Zach Galifianakis, or the clip of Steve Carrell shouting ‘No!’ in The Office. EU lawmakers may inadvertently destroy the internet’s robust meme culture with a proposed law designed to fight online piracy. One article in the legislation would force online platforms such as Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to automatically censor copyrighted content uploaded by anyone who isn’t licensed to share it." So called mash-ups and re-mixes have been given the same attention with their presumed demise highlighted. Matt made the point in the last CopyKat that a filtering and blocking system could lead to some major mistakes. Whilst the Dancing Baby vs Prince case is now settled, at the heart of that was ine question of whether the mother in question, Stephanie Lenz, could use fair dealing as a defence - or at least whether the rights owners (Universal Music took a lead) issuing the take down should have considered the doctrine before removing the video of the toddler dancing to Prince's music. As Matt argued "many mistakes will occur ....  a lot of content may be removed or blocked because of the system being unable to recognise what falls under exception or limitation, such as parody or quotation, and how they differ across the various Member States. Additionally, the proposed text by Commission and compromise texts of the Parliament and the Council does not contain any provision which will bring either clarity or consistency in defining “which Internet platforms would be required to comply with the provision, and which may be exempt”. 

AbovetheLaw give the example of  a simple mistakes - In 2013, Fox sent a take down notice against a book by Cory Doctorow because the book and one of Fox’s hit television shows shared the same name: Homeland. They add:  "Remember the Super Bowl ad Chrysler released this year, using the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. to sell a Dodge Ram truck? One viewer cleverly replaced the original audio of the ad, which highlighted the importance of service, with audio from another portion of the same MLK speech that instead criticized consumer culture, including a line calling out Chrysler by name. This version of the ad was flagged by YouTube’s content ID and taken down, but was later restored because it is obviously a fair use. The very fact that it was removed at all, though, demonstrates the inability of automated systems to determine whether a use is criticism, parody or some other non-infringing use."

Professorf Lessig

Back in August 2013 Lawrence Lessig filed a federal complaint after YouTube forced the Harvard University law professor and Creative Commons co-founder to take down a video of a lecture that featured people dancing to a copyrighted sound recording. Supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Lessig said: “The rise of extremist enforcement tactics makes it increasingly difficult for creators to use the freedoms copyright law gives them. I have the opportunity, with the help of EFF, to challenge this particular attack. I am hopeful the precedent this case will set will help others avoid such a need to fight. The company who issued the take down issued an apology. 

“It’s a blunt instrument and it’s going to lead to lots of over-censorship,” Jim Killock, head of the U.K.-based Open Rights Group, told Global News. And he is not alone - numerous civil rights groups have pointed out that the proposed changes could be used to restrict freedom on the internet and could be used to censor content and sharing.   Communia, which advocates policies that expand the public domain and increase access to and reuse of culture and knowledge, and seeks to limit the scope of "exclusive copyright to sensible proportions that do not place unnecessary restrictions on access and use", issued a key recommendation to delete Article 13 from the proposal "as it addresses a problem that lacks empirical evidence confirming its existence. Article 13, as drafted by the Commission, would limit the freedom of expression of online users and create legal uncertainty that has the potential to undermine the entire EU online economy. As such it is unworthy of being included in a Directive proposal that is intended to modernize the ageing EU copyright framework".

InfoJustice was scathing on the automatic filtering proposals saying: "The upload filtering proposal stems from a misunderstanding about the purpose of copyright. Copyright isn’t designed to compensate creators for each and every use of their works. It is meant to incentivize creators as part of an effort to promote the public interest in innovation and expression. But that public interest isn’t served unless there are limitations on copyright that allow new generations to build and comment on the previous contributions. Those limitations are both legal, like fair dealing, and practical, like the zone of tolerance for harmless uses. Automated upload filtering will undermine both. What began as a bad idea offered up to copyright lobbyists as a solution to an imaginary “value gap” has now become an outright crisis for future of the Internet as we know it. Indeed, if those who created and sustain the operation of the Internet recognise the scale of this threat, we should all be sitting up and taking notice." 

Of course neither side wants to give ground: The recorded music sector's main lobby group, the IFPI, said Article 13 restores fairness to the digital market. It’s about looking out for workers in the creative industries, helping to secure them a future that is financially viable where we continue to benefit from their services" and a cross section of rights owners from the music, film, sports and television sectors (amongst others in the cultural and creative industries) have now sent a letter to MEPs pointing to "a cynical campaign from tech companies flooding the inboxes of MEPs with scaremongering that the copyright directive would be the end of the internet"  adding  "Please note that this is the 20th anniversary of their first claim that copyright provisions would break the internet. And it has never happened."

And the actual creators of music from across Europe are calling on MEPs to protect Europe’s status as a global hub for culture saying that the tech giants must pay fairly for content hosted on their platforms. Robert Ashcroft, Chief Executive of PRS for Music, said: “After three years of debate, one of the most controversial pieces of legislation ever to come before the European Parliament is about to go to the vote. This is about copyright and specifically about the rights of creators versus those of the Internet giants; it is about the way the Internet functions as a fair and efficient marketplace. It is a debate we must win if we want to secure our creative community into the next decade.” Jimbo Barry, producer and songwriter, known for co-writing hits for The Script, said: “I do worry about the sustainability of the professional music industry, as a songwriter. If copyright becomes free for the music that I write, and I don’t get paid in any sense for the music being used either on the radio or the platforms online, then logically, I won’t be able to sustain myself as professional. I hope that the fight for copyright for songwriters improves and that songwriters are just able to sustain the work that they love.

It will be left to MEPs to address the balance that is surely needed: “Creators and news publishers must adapt to the world of the internet as it works today” rapporteur Axel Vossn MEP said in a European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs news release. “The Committee position aims to ensure that widely recognised and observed copyright principles apply to the online world, too.”

The legislation will now be debated in ‘trilogue negotiations’ where EU legislators and member states debate proposed legislation. The next plenary vote on the copyright review is due to take place on July 5th, and the final vote of the full plenary of the European Parliament is expected to take place in December. However, the decision of the JURI Committee which approved the proposed text, certainly increases the likelihood of Articles 11 and 13 becoming law - but it's going to be a battle!

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180613/00492240024/european-citizens-you-stopped-acta-new-copyright-directive-is-much-much-worse-speak-up.shtml

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/06/will-the-eu-adopt-new-copyright-rules-that-threaten-memes-remixes-and-mashups/?rf=1

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3034079/70-internet-leaders-write-open-letter-denouncing-eus-copyright-filter-plan

http://infojustice.org/archives/40070

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/eus-copyright-reform-proposal-article-13

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03837-7

https://www.ft.com/content/a8031d7a-78a0-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d 
https://www.communia-association.org/2017/09/14/updated-position-paper-article-13-remains-terrible-idea-needs-deleted/

http://the1709blog.blogspot.com/2014/03/lessig-triumphs-in-fair-use-battle.html

https://www.dw.com/en/new-eu-copyright-law-will-upload-filters-destroy-the-internet-as-we-know-it/a-44354310

http://the1709blog.blogspot.com/2015/09/prince-and-universal-wrong-to-take-down.html

Disclosure: The author represents a number of rights owners. Any opinions expressed by the author in this article are personal.

IFPI and Sound Exchange make ISRC Codes publicly accessible for the first time

The international trade body for the recording industry, IFPI, has partnered with the world’s biggest digital Collective Management Organisation, SoundExchange, to create a new website that will make it easier to identify sound recordings.  SoundExchange collects and distributes royalties on the behalf of sound recording copyright owners for non-interactive digital transmissions, including satellite, Internet radio, and cable television music channels. In addition to music, SoundExchange also collects royalties for comedy and spoken word recordings.

The ISRC Search Site will provide access to nearly 20 million unique recordings, enabling recording artists, rights owners and music services to quickly identify data associated with sound recordings. The initiative will increase transparency and efficiency in the handling of data about recordings.

ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is the standardised identifier for recorded music and is a unique code assigned to every single music recording or music video to ensure their usage can be tracked and accounted for.  IFPI manages the ISRC system globally under an appointment from the International Organisation for Standardisation.

For the first time, ISRC codes – supplied directly from record companies across the globe - will be publicly accessible and searchable. 

Commenting on the launch of the new platform, IFPI’s Chief Executive, Frances Moore, said, “The ISRC Search Site will give a new level of accessibility to help musicians, performers, managers, music publishers, and many others understand where their music has been used whilst also facilitating more accurate reporting by users of digital music. With the quantity of data expected to grow as we move deeper into the digital age, this tool will be vital to ensuring better communication throughout the music ecosystem.

“We’re delighted that SoundExchange has developed this much-needed tool to help our record company members.  As the world’s biggest CMO, they have an unparalleled platform to deliver the underlying technology and data this industry needs.”

SoundExchange President and CEO, Michael Huppe added: “We created this critical resource to improve our own efficient royalty processing, and we are delighted now to give the music community access to this data. This is part of our ongoing commitment to develop products and services that help the music industry move forward. We eliminate friction through better and more efficient technology solutions, so creators in the music community can focus on the music.”

The free search tool, which is an extension to the ISRC website managed by IFPI, will allow anyone to search either by artist/track or by ISRC code to find various products that a given recording appears on.  Selected data of interest can then be transferred to a “cart” where it can be downloaded as a CSV file.

The site is an "important first step in boosting accuracy, automation and efficiency within the data-processing that underpins the use of digital music by broadcasters, digital music services and any company that uses music online."

One might wonder why it took so long!

On of the biggest failings for the music industry was when the Global Repertoire Database hot the rocks in 2014 and was cancelled, although PRS for Music said at the time that it remained “committed to the principles of a single point of works registration” and hoped lessons learned from the GRD could be employed in future song ownership data ventures.

Now hot on the heels of the news that in the UK, PRS for Music and PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited) are forming a joint venture to licence song and sound recording performing rights together, perhaps we are finally looking at a scenario where licensees - the actual users of music who create revenues - can easily identify who controls any songs or musical works AND sound recordings they wish to make use of, ultimately facilitating the more efficient distribution of royalties to the rights holders who are due payment

The ISRC Search Site can be accessed at  https://isrc.soundexchange.com or via the IFPI site https://isrcsearch.ifpi.org.

http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/prs-confirms-global-repertoire-database-cannot-move-forward-pledges-to-find-alternative-ways/

Russian court orders VK to implement effective technology to block illegal uploads

Russian social network vKontakte (VK) has been ordered by a Russian court to use effective technology to prevent copyright infringement of the recordings of two record companies.

The IFPI say that the ruling, handed down in the Saint Petersburg & Leningradsky Region Arbitration Court on Monday, is a significant judgment which, when implemented, should improve the environment for developing a thriving licensed music business in Russia. The IFPI is the organisation that represents the global recording industry.  It was supported by the Russian National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI).

Universal Music and Warner Music had brought copyright infringement cases against VK in April 2014.  The judge issued an oral decision on 28th September, and the full judgments will be handed down in due course.

The court granted the record companies’ request to require VK to use effective technology to prevent the upload of their sound recordings to its service, meaning that VK must remove the record companies’ recordings and prevent them from being uploaded again in the future. The claimaints said 98% of their sound trecordings featuring in the Top 40 UK chart from the past seven years are available on VK's unauthorised music service, and  whilst VK did have a take down procedure, VK's filtering  technology, which was meant to prevent unauthorised uploads, was inadequate and ineffective. The claimants presented expert evidence that VK must be fully aware of the scale of the infringement, not least as VK advertised the availability of infringing tracks through its charts of the 'most downloaded' tracks and its recommendation service to individual users.

VKontakte and Sony Music Russia agreed a confidential global settlement in July 2015.

IFPI Chief Executive Officer Frances Moore welcomed the judgment saying: “This is a very important and positive decision for the Russian music market and for music creators in Russia.   VK’s infringing music service has been a huge obstacle to the development of a licensed business in Russia, making available hundreds of thousands of copyright infringing tracks to more than 70 million daily users. Now, the Russian court has ordered VK to use technology to stop infringements.  This is good news for rights holders in Russia.  We now look to VK to implement the court’s decision and stop these ongoing infringements.”

vKontakte spokesperson Georgy Lobushkin told Billboard: “We are glad that the court supported our position and has declined to impose fines on VK. The court has also ordered that we make our ‘music copyright DMCA technology’ more effective, and we are constantly working on that”. he also criticised the IFPI for commenting “on the judgement in the most advantageous way for themselves” before the final ruling had even been published.


Record companies file legal proceedings against vKontakte for deliberately facilitating piracy on a large scale

VK's press release on the final court decision can be found here: VKontakte Cleared in Dispute with Warner and Universal

IFPI publishes Digital Music Report 2015

The recorded music sector's international trade body, the IFPI, has  published its Digital Music Report 2015, detailing key trends in the recorded music sector over the last year - with the headline news that digital music revenues are now on a par with physical globally, that global industry revenues are marginally down 0.4 per cent to US$14.97 billion in 2014, and that subscription services at the heart of the recorded music portfolio business.

Digital revenues rose 6.9 per cent to US$6.9 billion, representing 46% of all global music sales and underlining the deep transformation of the global music industry over recent years. Total revenues in  2014 were US$14.97 billion although it should be noted that there has been a reclassification of SoundExchange revenues in the US from “performance rights” to “digital”.  This has resulted in an upward adjustment in digital revenues and growth, and an equivalent downward adjustment in performance rights revenues and growth.

The new report shows the industry in continuing transition, with consumers embracing the music access models of streaming and subscription.  Another steep increase in subscription revenues (+39.0%) offset declining global download sales (-8.0%) to drive overall digital revenues, while the number of paying users of subscription services rose 46.4 per cent to an estimated 41 million. Subscription services are now at the heart of the music industry’s portfolio of businesses, representing 23 per cent of the digital market and generating US$1.6 billion in trade revenues.  The industry sees substantial further growth potential in the subscription sector, with new services advancing in 2015 led by three major global players: YouTube’s Music Key, Jay Z’s TIDAL and Apple’s expected subscription service.

Outside of streaming, the Report also shows the enduring nature of the physical format, still 46% of the market, and the still substantial share of digital revenues (52%) accounted for by downloads, although this is declining.  Physical sales still dominate in a number of key worldwide markets including France (57%), Germany (70%) and Japan (78%). On the back of the enws that the UK has launched a new vinyl chart, vinyl sales continue to revive with revenues increasing 54.7 per cent and now accounting for 2 per cent of global revenues.  

Elsewhere in the industry, performance rights income increased by 8.3 per cent and now accounts for 6 per cent of total industry revenues or US$948 million.  Synchronisation revenues increased by 8.4 per cent in 2014 to represent 2 per cent of the market, 
  
The IFPI also try hard to justify artist royalties in the digital age - which without the cost of physical manufacture and distribution are looking more and more favourable to record labels - something that has prompted numerous artistes to take legal action against their labels. The IFPI say "In order to better inform this discussion, IFPI conducted research in 2014 to obtain an accurate picture of how royalty payments have changed as the market has shifted from physical sales to digital channels.  Industry data compiled by IFPI from the three major companies, covering local sales for locally signed artists in 18 major markets outside Japan and the US in the five year period to 2014 shows that while sales revenue fell 17 per cent, total artist payments – in the form of royalties and unrecouped advances – declined much less in real terms (down 6 per cent) and increased significantly as a share of sales revenue, by 13 per cent.  Over the five year period, the data shows that total payments by record companies to local artists totalled more than US$1.5 billion across the 18 markets. But remember,  total revenues in 2014 alone were US$14.97 billion - so its a small small percentage over five years.

The IFPI also coment on rthe very "significant mismatch between the value that certain digital platforms extract from music, and the value that is returned to rights owners." and make  an interesting comparison between the subscriber based services such as Spotify and Deezer, and free access content platforms such as YouTube or Daily Motion.  IFPI estimates music subscription services have 41 million paying global subscribers, plus more than 100 million active users in their “freemium” tiers funded by advertising.  This sector generated revenues to record companies of more than US$1.6 billion in 2014.  By contrast, YouTube alone claims more than one billion monthly unique users and is thought to be the world’s most popular access route to music.  Yet total global revenues to record companies generated by certain content platforms including YouTube amounted to just US$641 million in 2014, less than half the total amount paid to the industry by the subscription services.

To download the full report go to http://www.ifpi.org/digital-music-report.php

The IFPI also released the 2014 Global Charts, with the soundtrack to the motion picture Frozen, Pharrell Willians and Taylor Swift topping the year If you're intersted - here they are:

Global top 10 albums 2014

Rank	Artist	Album	Total units (m)
1	Various Artists	Frozen	10.0
2	Taylor Swift	1989	6.0
3	Ed Sheeran	x	4.4
4	Coldplay	Ghost Stories	3.7
5	Sam Smith	In The Lonely Hour	3.5
6	One Direction	FOUR	3.2
7	AC/DC	Rock or Bust	2.7
8	Various Artists	Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1	2.5
9	Pink Floyd	The Endless River	2.5
10	Lorde	Pure Heroine	2.0

Source: IFPI. Physical and digital albums included. Streams excluded

Global top 10 digital singles 2014

Rank	Artist	Single	Total sales (m)
1	Pharrell Williams	Happy	13.9
2	Katy Perry feat. Juicy J	Dark Horse	13.2
3	John Legend	All of Me	12.3
4	Meghan Trainor	All About That Bass	11.0
5	Idina Menzel	Let It Go	10.9
6	Pitbull feat. Ke$ha	Timber	9.6
7	Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX	Fancy	9.1
8	Ariana Grande feat. Iggy Azalea	Problem	9.0
9	MAGIC!	Rude	8.6
10	Enrique Iglesias feat. Sean Paul, Descemer Bruno, Gente De Zona	Bailando	8.0

Source: IFPI. Units include single-track downloads and track-equivalent streams.

Global Recording Artist Chart 2014

Rank	Artist
1	Taylor Swift
2	One Direction
3	Ed Sheeran
4	Coldplay
5	AC/DC
6	Michael Jackson
7	Pink Floyd
8	Sam Smith
9	Katy Perry
10	Beyoncé