I have a blog called Sample Spotters that talks about whose songs have been sampled by whom. With the help of sites like the-breaks.com and datraxer.com, I make a list of an artist’s songs and where they were used: e.g. Roy Ayers, Patrice Rushen or Labi Siffre. I also did it the other way round once (what songs were sampled BY George Michael), and for some pivotal songs, I dedicated a whole blog post to just 1 song: Funky Drummer and the “Amen Break”.

On that last post I just got a comment by someone who seems to be the original copyright owner of the song: Richard L. Spencer:

I am thoroughly disappointed at all of the comments that I read from decent sounding young people who are not appalled that works by artists such as Greg and the rest of us in The Winstons can be ripped off by hundreds of artist and they do not protest.I am the copyright owner of The Amen Drum Break which was created by fellow Winston Greg Coleman and neither of us have ever received a penny for our product.

The history of the Amen Break goes a bit like this:

The Winstons’ version was released as a B-side of the single “Color Him Father” (1969) (…). Unfortunately the drummer, Gregory C. Coleman, nor the copyright owner Richard L. Spencer, the Grammy award winning composer and performer of the hit “Color Him Father”, have never received any royalties for the sampling.
The song itself achieved fame within the Hip-Hop and subsequent Electronic music communities when Louis Flores compiled it onto his 1986 Ultimate Breaks & Beats bootleg series for DJ’s. (…) With the emergence of rave music around 1990, the “Amen” began to appear in an increasing number of techno productions. Very soon the famous loop became the sole drum element of many tracks and a whole style got its own name – Jungle. (…) In 1993-94 the whole jungle movement evolved into drum and bass. (…) At the end of the 90s, some producers focused on the amen break and took it to the next level. Artists like Squarepusher and Aphex Twin started a new sub-genre of hyper-edited drum and bass called drill and bass.
It is probably the only time in the history of music when a 5 second drum loop created a completely new style of music and managed to influence other musical styles to such a degree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break

In that constant struggle between protection of intellectual property and freedom to create/recycle/innovate, the inventors of the “Amen Break” got a bad deal. Would jungle or drum-n-bass have taken off like they did if the rights to the Amen Break would have belonged to a lawyer-bombing IFPI/RIAA member? Can you copyright a drum fill? Starting from how many beats? Will future drummers be as free to talk about their inspiration as Jeff Porcaro was about “Rosanna”?

Background: There’s an installation about the Amen Break and there’s even a documentary movie. Don’t think you’ve heard it? Listen here.

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The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (”DMCA” – 1998) criminalizes production and dissemination of technology that can circumvent measures taken to protect copyright, not merely infringement of copyright itself, and heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. OMG, what kind of illegal practices had Google just protected me from? Clicking the ChillingEffects link shows the DMCA complaint in question: the Perfect 10

“Bonkable Beauties”? So it’s about an ‘adult entertainment’ company (Perfect 10, Inc) that objects to finding its content in Google’s index? Apart from the technical measures they could take instead of sueing (see below), it seems like such a hilarious courtcase. Seth Finkelstein points out some good prose in the legal documentation:

The P10 photographs consistently reflect professional, skillful, and sometimes tasteful artistry. That they are of scantily-clothed or nude women is of no consequence; such images have been popular subjects for artists since before the time of “Venus de Milo.” (…)
First, contrary to P10’s contention, photographs of nude women can, like photographs of the American West, vary greatly.
sethf.com/infothought/

If you take a look at the complaints Google has had under the DMCA at chillingeffects.org, you see that a lot of them concern owners of adult material: Playboy, Perfect10, Rabuck Agency. They are joined by Born-Again Christians, photographers and mostly people who saw their own content being copied or linked elsewhere. I’ve always had an instinctive disliking for the DMCA. Any law of this kind would have been written by people who can afford lawyers and lobbyists, and as we also see with its cousin, the DTCS (Digital Transition Content Security), they’re mainly tools to protect the media moguls.

The outcome of the law suit came as some sort of surprise:

Case #2 is Perfect 10 v. Google, in which a district court said that Google’s display of scaled-down thumbnail versions of Perfect 10’s copyrighted photos in its Google Image Search results page wasn’t fair use, reaching the opposite conclusion from the Ninth Circuit in Kelly v. Arriba Soft on similar facts. Perfect 10’s claim succeeded where Kelly’s failed, the court reasoned, because during the course of the litigation Perfect 10 had contrived to create a “market” for the sale of thumbnails through licensing them to a single cell-phone provider. (And wouldn’t you like to know who paid whom in that exchange!)
from blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/

If you don’t want your content showing up in Google Search or Google Images, there are enough methods to take care of that without taking the legal route: a restrictive robots.txt file to prevent them from being crawled, using Javascript to show images – so that Google’s spiders don’t pick them up, using hotlinking protection – so only requests within pages of the same site go through. Some research at – couldn’t resist, with a name like that – bonkablebeauties.com shows that: no robots.txt file exists, each page has <META content=index,nofollow,noarchive name=robots> in the HTML headers, and the larger (non-member, non-nude) images are shown through Javascript (e.g. show random of 5 images). This means that:

• Google crawlers stop at the BB homepage (don’t index individual pages)
• but: the text index (pure text page, one click away from any damaging material) is also indexed, and it points to all individual BB pages
• individual BB pages can also appear in Google when linked to from other sites
• individual BB pages won’t have a ‘cached’ version (thx to noarchive)
• there are no results in Google Images.

Sounds like a viable policy for a company like Perfect10. A robots.txt file could block the Google spiders altogether, but then one wouldn’t be found at all in Google, would one? (Talk about biting the hand that feeds it.) I don’t know how often the word ‘bonkable’ is used in English day-to-day speech, but BB surely ranks #1. Funny word that, sounds a bit like a title: “Let me introduce everyone: governor White, constable o’Connell and bonkable Jeffries. Please proceed, Ms Jeffries”

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(1) Method and system to provide wireless access at a reduced rate:
Methods and system for providing wireless access at a reduced rate. In one embodiment, access to a WAP is provided to an end-user at a rate subsidized by a first entity. The first entity includes advertisements in an end-user view.
which sounds like a Google (secure) proxy that modifies passing-though HTML

(2) Method and system to provide advertisements based on wireless access points:
Methods and system to provide advertisements in a view of an end user accessing a wireless access point. The advertisements are related to the WAP based on a predetermined criterion.
aka contextual advertising for Wifi

(3) Method and system for dynamically modifying the appearance of browser screens on a client device:
In one embodiment, a connection of a client device to a wireless access point is identified. Further, the appearance of a screen presented on the client device is modified to reflect the brand associated with a provider of the wireless access point.
aka the ‘captive portal’

on cre8asiteforums.com via seroundtable.com

What troubles me here is the way patents are being used:

• “don’t be evil” version: Google is just filing some good and/or obvious ideas, just so that the next guy won’t do it and sue them for using their own idea.
• “be blatantly evil” version: Google is filing the patents to make sure no one can do the same thing, to block the market with broad, mediocre patents

Patents are there to create a window of opportunity to develop an original and innovative idea, not to be misused by patent trolls.

I don’t like patents in software (although I’m co-author for one application – everyone has the right to change his opinion). It’s silly to have 20-year patents in a world moving that fast, and the US Patent and Trademark office does not have the best track record at deciding what is original or worth giving a patent to.

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Someone at the RIAA decided they hadn’t enough enemies yet. Why not start screwing with the iPod owners?

As part of the on-going DMCA rule-making proceedings, the RIAA and other copyright industry associations submitted a filing that included this gem as part of their argument that space-shifting and format-shifting do not count as noninfringing uses, even when you are talking about making copies of your own CDs
(…)
For those who may not remember, here’s what Don Verrilli said to the Supreme Court last year:
“The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it’s been on their website for some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod.”
from EFF via BoingBoing

It’s a struggle for survival: the RIAA sees their old business model disappear, has no clue how to adapt to that and reacts by throwing money at lawyers and lobbyists. The RIAA is like the USS Nimitz in a pond that is drying up and the only reaction they can think of is: “sue the sun”.

What is so special about this is that the music industry has something that most industries would die for: passionate consumers. It’s not as if we buy music because we ran out of them (like toilet paper) or because the old ones aren’t any good anymore (like newspapers). We have developed a taste, we have artists we love and others we hate, we know the names of people behind them, we’re interested in how they live their life. There are groupies, musical subcultures, music magazines, music sites and TV stations with nothing but music. It’s a product any CEO would sell his mother-in-law for. Yet, the only thing the ‘old’ record companies seem to do with that is make their customers passionately hostile.

Look, I dunno what planet you guys think you�re on and what legal system is going to end up supporting your stilted worldview, but it doesn�t even matter. Because you�re irrelevant. You�re meaningless. What you�re doing is like a slow train wreck euthanasia; we�re all watching you pen your own demise, over months and months of screwing your best customers. I mean�it�s so painfully clear to us! Why is this not obvious to you?
FactoryJoe

Let’s take another example of a company that has passionate customers: Apple. Would it have been wise of Apple to sell a computer and forbid people to install software on it that was not developed by Apple? What if Apple had built a music player that only played music in its proprietary AAC format? “Yes, we know this MP3 thing is kinda big and stuff, but we feel we have to protect you from yourself. Oh, you want to print stuff? That’s an extra 50 cents per page!”
On the contrary, Steve Jobs is the (only) one who is driving the entertainment industry forward. While record companies were still arguing about “how much can we charge them for each time they listen to a song and how can we control that”, iTunes set the standard: 1$ per song, $10 per album, no limits on listening. While the MPA was busy suing toddlers and grannies with BitTorrent, iTunes came up with a model for TV show distribution: 2$/episode – no bullshit. We can only hope health problems do not keep Steve from setting standards in movie distribution either (like: get rid of the DVD regions or use BitTorrent as distribution mechanism). The content is ready, the bandwidth is ready, the customer is ready, all we need now is someone who wants serve his customers the 21st century way.

Technorati: riaa – eff – efftheriaa – apple – ipod – stevejobs

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(…) I’d like to continue by looking at H.R. 4569, the Digital Transition Content Security Act of 2005, which proves the point I’ve made many times over the years, that when it comes to technology, government doesn’t really know what it is doing. H.R. 4569, which was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on December 16th, is intended to protect the intellectual property rights of movie studios by MAKING ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION ILLEGAL.

Under the Act as proposed, manufacturers will have one year after passage to stop making devices that convert analog signals like music and video into digital forms unless those forms preserve some original Digital Rights Management technology present in presumably the pre-analog stage.

What this is about, then, isn’t making it illegal to use a digital recorder to record from analog microphone. Heck, that would destroy the music industry. Congress’s thinking (if we dare call it that — I see no flashes of synapses firing) is that media are going digital more and more and the greatest opportunity for snatching content is during the actual performance when, for the sake of driving a screen or a speaker, the digital signal goes analog.

What’s covered by this proposed law are things like TiVO and RePlay Digital Video Recorders, TV tuner cards for your PC, software intended to record audio or video streams, or just about any device or program you might use to actually implement that part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that says you have the right (though soon not the equipment) to backup or media-shift your own music and movies.
(from I, Cringely)

And someone had the same reflection as I had and did the research for me:

When I go to opensecrets.org and look who Jim Sensenbrenner’s top contributors are a few names tend to stand out: Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), News Corp., Comcast Corp., Viacom Inc., Motion Picture Assn of America (MPAA) and the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s Office. It’s also interesting to note on Sensenbrenner’s latest reported personal financial statement that he received two all expense paid trips (including other family members) to Vegas and New Orleans from the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Cable and Telecomm Association. I wonder if he was flying first class and I wonder if these people want you to have your TiVo or not?

And isn’t it ironic when you look up John Conyers’ financial information that you find some of the same and some new names as well. Some of the names that stick out as John Conyers’ largest financial contributors? Comcast Corp., Clear Channel Communications, Major League Baseball Commissioner’s Office and ASCAP.
(from thomashawk.com)

Technorati: drm – ad – tivo – replaytv – pvr – dvr – sensenbrenner – conyers

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Suing file-sharers is apparently so 18-months-ago that the music industry, in dire need of something new to justify their hefty legal retainers, has taken aim at sites that offer �unauthorized� lyrics and unlicensed song scores. The Music Publishers� Association (MPA), which represents US sheet music companies, said it will launch its first campaign against such sites in 2006. MPA president Lauren Keiser told the BBC that shuttering websites and imposing fines aren�t quite sufficient, saying if authorities can �throw in some jail time I think we�ll be a little more effective.� Ho, ho, ho.
from google.weblogsinc.com

The main issue here seems to be that because of music lovers exchanging/downloading lyrics from websites, there is no market anymore for selling books with lyrics, a market that had already suffered under the evil influence of the Xerox photocopy. I have two words for that: buggy wips!

Lawrence Garfield: You know, at one time there must’ve been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I’ll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw. Now how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company? You invested in a business and this business is dead. Lets have the intelligence, lets have the DECENCY to sign the death certificate, collect the insurance, and invest in something with a future.
from Other People’s Money, by Danny DeVito

Again we have to look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to talk some sense into the big guys with piles of money but no clue how to adapt.

Technorati: mpa – copyright – eff- music

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Consumers are not pirates!
“P2P is like stealing a CD in a shop!“, “We have to protect artists who are being robbed by consumers on the Internet!“.
We are being fed this type of “truth” thanks to the efforts of certain major music and film industry interests.
For this reason, we are launching today with a press conference in the European Parliament and with the support of Mrs Zuzana Roithová MEP, a Campaign supported by a “Declaration of Consumers’ Digital Rights“.
from consumersdigitalrights.org

They put the following 6 basic consumer rights forward:

• Right to choice, knowledge and cultural diversity
• Right to the principle of “technical neutrality” - defend and maintain consumer rights in the digital environment
• Right to benefit from technological innovations without abusive restrictions
• Right to interoperability of content and devices
• Right to the protection of privacy
• Right not to be criminalised

The BEUC tries to give a voice to a large group of consumers and individuals that have a hard time to counter the lobbying power of record and movie companies. If you want to support the action, put a logo on your own page!

• 240 x 61 pixels:
  <a href="http://www.consumersdigitalrights.org" target="_blank"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/32/63355147_3827f27158_m.jpg" title="BEUC Consumer Digital Rights" border="0" /></a>
• 500 x 127 pixels:
  <a href="http://www.consumersdigitalrights.org" target="_blank"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/32/63355147_3827f27158.jpg" title="BEUC Consumer Digital Rights" border="0" /></a>

And, yes, that’s me on the interview page.

Technorati: digital – consumer – rights – beuc – copyright

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I was told – maybe I should say … threatened is not the right word – but ‘promised’ that they (the music/broadcasting companies) are gonna come after podcasters, and they’re gonna shut them down. What was implied, is that they were going to shut podcasting down.
(at 9:58 in DSC-275-2005-11-07.mp3)

So he did not take this ‘promise’ lightly and got rid of all his licensed music.

11:10 Wondering why certain episodes of DSC are not in the archives? Adam has been contacted by several Dutch representatives of international music services tell him “hey, this file’s on your server, it’s licensed music, get it off there.” Adam has removed episodes with such songs on there. Adam has even “cleaned” his computers at home of every possible mp3, and now has only podsafe tunes on there. Adam will not play any non-podsafe song on the DSC. No more Mashups. If it’s not on PMN, it doesn’t get played.
from Daily Sourcecode Show Notes

Adam was actually in Brussels while doing that podcast, visiting some European Parliament contacts. He is concerned that the music industry could get a European directive passed, making sure that there will be no way for podcasters to play licensed music, no reasonable priced yearly/monthly license. Playing commercial music is only for the big boys.

So Adam’s reaction is: “Scr*w you, we’ll make you irrelevant”. Don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s a big step.

Once they get to know new artists in the free-and-legal bag they aren’t reliant on music which can only be shared in the underground, but getting them over the hump is not so easy: they have to hang around long enough to absorb new sounds and stop being disappointed that they can’t have the old ones. With Adam and the many podcasters he influences on board, we have a good shot at breaking through.
from Lucas Gonze’s blog via beatmixed

I am still before that hump, I’m not ready yet to throw out all my RIAA/IFPI licensed music. There’s just to many memories linked to music I have. Long Hot Summer, I Keep Forgettin’, Knocks me off my feet, That Night, these songs mean something for me, I cannot switch completely to podsafe music. Yet.

Technorati: podcast – music – podsafe – riaa – ifpi

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Smith said the goal of the XCP technology is work with record labels and help them in better controlling the amount of copies made per user. He agreed that copying CDs for fair/personal use is acceptable, however, certain users exceed that limit. Now, he said, record labels and other software developers have the capability to limit the number of burns per CD. He further stated that record labels and others could control various aspects of copying, such as the quality of music at which the data is burned onto the new CD – in addition the number of burns.
The company said its technology is backwards compatible. Sony added that it has shipped approximately two millions compact discs that are equipped with XCP.
Sony tests CD protection technology (May 2005)

Error #2: assume all your customers are evil and should be protected against themselves

Our proprietary OD-DRM (On Disc Digital Rights Management) enables Record Labels and content owners to provide copying features such as controlled copying to hard drive, protected burning to CDR and transfer of protected files to portable devices. Consumers can therefore be enabled to make limited copies on CDR for personal use at the discretion of the Record Label but further copying is denied as these CDRs themselves are copy protected with no further OD-DRM.
from XCP Press Protect

Error #3: assume all your customers are stupid and won’t discover what you’ve done

The firestorm began when Mark Russinovich, a computer security expert with Sysinternals, discovered evidence of a “rootkit” on his Windows PC. Through heroic forensic work, he traced the code to First 4 Internet, a British provider of copy-restriction technology that has a deal with Sony to put digital rights management on its CDs. It turns out Russinovich was infected with the software when he played the Sony BMG CD Get Right With the Man by the Van Zant brothers.
from The Cover-Up Is the Crime (Wired)

Error #4: provide a really streamlined uninstall process

Mr Gilliat-Smith said Mr Russinovich had problems removing XCP because he tried to do it manually something that was not a “recommended action”. Instead, said Mr Gilliat-Smith, he should have contacted Sony BMG which gives consumers advice about how to remove the software.
Getting the software removed involves filling in a form on the Sony website, visiting a unique URL and agreeing to have another program downloaded on to a user’s PC that then does the uninstallation.
from Sony slated over anti-piracy CD (BBC)

Error #5: even when it’s discovered, no one will do anything against it

And because we are increasingly technology aware, your ever-increasing assault on not only our fair use but also our common sense will virtually guarantee that we use our God-given ingenuity to find a way around whatever bizarre restrictions you see fit to impose. Why? Not because we’re dying to break the law, but because you have sold us a crappy product, and, fundamentally, because it is not our responsibility to protect your profits.
from DRM this, Sony! (CNET)

It’s a pity the CD standard was developed by a company (Philips) and not by a standard body that is independent of commercial pressure. Otherwise the record companies could have been forced to call their shiny gray discs something else, because they are not CDs/Compact Discs. But Philips (former owners of Polygram, now Universal) won’t be hurrying to counter the amateuristic copyright-control efforts of Sony, Warner, Universal and the others.

I was already complaining about this last year:

Result: my Windows Media Player keeps crashing on it – mostly taking my PC with it, because the CD-ROM becomes inaccesible. My MusicMatch won’t play it, and I haven’t even tried RealPlayer, because I don’t want to reboot more than 3 times in a day, life’s too short. So I can only look at the cover and wonder what it sounds like.
from Portable audio & copy protection

Technorati: copyright – drm – sony – rootkit – xcp

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The European Parliament on Wednesday rejected a proposed law to create a single way of patenting software across the European Union, a blow to big companies who had pushed hard for its adoption.
The so-called software patent directive, rejected by a 648-14 vote with 18 abstentions, would have given companies EU-wide patent protection for computerized inventions (…).
But lawmakers said the measure would stifle enterprise and did not promote innovation, and that human knowledge can’t be patented. The move kills the legislation since the EU head office, which had drafted it, does not plan to set forth a new version. (…)
Companies such as Nokia and Siemens fought hard for adoption of the bill, saying patent protection would give them incentives to invest in research and development. Open-source advocates campaigned against it, saying that individuals and small businesses could be bankrupted by expensive legal battles with software giants over fuzzy patent law.
from European Patent Law rejected(Wired)

What kind of laws would give a fictional HugeCorp Inc even more ‘incentives to invest in research and development’:

1. every thought an employee has at HugeCorp Inc, belongs to the company. Practically this means that, if ever an employee wants to claim an idea as his, he has to be able to prove it was conceived of in his free time.
2. if an employee, certainly someone from the R&D department, leaves the company, he should sign a non-disclosure/non-competition contract. If HugeCorp Inc has doubts about the person’s willingness to shut up and do absolutely nothing with the knowledge that was gathered while working at their premises, the former employee’s memory can be erased, either chemically or with a hammer.
3. whenever a new product or technology is developed at HugeCorp Inc, consumers can be forced to buy it. The normal process of customer adoption allows for inventions to be unprofitable because of such silly reasons as: too expensive, too user-unfriendly, no demand, better substitute available. This makes R&D riskful and should be eliminated.
4. it is forbidden to reverse engineer anything that was developed at HugeCorp Inc. This includes decompiling software code, performing input/output analysis or disassembling electronic or mechanical devices. Replacing batteries in a watch, changing a tire on a car and decoding an imperfect DVD-encryption are therefor forbidden, except by persons explicitly accredited by the manufacturer.
5. whatever inventions are developed at universities or other academic institutions may never be commercialised or released on a free basis to the outside world. They should be handed over to HugeCorp Inc for a symbolical sum (let’s say, a 19″ flat screen for the supervising professor, and free drinks for anyone involved in the development), where it will be prepared for commercial purposes (i.e. DRM and licensing mechanisms will be built in). If the product sells really well, a new wing will be donated for the department that inspired the development, and it will get a name like “HugeCorp Research Institute“.
6. the “open source” movement is too large to be killed silently, but it should be possible for HugeCorp Inc to have some of its employees interfere incognito in the development process and introduce bugs, annoyance and controversy. Traditional practices like defamation, bribery, blackmail … can also be used to discredit open source personalities.
7. any invention that has, could have, could be thought to have or eventually maybe might slightly have, a negative effect on the balance sheet of HugeCorp Inc, and that was not developed by HugeCorp itself, cannot be commercialized or released publicly. The person(s) responsible for its conception can be sued for that act, or under some other pretence, can be rendered life very difficult. Unless, of course, they work for EvenHugerComp Inc, in which case HugeCorp just keeps quiet in the hope not being sued themselves.
8. The company cannot be held responsible for any personal damage its employees would suffer while researching and developing. If the employee does not like that, he can always resign and go work somewhere else. (In which case rule #2 is still valid)
9. The company cannot be held responsible for the detrimental effects of its inventions on the environment, the market or its customers. If any damage is done, some other company can step in and sell the service of fixing it.
10. The company cannot be held responsible for the actions of its employees, except if these actions would have a positive impact on the balance sheet.

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In the USA, free downloads of copyrighted music are driving the recording industry to sue teenagers and holler about the morality of obtaining songs for free. But if China is the future, that’s all in vain. The genie is out of the bottle. Eventually, recorded music will no longer make money.
(…)
Yu Quan and most other Chinese pop artists similarly find ways to make money other than through selling CDs. A lot of it comes from sponsorship. Clothing, shampoo and computer brands pay to advertise at a concert. A bottled-water company put singer Wang Lee Hom on its products.
USA Today

The danger with this scenario happening in the US or Europe is that, while the RIAA/IFPI might lose some of their power over artists, that power might be turned over to the (artist management department of) ClearChannels of this world. And however talented you may be, you would better look good or at least ‘interesting’ too, or you might not be able to get a contract.

Just ask Kim Cleysters where Anna Kournikova’s money comes from.

via Standaard In-De-Hoek

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Some background: on Feb 13 the Skynetblogger Librarian had put a link on his blog that pointed to a RealAudio recording of “One-Trick Pony” by Nelly Furtado. When the IFPI, represented by its lawyer Olivier Maeterlinck, asked him on Feb 21 to remove this link (a classic ‘cease and desist’, that Mr Maeterlinck probably sends dozens of every week), the blogger reacted by putting up a link to a excerpt of the song (1:29 of the total 4:47) that he hosted on his own website. He then put forward that because of the right to cite (”citaatrecht” in Dutch) he should be allowed to do this. The right to cite an original work without explicit permission of the author is regularly used in written communication, but is restricted to the following purposes: critic, polemic, education or scientific efforts (“kritiek, polemiek of onderwijs, of in het kader van wetenschappelijke werkzaamheden”). It made for an interesting test case, which was noticed by other bloggers like LVB. IFPI did not seem to object to the excerpt (but started questioning the right to link to the song’s lyrics). The conversation took the form of an exchange of legal statements with long slightly abusive sentences, lots of unnecessary adjectives and the occasional disclaimer. The stuff they teach lawyers at university, in other words.

But then on Feb 26, Librarian published a post with a completely different story: he had removed all links to other bloggers from his site because they might contain ‘illegal’ (i.e. copyrighted) images or other content. Had he stopped at that, it would be nothing but overly cautious. But he also asked bloggers who wanted their link restored, to contact him and ensure him that all content on their blog was OK. Moreover, he said that whoever did not reply within 7 days was automatically suspect of providing illegal content, and if the blog was hosted by skynetblogs.be (probably the largest Belgian blog provider) he would report it to Skynet as an inadmissible blog (ongeoorloofde blog). This is not only pretentious (as if every blogger would read Librarian’s blog and react), but also equivalent with a social suicide.

I have no idea what his motivation is. It could be fear (for getting sued as a testcase) or irony (’see, this is what this legislation would lead to’). It is really rather silly. If you want to know what the limits are of what you can do on a blog with copyrighted material, check with SABAM. It is responsible for protecting the rights of the authors and has published its prices: the price for putting music on-line: 13,07 euro per month for 15 minutes of audio, to be paid by the party responsible for hosting the actual files. SABAM has no prices for “linking to other people’s audio”.

I wonder, in the days of pirate radio stations, was it illegal to refer to their names and frequencies?

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