COPYCENSE

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx will be allowed to perform a production of the musical “Chicago” after Samuel French, the show’s licensing agent, relented under pressure from members of the City Council and the city’s Public Advocate. The New York Daily News initially broke the story that Samuel French had threatened legal action against Lehman because the high school had not received permission from the licensing agency to perform the production.

“Chicago” remains in production, and has been playing on Broadway for more than a decade. In 2003, the movie adaptation of the musical won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta-Jones). It was the first musical to win the Best Picture award since “Oliver!” in 1968.

There are several things about this story that disturb me. The most obvious is its uncanny similarity to the “Happy Birthday” incident.

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“They will take my remote control away only when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. This thought followed my first reading of a patent application for a new kind of television set and digital video recorder recently filed by a unit of Royal Philips Electronics at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The design appears to threaten the inalienable right to channel-surf during commercials or fast-forward through ads in programs you’ve taped.

“A second, calmer reading of the patent application revealed that the proposed design would uphold the right to avoid commercials, but only for those who paid a fee. Those disinclined to pay would be prevented from changing channels during commercials. As a business proposition, the concept appears dead on arrival: what consumer would voluntarily buy a television designed to charge fees for using it?

“Philips’s pay-to-surf proposal may be the first of its kind, but we should expect to see other ideas that would not have appeared in days past, when advertising-based television thrived. Today, the digital video recorder is slowly, but surely, tunneling through the television industry’s foundation.

Randall Stross. Someone Has to Pay for TV. But Who? And How? The New York Times. May 7, 2006.

See also:

Barry Fox. Invention: The TV-Advert Enforcer. NewScientist.com. April 18, 2006.

U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Apparatus and Method for Preventing Switching From a Channel During An Advertisement Display (Applied for by Philips Intellectual Property & Standards). March 30, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“The more things stay the same, the more they change — as Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. demonstrate in their brewing struggle for Internet dominance. For more than a decade, Microsoft has made fending off antitrust complaints seem as much a part of its big product rollouts as bug testing is for other software companies.

“AOL and RealNetworks Inc., for instance, squared off against the software giant over the way it bundled software and services into its dominant Windows operating system. Netscape’s complaints triggered an antitrust trial that ended with Microsoft operating under federal supervision.

“Now Google is taking its turn. The Internet search leader has warned U.S. and European antitrust officials that a feature of Microsoft’s new version of Internet Explorer could stifle competition in the multibillion-dollar search engine market. Given Microsoft’s history, the concerns draw attention.”

Jim Puzzanghera. Goliath vs. Goliath. LATimes.com. May 7, 2006.

See also:

Steve Lohr. Microsoft and Google Grapple for Supremacy as Stakes Escalate. The New York Times. May 10, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“But when it comes to futuristic visions for the movie business, Hollywood is extraordinarily timid. During my three decades in the industry, I’ve seen film executives try to shun every innovation from VCR’s to digital editing. Ultimately, they’ve accepted and profited from these new technologies but, by waiting years longer than they should have, left a lot of money on the table. And now studios are committing a far costlier error by refusing to release DVD’s and downloads of movies at the same time they make their premieres in theaters.

“Nowadays, the studios are waging a fierce effort to prop up the status quo by denying consumers the choice of how, when and where to see movies. During this year’s Academy Awards, presenters admonished the audience for not going to the multiplexes, as if watching movies at home was somehow anti-American.”

Robert W. Cort. Straight to DVD. The New York Times. May 6, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“It’s no longer just the hardworking women who make money at strip clubs. These late-night hangouts, with their booming sound systems and gender-mixed crowds, have become big business for the record industry, particularly for hip-hop labels.

“The music industry increasingly has embraced the strip club out of necessity and convenience. Tighter radio playlists mean it’s harder than ever to break a track on the FM dial, and regular dance clubs — where songs get played for a moment and then lost in a mix — tend to play what’s already on the radio. At strip joints, DJs are able to play full tracks and can take a chance on underground and unproven material.

“Today, strip clubs are one of the fastest-rising segments among entertainment venues. There are more than 7,500 strip clubs across the United States, according to the Strip Club News Web site. Key venues are located in such prime markets as New York (Sue’s Rendezvous), Detroit (Platinum), Charlotte, N.C. (Champagne), Miami (Diamonds) and Atlanta (Body Tap, Magic City, Strokers).”

Gail Mitchell. At Strip Clubs, Hip-Hop Is Big Business. Yahoo! News. May 7, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“The phenomenon of podcasting has been much analyzed, explained and undertaken. Technically, podcasting has been described as “’he distribution of audio or video files, such as radio programs or music videos, over the internet using either RSS or Atom syndication for listening on mobile devices and personal computers.’ More broadly, podcasting has been heralded as ‘the medium that promises a future where anyone can make radio, instead of just listen to it.’

“For those interested and involved in podcasting, this Podcasting Legal Guide has been prepared to provide general information about some of the more common legal questions that get asked in relation to podcasting.”

Creative Commons. Podcasting Legal Guide: Rules for the Revolution. May 8, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.