Chris Castle, a longtime music insider and attorney, says he believes there's a market for subscription-based cell phones.
"There are people out there who have high-end home audio systems that want high fidelity and clean copies of songs," Castle said. "They don't want to rip lots of content. They aren't willing to pay a $1 a pop for it, but they'd be willing to pay something for it. I think preloaded hard drives are a business, provide they offer lots of stuff. The questions are what do the publishers want for it? Can you make a deal?"
Castle sees the potential for artist-driven or genre-driven preloaded devices.
"...I don't know any artist who has gotten a royalty statement (from their label that includes YouTube money)," said music attorney Chris Castle.
"It's so hard to break an artist, it almost doesn't matter where you're from,'' says Chris Castle, a music industry attorney based in Sherman Oaks, Calif. "It's very hard to break into radio. It's very hard to move units. Tours--it's very competitive."
"But I'd be careful about dismissing this as a pipe dream. Just as one data point hardly makes for a trend, there's nothing conclusive here--other than a depressing reaffirmation of human selfishness. Music attorney and industry exec Chris Castle made a telling point in a conversation with my colleague Greg Sandoval that the economic lifespan of a music album can extend as long as two years."
But if the RIAA isn't going to stand up for its rights, who will, asks Chris Castle, a copyright lawyer and former executive with A&M Records and Sony Entertainment.
The music industry can't rely on the federal government. He points out that the Copyright Office has far less power than other regulatory bodies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission.
"The copyright office has virtually no enforcement powers," Castle said. "That's left up to the Department of Justice and they haven't done much about this problem. If the RIAA didn't do anything about piracy, then nothing would get done."
RIAA Victory Sends Message But Won't Stop File-Sharing
A Minnesota woman's $220,000 fine for illegally downloading music files is expected to set a precedent for other recording industry lawsuits, a music lawyer suggests.
By K.C. Jones, InformationWeek
Oct. 5, 2007
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202300187
The jury's guilty verdict this week in a file-sharing trial could deter others from pushing back against the recording industry's copyright claims.
However, it is unlikely that it will completely stop music files from being swapped on the Internet, according to a music attorney specializing in online sales and copyright.
The Recording Industry Association of America won its first trial this week when a jury ordered Jammie Thomas of Duluth, Minnesota to pay $220,000 to six separate record companies -- Sony BMG, Arista Records, Interscope Records, UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, and Warner Bros. Records. The amount covers 24 copyrighted songs illegally downloaded on her computer. Thomas' lawyer argued that someone else could have downloaded the songs either in-person or remotely, but the Minnesota jury sided with the recording industry.
Christian Castle, who runs his own practice out of Los Angeles, said that the token ruling could discourage some people from illegally downloading and sharing copyrighted music and gives credence to the industry's legal tactics. Critics often claim the RIAA goes too far in chasing down those who share files illegally.
"The fact that this case went to trial and there was a verdict -- whatever the outcome -- was a good thing, because there's some kind of sense that these cases don't have merit," he said during an interview Friday.
That was the case earlier this summer when a Texas court sided with a woman who claimed Sony BMG Music Entertainment and others illegally employed unlicensed investigators to dig up information on her when the RIAA suspected she had been illegally sharing music files.
Since 2003, the record companies have filed some 26,000 file-sharing lawsuits. In addition to individual cases, such as the Thomas case, the RIAA has also been targeting college campuses as hubs of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing under blanket "John Doe" lawsuits.
Although record industry critics are likely to continue their resistance, the Minnesota ruling sends a message that "this really is bad behavior and it needs to stop," Castle said.
People who aren't deterred by the ruling may be more inclined to accept settlement offers once they're caught, he said.
The Thomas case did not go forward to stop file-sharing, he said. It will give artists and executives the "legal and moral high-ground" in their battles against copyright infringement, Castle said. It could also make it easier to lobby Congress for better protections.
"For some reason the music business is charged with paying for effective enforcement of the law," he said.
If someone called U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents and complained that people were stacking crates of stolen Ford auto parts they would not be told to take care of it themselves, Castle said.
"That's what's going on here," he said.
As for Thomas, she got off easy, according to Castle, who said she could have been fined $150,000 per copy rather than $10,000.
"I think the jury was telling her 'We don't buy your story. You're guilty of doing this intentionally. We're going to give you a verdict that will sting but is not the gross national product of a small country," he said.
"The decision is important in that it sends a message to file sharers that Internet anonymity won't protect them from lawsuits, said Chris Castle, a copyright attorney and longtime music industry executive."
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9791383-7.html?tag=nefd.pulse
"I think that one of the problems in general is that you can't put a $100 piece of security on something that sells for 99 cents," Castle said. "There is only so much money you're going to spend to protect a piece of content and that means there's only so much that antipiracy companies can afford to do."
Many of top earning musicians maximize their earning potential by going out of their way to cultivate a fan base outside the U.S. as well, particularly in Europe and Asia. Madonna, Bon Jovi and Celine Dion aren't just popular musicians. They're worldwide pop stars.
"That's not something that happens by accident, that's not something that happens overnight,'' observes Los Angeles entertainment attorney Chris Castle. "That's something they work at. And they work at it because they want a career."
http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=1641
Chris participated in a panel about the state of the digital music business at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9745198-7.html
"Apple created a device that now traffics in bootlegged content," [Bob] Tur told CNET News.com. "Steve Jobs is a brilliant man and I'm Apple's biggest fan. It sickens me to think that he can turn a blind eye to (copyright infringement)."Tur said he may sue Apple for secondary copyright infringement, but legal experts are highly skeptical that Apple would ever be found liable.
"I would absolutely bet there is an indemnity provision in the contract with YouTube that protects Apple," said Chris Castle, an attorney who has represented both technology and entertainment companies in copyright cases.
Castle also points out that YouTube is providing the videos, not Apple, which would make suing the latter company for copyright infringement even harder. Both Apple and YouTube declined to comment.
Times Staff Writer
May 21, 2007
WASHINGTON — With CD sales tumbling, record companies and musicians are looking at a new potential pot of money: royalties from broadcast radio stations.
For years, stations have paid royalties to composers and publishers when they played their songs. But they enjoy a federal exemption when paying the performers and record labels because, they argue, the airplay sells music.
Now, the Recording Industry Assn. of America and several artists' groups are getting ready to push Congress to repeal the exemption, a move that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually in new royalties.
Mary Wilson, who with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard formed the original Supremes, said the exemption was unfair and forced older musicians to continue touring to pay their bills.
"After so many years of not being compensated, it would be nice now at this late date to at least start," the 63-year-old Las Vegas resident said in Milwaukee, where she was performing at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino. "They've gotten 50-some years of free play. Now maybe it's time to pay up."
The decision to take on the volatile performance royalty issue again highlights the rough times the music industry is facing as listeners abandon compact discs for digital downloads, often listening to music shared with friends or obtained from file-sharing sites.
"The creation of music is suffering because of declining sales," said RIAA Chief Executive Mitch Bainwol. "We clearly have a more difficult time tolerating gaps in revenues that should be there."
It's not the first attempt to kill the exemption. In the past, politically powerful broadcasters beat back those efforts.
But with satellite and Internet radio forced to pay "public performance royalties" and Web broadcasters up in arms about a recent federal decision to boost their performance royalty rate, the record companies and musicians have a strong hand.
Broadcasters are already girding for the fight, expected to last more than a year. In a letter to lawmakers this month, the National Assn. of Broadcasters dubbed the royalties a "performance tax" that would upend the 70-year "mutually beneficial relationship" between radio stations and the recording industry.
"The existing system actually provides the epitome of fairness for all parties: free music for free promotion," wrote NAB President David Rehr.
Performance royalties are collected from traditional radio stations in nearly all major industrialized countries, but U.S. musicians and record companies can't because there is no similar royalty on the books here.
"The time comes that we really have to do this," said John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange, a group created by the recording industry to collect and distribute Internet and satellite music royalties.
For record labels and musicians, addressing the issue now is crucial because digital radio, now being rolled out, allows broadcasters to split a signal into several digital channels and play even more music exempt from performance royalties.
Groups preparing to push Congress to change the law include the RIAA, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the American Federation of Musicians and other organizations. The U.S. Copyright Office has long supported removing the exemption.
The groups have a major ally in Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), who now chairs the House subcommittee dealing with intellectual property law. Berman is "actively contemplating" leading a legislative push to end the exemption.
"Given the many different ways to promote music now that didn't exist as effectively when this original exemption was made," he said, "the logic of that I think is more dubious."
Congress granted composers and publishers of music copyright protection in 1909. But the recording and radio industries were in their infancy, and the actual musical recordings were not covered. Congress extended limited copyright protection to musical performances in the 1970s to guard against an earlier form of piracy: the copying of records and tapes.
But by then, broadcasters were influential enough to snuff out any talk of making them pay musicians and recording companies for playing their music.
"The old saying is the reason broadcasters don't pay a performance royalty is there's a radio station in every congressional district and a record company in three," said Chris Castle, a music industry lawyer.
Broadcasters even successfully fought a group of singers and musicians led by Frank Sinatra in the late 1980s who tried to pressure Congress into changing the law. Broadcasters also prevailed in 1995, when Congress exempted them from new fees for digital recordings that everyone else had to pay.
"Congress has always recognized that broadcasters generate enormous sums of revenue to record companies and artists in terms of airplay," said NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton. Radio stations also have public-interest obligations that satellite and Internet broadcasters don't have to worry about, he said.
Satellite radio, Internet broadcasters and cable television companies offering digital music channels now pay performance royalties. The recording industry and musician groups say it's time for traditional radio stations to pony up.
"Most of the artists in the world are kind of middle-class cats, trying to piece together a living," said Jonatha Brooke, a singer-songwriter who is part of the Recording Artists Coalition advocacy group. "It's important to be recognized and paid for our work."
"Chris Castle, a music-industry lawyer who represented the original Napster, said the shift from CDs to digital music has hurt the music industry enough that it might be willing to consider Jobs's points.
'I think the labels are finally starting to come around to this,' he said. 'There's more willingness to entertain this sort of thing than there ever has been.'"
...Los Angeles-based Castle said YouTube's lax policy that helped it win viewers will have long-term repercussions.
"The young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley tonight are trying to figure out how to build a better YouTube and they are not thinking about getting the licenses for content owners," Castle said. "That's the real damage that Google has done by rewarding these people."
Chris is a source for Google-YouTube analysis in San Jose Mercury News.
Online social networks are hugely popular - but the media industry can't decide whether to engage with them or cry foul over copyright
