John Hemming's Web Log

John Hemming has discussed music performers and digital copyright in the past, and today Sarah Thompson advances the conversation by considering the seminal court cases in the debate over copyright issues in the digital age. You can read more from Sarah at the online resource where she frequently writes, which covers industry topics like how music production careers have evolved in the last two decades . The Problems Protecting Music Production and Copyright in the Digital Age Recent changes in technology have made it easier than ever to share and copy content, particularly music. The United State Copyright Act governs all of these transactions, but not comprehensively. Most provisions of the act were framed in a time when digital innovations could never have been imagined. Lawyers and lawmakers have struggled to stretch existing provisions to fit new and growing capabilities, with mixed results. Today’s music copyright landscape is mired in pitfalls, and defined by an ever-...

I have linked to Dominic McGonigal's web log about copyright terms. When it comes, for example, to a video with music there are normally three copyrights. There is an original copyright in the music (the dots) which exists whoever plays the music. Then there is a copyright in the musical recording which exists for the performers. Then there is a visual copyright in the video itself. These different copyrights have different terms. That in music lasts beyond the death of the writer of the music. The performance one, however, only lasts for 50 years after the performance. Dominic works for the Performers Protection organisation (PPL) who handle the music performance copyright and video performance copyright in the UK. They and people such as Cliff Richard are campaigning for a copyright extension.

This Story about Samsung shares dropping following a patent case highlights some interesting questions. I haven't studied the details of the cases around the world, but superficially it appears that the US Courts have found for Apple and non-US courts have found for Samsung. If this is true then in itself it raises questions about the differential effect of the rule of law in different countries. I do study this for the purposes of family law as should become clear in a few days. However, it is not something we can ignore as if it stands up to detailed scrutiny - which of course it might not - it raises concerns about the enforcement of court orders from one country in another. The activity of Argentina in the energy sector is a good example of a clearly wrong decision of one country and its legal system and how that should be responded to by other countries. I tend to take a more robust approach on this than many. There are also questions about the BBC report as to whether...

This video is indeed something that could be trapped by the DE Bill. The BBC and/or parliament own the copyright for this video which has then been sampled and changed.

A lot of effort is going into the details of my private members bill. A draft bill should be published early next week. In the mean time, however, John Hemming and the Sisters of Jazz performed as part of the Birmingham Jazz Festival last sunday afternoon (at Hotel du Vin). Photos copyright Jim Simpson. More information on the festival is here Now I am back from parliament for the weekend I intend to see some of the gigs. There will be videos of our gig at some stage in the future.

The good news is that Labour's Election petition in Aston against the Lib Dem by-election victors was "struck out" at 10am today. What this means is that the Judges decided that even if Labour could prove the allegations that they had made that this would not have resulted in them winning an election petition. The fact is that Labour's petition was merely a copy of the one I wrote without the Wyrlie incident. Not only that, but they haven't paid me a copyright fee.