Posts by Russell Brown
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Meanwhile, also via Techdirt, Universal Music's raving mad list of "rogue" websites (that is, sites their agencies are forbidden to engage with) including Soundcloud and most of the hip hop blog ecosystem.
They're only shooting themselves in the foot here, but it is worth noting that this is precisely the kind of list -- even the same "rogue" terminology -- that they'd be able to have actioned under SOPA. That would then be everyone's problem.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
BCCI – only time it’s happened, to my knowledge. I’m not sure if BCCI had any business that *wasn’t* criminal, at least in the eyes of some jurisdiction. They were also eventually insolvent.
Ah yes. That's the exception I was trying to think of.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Um, you know, if a bank was alleged to have indulged in money laundering, it sure as hell would be frozen when the police moved against them. No two ways about it.
This is just wrong.
A UK FSA study found evidence of money laundering -- or at least unacceptably poor controls -- at multiple banks last year. The Bank of Scotland was fined in a separate case. None of them had their entire businesses frozen.
Neither did Citigroup, despite repeated scandals over years.
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Exactly how much the hip hop producer Swizz Beatz was really the CEO of Megaupload is unclear, but it seems he's not the only one in that world to think Megaupload was not a bad thing.
A Techdirt story compiled his tweets thus:
1st of all I am soooo proud of my brother @THEREALSWIZZZ 4 being apart of creating something (MEGAUPLOAD) that could create the most powerful way 4 artist 2 get 90% off of every dollar despite the music being downloaded 4 free...
With labels and companies doin' deals with Spotify and many other companies like it who doesn't give us shit continue 2 do what they do and blatantly show us how much they value the artist with doing deals of such disrespect and lack of value 4 our content...
I am proud 2 stand next 2 my brother @THEREALSWIZZZ and fight the good fight...Our freedom is truly being fucked with in a very significant way and I strongly suggest 2 all artist especially the 1's Swizz repped 4 comes out & reps 4 him!!!
Fuck that I say it again...I'M PROUD OF MY BROTHER @THEREALSWIZZZ #GREATMIND!!
That's an interesting point. Spotify is legit and earns artists fuck-all. Megaupload is dodgy and earns (some) artists decent money.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to nzlemming,
The thing about Sky (and the other entities we tend to regard as ratbags in this area) is that they don’t have to behave corruptly to get the job done. They pay people to liaise with the government officials and ministers and that may be their entire job. Simply by being always available to talk on these matters makes them the authoritative voice, as far as the government is concerned.
Yes. Sky’s guy is Tony O’Brien, whose job is lunch and lobbying with MPs, officials, relevant industry managers and journalists. He’s pretty good at it. And we got some sense of the size of his budget during the election campaign last year – in a fairly unnerving blurring of boundaries, it actually paid for Sky’s election debates.
A former comms person for the New Zealand Rugby Union told me that whenever Jim Anderton started up about anti-siphoning laws for major sports events, he’d be required to call the New Zealand Rugby Union and tell them to issue a statement predicting The End of the World As We Know It.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Already, Netflix has openly stated it’s bypassing NZ because of what it says is sub-par Internet. As long as the Internet in NZ remains in its current state, it won’t pose a threat to SKY anytime soon.
Netflix did also cite the licensing situation. Sky's lock on content is a massive block to any new entrants. I think its rights acquisition policy is aimed less at generating revenue per se than at preventing any competition.
The parallels with Telecom in the 1990s are inescapable. I expect that at some point we'll have to go through a protracted and painful period of re-regulation under a different government. Meanwhile, we'll look like a bunch of wallies.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Pete Sime,
The BBC do a good job with the iPlayer – I know they’ve geoblocked the tv content, but the radio is pretty good.
At a Great Blend some time ago, we had the BBC's Ashley Highfield as a guest. He asked the audience who would pay an annual license fee to get BBC content directly. At least two thirds of the people in the room put up their hands.
I'm told by senior TV execs that the sums just don't add up for content producers to have a direct relationship with NZ audiences, rather than than licensing for lump sums to broadcasters in each territory. But I suspect there's a degree of self-interest in that.
A major obstacle to any kind of experimental market is that conventional broadcasters generally buy internet as well as TV rights to programmes. And Sky has most of the rights locked up.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
For films and music it should be relatively easy (not sure why we don’t have more options in that area in NZ).
Territorial licensing and distribution agreements are a pain -- but remain entirely logical with respect to physical product.
I'd have to say that for all it gets pilloried, the music industry is much further through the change than the screen industries. Indie labels especially are learning to harness the reach of the network.
Independent Music NZ signed a licensing agreement with Spotify several years ago, and a prominent person in that part of the industry told me once that an effective and reasonably monetised file-sharing system for music was "our dream". Even the majors are starting to get it -- at least as far as grasping the promotional power of Hype Machine et al. On the other hand, eMusic -- which was specially named as a service to be encouraged in RIANZ's Copyright Amendment Bill submission -- still doesn't have a NZ license, and iTunes still isn't network-priced.
For Television it’s a nightmare and I can’t see a way it will ever be resolved, it’s simply not possible for companies to provide direct, legal, immediate access to their TV content.
It would all have been easier if internet advertising worked better. YouTube has signed revenue-share agreements with several rights agencies and has begun to commission TV works, but there's just not enough revenue.
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Gigaom has graphs 'n' numbers on the effect on internet traffic of the Mega sites closing down. Interesting!
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Jock Anderson's report on the hearing so far, for NBR:
In a strong bail application, Mr Dotcom’s lawyer Paul Davidson QC has said that the US government, including the FBI, have completely misunderstood the reality of Mr Dotcom’s business.
Mr Davidson told the court the business did not involve the illegal downloading of copyright films, television series or music.
He says Mr Dotcom is not a flight risk, although he has access to helicopters and private jets and has passports in at least three nationalities under different names ...
Mr Davidson has revealed that the day before the police launched a dawn raid last week, a police officer called at the Chrisco mansion to discuss security matters with one of Mr Dotcom’s security advisers. He said the officer carried with him a concealed camera disguised as a pen that he used to take photographs around the property, presumably to identify any potential escape routes.
Two helicopter loads of armed offender squad members landed in the mansion courtyard and when Mr Dotcom was confronted by them banging on doors he became frightened and fled to the safe room where the police found him.