Free Republic

Politico is a bit upset about the recent investigative journalist piece done by The Daily Caller on Media Matters. In that piece they spoke to many former staffers at Media Matters, and what did they find? Yet those same interviews, as well as a detailed organizational planning memo obtained by The Daily Caller, also suggest that Media Matters has to a great extent achieved its central goal of influencing the national media. Founded by Brock in 2004 as a liberal counterweight to “conservative misinformation” in the press, Media Matters has in less than a decade become a powerful player in...

Watch the video from this nitwit. Yep, Diane, the protests have spread to more than 1,000 countries. That means that more than 800 of those protests are on other planets. She has just proven we are not alone.

Since their release in 1978, hit albums like Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Billy Joel’s “52nd Street,” the Doobie Brothers’ “Minute by Minute,” Kenny Rogers’s “Gambler” and Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove” have generated tens of millions of dollars for record companies. But thanks to a little-noted provision in United States copyright law, those artists — and thousands more — now have the right to reclaim ownership of their recordings, potentially leaving the labels out in the cold. When copyright law was revised in the mid-1970s, musicians, like creators of other works of art, were granted...

The Indianapolis Star on Tuesday laid off 62 employees including more than 15 percent of its newsroom staff in the latest round of cost-cutting by Gannett Co. Inc., the newspaper's parent company. Among those laid off in Indianapolis were 26 newsroom employees including 12 copy editors and eight reporters, mostly those covering suburban news. The Star also eliminated 19 open positions, said Robert King, the newspaper's religion and philanthropy reporter and president of the Indianapolis Newspaper Guild. "The Indianapolis Star, I’ve been told repeatedly, continues to make money," King wrote in an e-mail. "Yet Gannett, and its corporate bosses in...

Coming off her week-long One Nation bus tour that was widely seen as a test-run for a presidential campaign, Sarah Palin says she’s starting to see that running for president might not be the best fit for her. “Not only do I love my freedom of not having a title and being a declared candidate — that is liberating — I know you can make a difference as an individual,” she said. “Hopefully, I can inspire others to know that you don’t need a title. You don’t need to be in office to effect positive change.”

RUSH: I want to move on to Sarah Palin now. You know the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour? You know the...? That was actually, ladies and gentlemen, an experimental movie that the Beatles made about a bus tour, and nobody could figure out what the Beatles were up to, either. By the same token nobody knows what Palin's up to. They're all trying to figure it out. The Drive-Bys are trying to figure out what Palin is up to. Now, the interesting thing is that whatever it is she's doing, she is doing it bypassing the media. She's doing an end-around...

Palin is rubbing the media mob’s sense of entitlement right back in its face. In the 1970s, The Boys on the Bus exposed how a clubby pack of male political reporters ruled the road to the White House and shaped the news. Four decades later, an outsider gal from Alaska has commandeered the 2012 media bus — and left Beltway journalism insiders eating her dust. We’ve come a long way, baby. Amid frenzied speculation over her potential presidential-campaign plans, former GOP Alaska governor Sarah Palin launched an all-American road trip with her family this Memorial Day weekend. Establishment media types...

Last weekend, His Presidency Barack Obama was captured making potentially offensive comments to a group of big money donors who had paid large sums of money for special access to His Presidency. We observed that CBS only released “selectively edited” moments from the raw tape. We know how much the mainstream media values complete and full disclosure of recordings of this nature, so we found it curious, to say the least, that there was not one drop of intellectual curiosity from these guardians of media purity regarding the content of the full recording. Maybe CBS’s motive has nothing to do...

In an interview to air tonight on BBC World News America, FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps describes American journalism as having reached “its hour of grave peril.” -snip- It’s a pretty serious situation that we’re in. I think American media has a bad case of substance abuse right now. We are not producing the body of news and information that democracy needs to conduct its civic dialogue, we’re not producing as much news as we did five years, 10 years, 15 years ago and we have to reverse that trend or I think we are going to be pretty close...

In an effort to meet an Obama campaign promise, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski indicated Wednesday that he will propose new regulations for Internet lines. He is expected to give a speech at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday laying out his proposal. Genachowski's attempt to revive the long-delayed net-neutrality proceeding is a delicate balancing act designed to garner some industry and public interest support without completely satisfying anyone. Genachowski has made concessions to AT&T, Verizon, and the cable industry that could forestall an all-out lobbying blitz by the nation's largest telecom providers. But the concessions have done nothing to...

from the this-won't-end-well dept By now you probably know that over the Thanksgiving Holiday, Homeland Security wasn't just feeling up your grandmother and staring at your naked daughter at the TSA, but ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) went way beyond its mandate to seize a whole bunch of domain names. This is not the first time it has done this, of course. Back in June, we noted a very similar, if somewhat smaller, raid. That one was equally questionable, as not only did it involve seizing domains without an adversarial trial, but also the announcement was made at Disney headquarters,...

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.” COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and...

67% Say They Are Better Informed Than 10 Years AgoSunday, September 19, 2010 While newspapers and broadcast outlets struggle to survive in the Internet age, two-out-of-three Americans (67%) feel they are more informed today than they were 10 years ago. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just eight percent (8%) consider themselves less informed these days, while 22% think their level of knowledge is about the same. Women are more confident than men that they are better informed now. Adults ages 30 to 49 believe that more strongly than those in any other age group. Forty-four percent...

This could confirm what many suspected all along - the corporate heads at General Electric (NYSE:GE) would try to use their media holdings to portray President Barack Obama and his administration in a positive light in order to gain a corporate advantage. That's how former CNBC reporter and current Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino explains it in his forthcoming book, "Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street." According to Gasparino, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt had "helped his company feast off of the subsidies of Obamanomics," including the green energy initiatives and health...

Exclusive: Meghan McCain Writes that Palin Brought 'Drama, Stress... Panic' to Campaign Sen. John McCain's Daughter: Sarah Palin's Rise Was 'Too Fast,' 'Too Easy' Aug. 31, 2010— For the first time since the end of her father's 2008 presidential bid, Sen. John McCain's daughter Meghan McCain spoke out about Sarah Palin, writing in a new book that Palin brought "drama, stress, complications, panic and loads of uncertainty" to the losing campaign. Though she writes that during the campaign she wondered if the loss "was Sarah Palin's fault," McCain told "Good Morning America" today in an exclusive interview that Palin was...

ASPEN, Colo.--The Recording Industry Association of America said on Monday that current U.S. copyright law is so broken that it "isn't working" for content creators any longer. RIAA President Cary Sherman said the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act contains loopholes that allow broadband providers and Web companies to turn a blind eye to customers' unlawful activities without suffering any legal consequences. "The DMCA isn't working for content people at all," he said at the Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum here. "You cannot monitor all the infringements on the Internet. It's simply not possible. We don't have the ability to search...

...a framework of a deal in which stations would pay a total of about $100 million a year in performance fees. ...The association’s outline suggests that the largest stations pay a performance fee of 1 percent of net revenue, and smaller stations a lower rate or none at all. While labels and musicians have long sought performance fees, broadcasters have argued that the stations provide important promotion for artists, and that a fee might put small stations out of business. ...it would still need Congressional approval. ...Last year, after the both the House and Senate judiciary committees approved bills that...

There may be an FM radio in your next cell phone whether you want it or not. The National Association of Broadcasters is lobbying Congress to stipulate that FM radio technology be included in future cell phones. In exchange, the NAB has agreed that member stations would pay about $100 million in so-called performance fees to music labels and artists. Radio stations would be required to pay performance royalties on a tiered schedule with larger commercial stations paying more than smaller and non-profit stations. The agreement is part of a compromise between the NAB and the Recording Industry Association of...

Katie Couric once described bloggers as journalists who gnaw at new information “like piranhas in a pool.” But increasingly, many bloggers are also secretly feeding on cash from political campaigns, in a form of partisan payola that erases the line between journalism and paid endorsement. “It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.”

Big Boi isn't indie. Or is he? As one-half of the rap duo OutKast, he has sold some 18 million albums, won six Grammy Awards and appeared on more hit songs than even he can keep track of. Yet there he was on July 18 at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, playing alongside bands only a fraction as successful. As thousands of writhing, fist-pumping fans swarmed the main stage and climbed on top of fences to get a look at the hip-hop megastar, thousands more were across the park, stomping and dancing to the largely unknown noise-pop act Sleigh...

Just because the Mile High Music Festival this weekend in Denver hasn't happened yet, and just because the bootleggers haven't yet set up shop, doesn't mean that hundreds of individuals haven't already been sued. AEG Live has jumped on a growing legal trend in the concert world by filing a trademark infringement claim against hundreds of John Does and Jane Does. According to AEG's new complaint, "only the plaintiff has the right to sell merchandise bearing the Festival Trademarks at and near the Festival." AEG is asking a federal court in Colorado to order the US Marshal, local and state...

Chelsea Clinton Wedding Guest List Revealed Posted by Devon Thomas NEW YORK (CBS) It's wedding season and Hillary and Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea has her guest list all sorted out. The First Daughter, 30, who is getting married on July 31 to Marc Mezvinsky, is throwing a wedding bash that will reportedly have up to 500 guests, including some of the biggest names in politics and entertainment. Just who made the cut? According to the Hudson Valley News, guests include President Obama, singer Barbra Streisand, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw, and media moguls Oprah Winfrey and Ted...

from the going-behind-the-veil dept We recently had a fun post about Hollywood accounting, about how the movie industry makes sure even big hit movies "lose money" on paper. So how about the recording industry? Well, they're pretty famous for doing something quite similar. Reader Jay pointed out in the comments an article from The Root that goes through who gets paid what for music sales, and the basic answer is not the musician. That report suggests that for every $1,000 sold, the average musician gets $23.40. Here's the chart that the article shows, though you should read the whole article...

...the near future: Augustus Merryweather IV glanced up at the tapping on his office door. Harvey Carbunkle stood there... "You're firing me?" "I have no choice. Your work, ...it hasn't been up to the standard we expect for an editor at Merryweather Publishing. Frankly, I'm surprised. When I saw that you were a graduate of BU, I couldn't wait to hire you..." A proud smile. "Yes, sir. That's Beck University." Augustus was confused. "I've never heard of..." ..."You know, Glenn Beck? ...He founded an online university back in 2010 so people could learn the real truth they don't get in...

And so it begins in earnest… The stripping of free speech on the Internet. I have known for some time that it was heading at us like a freight train, with virtually no way of stopping the onslaught and it has finally arrived. First they came for the those they deemed as Internet counterfeiting and piracy sites. “Operation In Our Sites” targets Internet movie pirates. Given, many of these are crooks and are infringing on the entertainment industry and as such should be stopped. However, look closely at the wording on ICE’s site: Quote: In the first action carried out...

Warning: this one is depressing if you believe in the public domain. You may recall that last year, a district court made a very important ruling on what appeared to be a minor part of copyright law. The "Golan" case asked a simple question: once something is officially in the public domain, can Congress pull it out and put it back under copyright? The situation came about because of (yet another) trade agreement that pulled certain foreign works out of the public domain. A district court had initially said that this move did not violate the law, but the appeals...

Companies are preying on desperate musicians by selling them Twitter followers, Facebook fans and even download sales. But only a fool would think this is real success One of the most staggering statistics I took from this year's The Great Escape was that analytics company MusicMetric is currently tracking 450,000 artists. As it's not following every artist out there, we can safely say there are more than half a million competing for your attention. So how are they supposed to get heard? Unsurprisingly, new companies have emerged that are intent on profiting from the increasing desperation of artists and start-up...

News Organizations Ask Blagojevich Judge to Release Jurors' NamesAssociated Press Updated: Tuesday, 01 Jun 2010, 5:46 PM CDT Chicago - Five news organizations have asked a federal judge to release the names of the jurors who will be selected in former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's corruption trial. The news organizations said in making their request Tuesday that both the law and tradition call for juror names to be made public and the Blagojevich case should be no exception. Making the request were the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Associated Press, the Illinois Press Association and the Illinois Broadcasters Association....

A reality show that promises to sell off three virgins to the highest bidder is — to say the least — raising a storm of controversy on two sides of the Pacific. The show is the brainchild of an Australian filmmaker, Justin Sisley, and will be made for TV there. But, as of yesterday, the show was set to be filmed in Nevada. The three virgins — two women and one man — are to be paid $20,000 each plus 90 percent of their “sale price” to take part in the auction, according to a report in the Sydney Daily...

...Internet music services like Pandora, Slacker and Last.fm, already popular with computer and smartphone owners, are being tailored by software developers, consumer electronics companies and even automakers to work more seamlessly with car stereo systems... ...These handsets all have free applications that play customized music channels streamed over the Internet using the phone’s 3G wireless data connection. The services are generally free, although smartphone owners typically pay about $30 a month on top of regular voice service for unlimited data usage. The attraction is that rather than being shackled to the same old hits from local radio stations, listeners can...

The MPAA, which is the Hollywood studios' lobbying organization, just made this announcement about the FCC's very bad decision. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: once again, Big Media shows that it doesn't want to share its profits with anyone else. Today's action allows the major movie studios to undercut the entire process of theatrical release. It would put the struggling cinema chains virtually out of business.

...computational neuroscientist Anders Sandberg recently noted that although we have strong instinctive feelings about ownership, intellectual property doesn’t always fit into that framework.... ..Optimists argue that the music industry has coped before with disruptive new technology. Until recordings came along, songs, not singers, were Big Business. So while copyright law allocated royalties for performances, it said nothing about what happened when you recorded those performances and sold thousands of copies of the recording. Only after protracted legal maneuvering did we work out an arrangement that allowed both businesses to thrive. ...collectors switching from cassette and vinyl to CD swelled the...

Music piracy is a more serious crime, at least in economic terms, than bank robbery, according to the Songwriters Guild of America [PDF]. The Guild has written to Victoria Espinel, Barack Obama’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, who has asked for public comment on tackling piracy. The Guild writes: “There are numerous economic crimes of much lesser magnitude (such as bank robbery) that are routinely and fully investigated, for which law enforcement agencies such as the FBI have significant resources. By contrast, online copyright piracy dwarfs bank robbery in causing economic losses, yet the FBI has limited criminal investigative interest and...

Leaked documents reveal draft text of secret global copyright deal ) OTTAWA — As negotiators from 37 countries prepare to meet in New Zealand on Monday to discuss a top-secret trade agreement, a draft text of the document has found its way onto the Internet. While bits and pieces of the agreement, called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), have been leaked in the past, this is the first time a full draft is available to the public. The agreement, negotiated privately for the better part of two years, aims to create a global organization to oversee worldwide copyright and intellectual...

Global music industry body the IFPI said it wanted to counter the "myth" that artists can make it on their own. In a report, it said virtually no new artists had broken through without the backing of a record label. Major labels invest $1m (£670,000) in each new act, who could not afford to make records and videos and go on tour without that backing, the IFPI said. Record labels around the world spend a total of $5bn (£3.3bn) a year on developing and promoting new and established artists. IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) chief executive John Kennedy...

(Beck) From the story in today’s Hollywood Reporter: --- “We wanted to make sure that it was not the Speedy of the 1950s — the racist Speedy,” said the comedian’s wife Ann Lopez, who will serve alongside him as a producer. “Speedy’s going to be a misunderstood boy who comes from a family that works in a very meticulous setting, and he’s a little too fast for what they do. He makes a mess of that. So he has to go out in the world to find what he’s good at.” That path becomes clearer once Speedy befriends a gun-shy...

Marvel Comic’s Captain America is the mightiest soldier with the super powerful secret soldier formula that makes him a super man. Sadly, this muscle bound hero that took on the whole Nazi army during WWII seems to be afraid of those American people who’ve joined the Tea Party movement. Not only is Cappy quaking in his little red booties, but he’s sure that the Tea Party folks are dangerous racists, too. Isn’t it wonderful that a decades old American comic book hero is now being used to turn readers against our very political system, being used to slander folks that...

...Matt Yglesias... proposed that in a perfect marketplace for music,"The price of a song ought to be equal to the marginal cost of distributing a new copy of a song. Which is to say that the marginal cost ought to be $0." In a followup post... He argues that the entire infrastructure of intellectual property law is designed to bring the cost of all creative products down, eventually to zero, where it's best able to serve the most possible consumers; he cites the expiration date on the copyright of creative work as clear legal intent for all intellectual property to...

After a packed screening of the Saints' NFC Championship victory at Uptown's Prytania Theatre [in New Orleans], co-owner Robert Brunet has had hundreds of requests for tickets to view the Super Bowl at the historic theater this Sunday. But instead of preparing for the game, Brunet has been haggling with NFL lawyers for more than a week after he received a cease-and-desist letter telling him that the free screening had violated copyright laws. A similar story played out at the Sheraton New Orleans hotel, whose managers had planned a massive projection of the game on the side of the Canal...

...The merger, which was the first major review for Obama administration antitrust regulators, will create a goliath with hands in every pocket of the music business. The newly formed Live Nation Entertainment would have the ability to book concerts, sell tickets and merchandise, and manage artists all under one roof... Under the agreement, Ticketmaster will give Anschutz Entertainment Group access to its technology so that AEG -- which owns and manages nearly 100 venues including Staples Center -- can create its own ticketing service... Ticketmaster would also be required to divest a subsidiary that provides software for venue operators to...

A human rights watchdog has asked the European Commission to assess the legality of software being used to analyse file-sharing in the UK. The software in question is called CView and will be used by ISP Virgin Media to identify legal versus illegal traffic on its network. The EC has said it will monitor the use of the software, following a complaint from Privacy International. Virgin Media countered that the software posed no risk to privacy. Privacy International has concerns about the software, designed by monitoring firm Detica. It utilises so-called deep packet inspection, which means that it can identify...

...The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) says that global government legislation is essential to the sector's survival. It cited Spain as an example of a country which does not have laws in place to prevent illegal downloads. The sales of albums by local artists there have fallen by 65% in five years. Federation chairman John Kennedy said the situation in Spain is now "almost irreversible". "Spain runs the risk of turning into a cultural desert," commented Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, at Universal Music Group.... "Drastic action needs to be taken in order to save the Spanish...

This year will host numerous events that could well change the course of the music industry. From the future of music giant EMI to the impact of the Performance Rights Act, many events that will occur in 2010 could have deep, long-term consequences. In no particular order, they are: 1. The Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger If the Department of Justice gives the merger a greenlight it would instantly create less competition in ticketing in the near term as Live Nation’s fledgling ticketing division ceases to be a competitor to Ticketmaster. In the long term, a combined Ticketmaster-Live Nation will be able...

Should stations pay artists to play their tunes? Get ready for one of the year's biggest battles. One of the biggest lobbying fights in the nation's capital this year could involve a traditionally non-Washington subject: rock and roll. At issue: whether AM and FM radio stations should pay royalties to performers on recorded music played over the airwaves, and if so, what those rates should be. Right now only composers and their affiliated publishers reap these payments. In one corner is the MusicFIRST Coalition, which includes the Recording Industry Association of America, several artist groups and SoundExchange, the folks who...

...I am seized by each, and moved by its potential to change our world. Return of the Automobile as a Sexual Object ...That’s why the Obama administration — while it still holds the keys to the big automakers — ought to put some style fascists into the mix... Intellectual Property Developers ...A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators... and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business... An Equal Right to Pollute (and...

WASHINGTON, December 16, 2009 – The U.S. is committed to an inter-agency process for combating piracy of American intellectual property, Vice President Joseph Biden said Tuesday during a press availability with top law enforcement officials. Appearing at the White House complex with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, the directors of the FBI, Customs and Border Protection, and the United States Secret Service, as well as the chief executives of the nation’s largest entertainment companies.The meeting was followed by a closed-door, roundtable discussion on international intellectual property theft.That second meeting...

Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals. Baker died in 1988, yet he is about to add a new claim to fame as the lead plaintiff in possibly the largest copyright infringement case in Canadian history. His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year. The infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least $50 million and the full claim could exceed $6 billion. If the dollars don't shock, the target of...

"NEW YORK, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The plunge in U.S. newspaper circulation is accelerating, according to the latest figures released on Monday, as more people cancel their subscriptions and publishers cut distribution and sales of discounted copies."

The Federal Communications Commission has unveiled the topics it is looking to discuss as it considers revising its media ownership rules, and one area it is looking to explore could have ramifications for future mergers between broadcast and cable companies and newspaper companies. Specifically, the FCC said it will probe whether it could continue to enforce regulations regarding media concentration by industry or should it find an "alternative structure to determine an ownership limit for all media within a relevant market." Cutting through the bureaucratic speak, what the FCC is saying is that currently it regulates broadcast, radio and cable...

There was a time, not so long ago, when the term "Internet Freedom" actually meant what it implied: a cyberspace free from over-zealous legislators and bureaucrats.... Those days are now gone; the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of "Internet Freedom" would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom.... Here is the reality: Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real...