Let’s be clear: copyright law is good, in general. At its core, the idea is very noble: to allow anyone to create something original and give it protection from being copied by anyone else. In practice, though, paranoia has ruined things for everyone else. A post from Videopia (thanks, Eric) titled “100 Years of Copyright Hysteria” and the associated link to Ars Technica titled “100 years of Big Content fearing technology–in its own words” are remarkable in that the nice (but paranoid) people from Hollywood and elsewhere have been fighting for a remarkably long time about copyright law.

Can you believe that John Philip Sousa, author of many a march, actually wrote a magazine article complaining about the uptake of player pianos and phonographs? And who can forget Jack Valenti’s remarkably pompous quote comparing the VCR to the Boston Strangler? (And, of course, if it wasn’t for the VCR, we at Videomaker probably wouldn’t be here; it was the miniaturization of the VCR and video cameras that led to this crazy little video revolution and the democratization of television.) Or the jaw-droppingly arrogant quote of Jamie Kellner, then-CEO of Turner, whose distaste of DVR users led him to classify anyone who even just has to use the bathroom during the commercials, as thieves?! And don’t get me started on the industry’s fights against DAT and the Diamond Rio, the granddaddy of all personal media players.

So, what will be the next innovative technology that the industry will be banding against? Why do we have to go through this every time something new comes out? Ugh. Unless this is the call to action for independent media (and really, I can’t remember the last time knowing what studio or record label put out a piece of media I was going to consume was actually a useful piece of information.)

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; better known as ASCAP, is targeting videos on YouTube for royalty payment for it’s professional creative members. This is a good thing for producers who work hard at making their product, only to see that someone has “borrowed” some of that property clips for their own use. But the average consumer who just wants to make a simple video using a well-know song as their music bed might get confused.

According to this recent report from Digital Media Wire, if you make a cute little video using copyrighted music, and place it on your own personal blog or non-commercial website, you won’t be targeted, but if you post it for the masses, you will. Or something like that. As copyright laws for intellectual property goes, it’s always muddy, and only attorneys seem to be able to interpret them. Read the rest of this entry »