Pixelization

Digital History Made This Month: iTunes Music Now DRM Free

This month, Apple's iTunes made the final transition to ridding itself of DRM (digital rights management) restrictions on the music files it sells. That means that the iTunes software and associated encryption algorithms are no longer trying to prevent you from taking newly purchased iTunes music to an unauthorized computer.

This is a great thing for iTunes consumers, because it means they no longer need to worry about the red tape of trying to authorize and de-authorize different computers and players just to hear the music that's already been paid for. It also means iTunes consumers are no longer tied down to iPods and iTunes software to play their music. 

But there is a significance to this that goes far beyond its impact on consumers or Apple. I would call this is a red-letter day in the history of intellectual property. Ten years ago, when Napster and illegal downloading were scarring the pants off the record business and much of the rest of the entertainment industry, it looked like to me and to many people like we were headed into an era of trusted systems – where proprietary formats and cooperating hardware would hold a Big-Brother-like grip over audiences – deciding what people could and could not do with reproductions of copyrighted works. It was in that environment that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed, which made it a criminal offense to defeat DRM systems through hacking or reverse engineering. 

Apple's successful push to make iTunes music DRM-free indicates that the survival of the entertainment industry, in fact, did not hinge on DRM technology and the passage of the DMCA as Big Hollywood would have had everyone believe. It turns out, if you charge reasonable prices, people are generally willing to pay rather than go out of their way to get copies unlawfully.

A big downside of DRM for society is that it creates a technological barrier to exercising fair-use rights. So this development with iTunes is a very happy one. By shedding DRM in this instance, the free market actually provided people with a freedom that Congress was all too willing to bargain away. 

Copysquare article: "Rethinking Sharing Licenses for the Entertainment Media"

The Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal just published my article laying the philosophical and legal groundwork for the copysquare sharing-license scheme: 26 Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 391. An extended abstract is here.

Also, Ben Bildstein in Australia (whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Sapporo at iSummit) blogged about copysquare and konomark on The House of Commons. He provided a thoughtful summary and analysis of the concepts, a good example, and, only loosely relatedly, a link to a brain-bending puzzle about connecting dots with only four end-to-end lines. (I can do it in just three lines - so there! (Hint: You've got to think like a lawyer, not like a mathematician.))

And here are pictures from the panel discussion in September at Cardozo Law School in New York, sponsored by the Squadron Program in Law, Media and Society and the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. It was a thoroughly enjoyable time!

Legal Mavens of UK Rock

I hereby name The Get Out Clause as the cleverest band in media law.

The Manchester rock band with a name borrowed from contract law, found themselves unable to afford a proper camera to make a high-end music video. A burst of legal cleverness led them to spend a week around town posing - with their instruments - for surveillance video cameras, now becoming ubiquitous on the public streets, to the annoyance of many Britons. The band then used the UK's Freedom of Information Act to obtain the footage, and they edited together a music video for their medium-tempo track, "Paper."

The UK FoIA applies to public authorities, including companies that are wholly owned by public authorities. Apparently, in Manchester, that adds up to a lot of opportunities to get grainy footage of yourself, if you want it.

A You Tube sensation with their video in May and June, the band has now gone comparatively big time. They've just released a CD and are distributing an album on iTunes. The iTunes tracks are distributed free of DRM restrictions.

My thanks to student Lori Conroy for telling me about this fascinating story.

(Daily Telegraph, NPR)

Public Domain Source of the Month: Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music at Johns Hopkins University

The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music of the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University contains over 29,000 pieces of sheet music, predominantly popular American music from the 1800s and early 1900s.

It is the personal collection and lifelong passion of the late Lester Levy, a Johns Hopkins alum who left these riches to his alma mater.

Most of it is old enough that it has fallen into the public domain, which has allowed Johns Hopkins to make it available to the world through the website.

As Levy saw it, his sheet-music collection is a reflection of America's history.

"We sang the virtues of a war or a president," he wrote. "We touched on the American sense of humor. We sang about our mode of dress or advances in technology, or the prevailing attractions of the people at any particular time. Our popular music covered every situation."

Johns Hopkins' librarians pay fitting tribute to Levy on the library's website for the gift he gave the university. But someone needs to heap some praise on the librarians. The collection is beautifully presented, and it is organized so that it is highly accessible. All sheet music that is old enough to be in the public domain has been turned into jpeg images and assembled PDFs. You can take it in either format. Just download, print, and play. It's as easy as that.

Unless you're like me, and you can't read music. In which case, you will be pleased to know that the illustrated covers, reproduced in resplendent color, are a wealth of treasure in themselves.

The collection is easy to search. But you can also browse through the boxes in which Levy arranged his collection.