1255: Mask = Love

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Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:23

UPDATE: On Saturday, the Rolling Stones released a statement, threatening to sue. ''This could be the last time President Donald Trump uses Stones songs. Despite cease & desist directives to Donald Trump in the past, the Rolling Stones are taking further steps to exclude him using their songs at any of his future political campaigning. The Stones' legal team is working with BMI. BMI has notified the Trump campaign on behalf of the Stones that the unauthorized use of their songs will constitute a breach of its licensing agreement. If Donald Trump disregards the exclusion and persists, then he would face a lawsuit for breaking the embargo and playing music that has not been licensed.''

EXCLUSIVE: We finally might have heard the last of the Rolling Stones' ''You Can't Always Get What You Want'' at President Donald Trump's campaign rallies, which was played as his walk-off theme at Saturday's sparsely attended rally in Tulsa, OK.

Related StoryBrendon Urie Objects To Donald Trump Campaign's Use Of 'High Hopes' At Phoenix Event: 'Stop Playing My Song'

The Stones first objected to Trump's use of the song during the 2016 presidential campaign, but he has continued to use it without their permission. Now he's been put on notice by BMI '' the giant performing rights organization '' that there might be legal consequences if he persists.

Tom Petty's Family Objects To Donald Trump Campaign's Use Of 'I Won't Back Down' At Tulsa Rally

BMI informed the Trump campaign this week that the unauthorized use of the song will constitute a breach of its licensing agreement. ''The Trump campaign has a Political Entities License which authorizes the public performance of more than 15 million musical works in BMI's repertoire wherever campaign events occur,'' a BMI spokesperson told Deadline. ''There is a provision, however, that allows BMI to exclude musical works from the license if a songwriter or publisher objects to its use by a campaign. BMI has received such an objection and sent a letter notifying the Trump campaign that the Rolling Stones' works have been removed from the campaign license, and advising the campaign that any future use of these musical compositions will be in breach of its license agreement with BMI.''

BMIAsked if the Trump campaign has responded to its letter, the BMI spokesperson said, ''Not as of this date.''

A spokesperson for ABKCO, the song's publisher, told Deadline that it had ''teamed up'' with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to ask BMI to tell the Trump campaign to stop using their classic 1969 song at the president's rallies.

BMI's Music License for Political Entities or Organizations (read it here) states: ''One or more works or catalogs of works by one or more BMI songwriters may be excluded from this license if notice is received by BMI that such songwriters object to the use of their copyrighted works for the intended uses by licensee. BMI shall provide written notice to licensee of any such exclusion'' '' which is whatBMI did this week.

The license also notes that ''Any performance by licensee of an excluded work or catalog of works at any event or function following receipt of such notice shall be covered by the grant and shall be deemed a material breach of this agreement, even if the venue or establishment at which the event or function takes place is separately licensed to publicly perform the works or catalog of works. Licensee shall not rely on, or use as a defense, any such separate license or claim arising out of any performance of such excluded works.''

Rihanna Shuts Down Use Of Her Music At Donald Trump's ''Tragic Rallies''

Some politicians think they can circumvent the objections of artists by claiming that the use of their songs is licensed not by their campaigns but rather through the licensing agreements of the venues at which they speak.

The BOK Center in Tulsa has such a venue licensing agreement with BMI, but the BMI spokesperson told Deadline that it ''licenses political campaigns and events through its Political Entities or Organizations License, which clearly states that a campaign cannot rely on a venue license to authorize its performance of an excluded work. Therefore, a political campaign cannot and should not try to circumvent BMI's withdrawal of musical works under its Political Entities License by attempting to rely on another license.''

Neil Young To Donald Trump: Comes A Time To Quit Using My Song '' Now!

Numerous other acts have publicly objected to the use of their songs at Trump's campaign rallies over the last four years, including Neil Young, whose ''Rockin' in the Free World'' was played when Trump announced his candidacy after descending an escalator at the Trump Tower in New York in June 2015; Queen for his use of ''We Are the Champions'' at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland; Rihanna, for the use of her hit song ''Don't Stop the Music'' at a 2018 Trump rally in Tallahassee, FL; Pharrell Williams, whose Oscar-nominated ''Happy'' was played at a Trump rally hours after 11 people were killed at a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018; Panic! at the Disco's Brendon Urie, whose ''High Hopes'' played at Trump's Phoenix event this week; and the estate of the Tom Petty, whose ''I Won't Back Down'' also was played at Trump's rally last week in Tulsa.

The Trump campaign claimed that it had the right to play ''Rockin' in the Free World'' at his campaign events through a licensing agreement with ASCAP. Like BMI, ASCAP has a Political Campaign License agreement that provides ''a blanket license to perform any or all of the millions of compositions in the ASCAP repertory. However, ASCAP members may ask ASCAP to exclude specific songs from a particular political campaign's license. In that event, ASCAP will notify the campaign of the excluded works.''

Brendon Urie Objects To Donald Trump Campaign's Use Of 'High Hopes' At Phoenix Event: ''Stop Playing My Song''

When Young's manager informed the Trump campaign that its use of ''Rockin' in the Free World'' was ''not authorized,'' Trump's then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said that the campaign ''will respect his wish'' to not use the song ''because it's the right thing to do.''

Earlier this week, Petty's family posted a statement on the late-singer's Twitter account saying that the Trump campaign's use of his song is ''in no way authorized,'' adding that he ''would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate.''

Also this week, actress-singer Betty Buckley, a star of the original Broadway production of Cats, urged composer Andrew Lloyd Webber to help stop the playing of the song ''Memory'' at Trump rallies. She reiterated the sentiment today:

Wish they'd order them to stop playing ''Memory''!

'-- Betty Buckley (@BettyBuckley) June 26, 2020

After Rihanna demanded that her songs no longer be played at Trump's ''tragic rallies,'' BMI removed her music from its blanket Political Entities License agreement and sent the Trump campaign a letter saying that ''any performance of Rihanna's musical works by the Trump campaign from this date forward is not authorized by BMI.''

When Queen's famous anthem was played when Trump was nominated in 2016 at the Republican National Convention, the band said it was ''an unauthorized use '... against our wishes.''

Donald Trump Played 'Happy' At Rally After Synagogue Rampage & Pharrell Williams Is Not Happy

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Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:17

The Rolling Stones are taking ''further steps'' to prevent Donald Trump from using their music at his rallies after the president's campaign ignored the previous cease-and-desist letters. ''This could be the last time Trump uses any Jagger/ Richards songs on his campaigns,'' the band's rep said in a statement.

In a statement Saturday, the band announced that their legal team and performing rights organization BMI sent another warning to Trump's campaign that, if the president continued to use the band's music, he could face a lawsuit.

''The BMI have notified the Trump campaign on behalf of the Stones that the unauthorized use of their songs will constitute a breach of its licensing agreement,'' the Rolling Stones rep added. ''If Donald Trump disregards the exclusion and persists then he would face a lawsuit for breaking the embargo and playing music that has not been licensed.''

Despite previous warnings during the 2016 presidential campaign '-- '' The Rolling Stones do not endorse Donald Trump. You Can't Always Get What You Want was used without the band's permission,'' the Stones tweeted in July 2016 '-- the Trump team still played the Rolling Stones' ''You Can't Always Get What You Want'' at the president's lightly attended rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 20th.

As BMI told Deadline, ''The Trump campaign has a Political Entities License which authorizes the public performance of more than 15 million musical works in BMI's repertoire wherever campaign events occur. There is a provision, however, that allows BMI to exclude musical works from the license if a songwriter or publisher objects to its use by a campaign. BMI has received such an objection and sent a letter notifying the Trump campaign that the Rolling Stones' works have been removed from the campaign license, and advising the campaign that any future use of these musical compositions will be in breach of its license agreement with BMI.''

The Tulsa rally similarly drew the ire of Tom Petty's family, who similarly stated after the Trump rally featured ''I Won't Back Down,'' ''Trump was in no way authorized to use this song to further a campaign that leaves too many Americans and common sense behind. Both the late Tom Petty and his family firmly stand against racism and discrimination of any kind. Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together.''

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Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:13

Sections 112 and 114 of the Copyright Act provide that a transmitting organization is entitled to transmit to the public a performance of a sound recording under the limitation on exclusive rights specified by Section 114(d)(1)(C)(iv) or under a statutory license in accordance with Section 114(f), or for a transmitting organization that is a broadcast radio or television station licensed as such by the Federal Communications Commission and that makes a broadcast transmission of a performance of a sound recording in a digital format on a nonsubscription basis, to make no more than one copy or phonorecord of a particular transmission program embodying the performance or display. (See 37 CFR 370.2)

Visit the Copyright Royalty Board website for information on determination of rates and terms for the copyright statutory licenses and for determinations on distribution of statutory license royalties collected by the Copyright Office.

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Sun, 28 Jun 2020 00:04

A settlement has been reached in the Tom Petty estate battle between the rock legend's widow and his two daughters from a previous marriage.

This past spring '-- Petty's daughters Adria Petty and Annakim Violette '-- sued Dana York Petty for $5 million after claiming that the widow superseded the daughters' rights to ''equal participation'' over decisions involving the singer's estate and catalog.

However, legal documents obtained by Rolling Stone show that both parties, as well as Petty's long-time manager Anthony Dimitriades, reached a ''settlement agreement'' on December 10th in regard to the estate battle. Details of the settlement were not revealed. A representative for Dana Petty would not comment on the settlement, while reps for Petty's daughters did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone.

The estate disagreement reportedly impacted the release of the posthumous collection An American Treasure and scuttled a planned 25th anniversary edition of Petty's acclaimed 1994 album Wildflowers; the status of that box set reissue remains unknown.

Alex Weingarten, an attorney for Petty's daughters, said in a statement to Rolling Stone at the time, ''Tom Petty wanted his music and his legacy to be controlled equally by his daughters, Adria and Annakim, and his wife, Dana. Dana has refused Tom's express wishes and insisted instead upon misappropriating Tom's life's work for her own selfish interests. After countless efforts to resolve this matter amicably and out of court, we could no longer stand idly by and watch Dana disrespect Tom's wishes, his music and his legacy.''

Dana Petty's attorney Adam Streisand countered in a statement: ''This misguided and meritless lawsuit sadly demonstrates exactly why Tom Petty designated his wife to be the sole trustee with authority to manage his estate. Dana will not allow destructive nonsense like this to distract her from protecting her husband's legacy.''

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Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:59

house report no. 94''1476Clauses (1) through (4) of section 110 deal with performances and exhibitions that are now generally exempt under the ''for profit'' limitation or other provisions of the copyright law, and that are specifically exempted from copyright liability under this legislation. Clauses (1) and (2) between them are intended to cover all of the various methods by which perform­ances or displays in the course of systematic instruction take place.

Face-to-Face Teaching Activities. Clause (1) of section 110 is generally intended to set out the conditions under which performances or displays, in the course of instructional activities other than educational broadcasting, are to be exempted from copyright control. The clause covers all types of copyrighted works, and exempts their performance or display ''by instructors or pupils in the course of face-to-face teaching activities of a nonprofit educational institution,'' where the activities take place ''in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction.''

There appears to be no need for a statutory definition of ''face-to-face'' teaching activities to clarify the scope of the provision. ''Face-to-face teaching activities'' under clause (1) embrace instructional perform­ances and displays that are not ''transmitted.'' The concept does not require that the teacher and students be able to see each other, although it does require their simultaneous presence in the same general place. Use of the phrase ''in the course of face-to-face teaching activities'' is intended to exclude broadcasting or other transmissions from an outside location into classrooms, whether radio or television and whether open or closed circuit. However, as long as the instructor and pupils are in the same building or general area, the exemption would extend to the use of devices for amplifying or reproducing sound and for projecting visual images. The ''teaching activities'' exempted by the clause encompass systematic instruction of a very wide variety of subjects, but they do not include performances or displays, whatever their cultural value or intellectual appeal, that are given for the recreation or entertainment of any part of their audience.

Works Affected.'--Since there is no limitation on the types of works covered by the exemption, teachers or students would be free to perform or display anything in class as long as the other conditions of the clause are met. They could read aloud from copyrighted text material, act out a drama, play or sing a musical work, perform a motion picture or filmstrip, or display text or pictorial material to the class by means of a projector. However, nothing in this provision is intended to sanction the unauthorized reproduction of copies or phonorecords for the purpose of classroom performance or display, and the clause contains a special exception dealing with performances from unlawfully made copies of motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to be discussed below.

Instructors or Pupils.'--To come within clause (1), the performance or display must be ''by instructors or pupils,'' thus ruling out performances by actors, singers, or instrumentalists brought in from outside the school to put on a program. However, the term ''instructors'' would be broad enough to include guest lecturers if their instructional activities remain confined to classroom situations. In general, the term ''pupils'' refers to the enrolled members of a class.

Nonprofit Educational Institution.'--Clause (1) makes clear that it applies only to the teaching activities ''of a nonprofit educational institution,'' thus excluding from the exemption performances or displays in profit-making institutions such as dance studios and language schools.

Classroom or Similar Place.'--The teaching activities exempted by the clause must take place ''in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction.'' For example, performances in an auditorium or stadium during a school assembly, graduation ceremony, class play, or sporting event, where the audience is not confined to the members of a particular class, would fall outside the scope of clause (1), although in some cases they might be exempted by clause (4) of section 110. The ''similar place'' referred to in clause (1) is a place which is ''devoted to instruction'' in the same way a classroom is; common examples would include a studio, a workshop, a gymnasium, a training field, a library, the stage of an auditorium, or the auditorium itself, if it is actually used as a classroom for systematic instructional activities.

Motion Pictures and Other Audiovisual Works.'--The final provision of clause (1) deals with the special problem of performances from unlawfully-made copies of motion pictures and other audiovisual works. The exemption is lost where the copy being used for a classroom performance was ''not lawfully made under this title'' and the person responsible for the performance knew or had reason to suspect as much. This special exception to the exemption would not apply to performances from lawfully-made copies, even if the copies were acquired from someone who had stolen or converted them, or if the performances were in violation of an agreement. However, though the performance would be exempt under section 110(1) in such cases, the copyright owner might have a cause of action against the unauthorized distributor under section 106(3), or against the person responsible for the performance, for breach of contract.

Projection Devices.'--As long as there is no transmission beyond the place where the copy is located, both section 109(b) and section 110(1) would permit the classroom display of a work by means of any sort of projection device or process.

Instructional Broadcasting. Works Affected.'--The exemption for instructional broadcasting provided by section 110(2) would apply only to ''performance of a nondramatic literary or musical work or display of a work.'' Thus, the copyright owner's permission would be required for the performance on educational television or radio of a dramatic work, of a dramatico-musical work such as an opera or musical comedy, or of a motion picture. Since, as already explained, audiovisual works such as filmstrips are equated with motion pictures, their sequential showing would be regarded as a performance rather than a display and would not be exempt under section 110(2). The clause is not intended to limit in any way the copyright owner's exclusive right to make dramatizations, adaptations, or other derivative works under section 106(2). Thus, for example, a performer could read a nondramatic literary work aloud under section 110(2), but the copyright owner's permission would be required for him to act it out in dramatic form.

Systematic Instructional Activities.'--Under section 110(2) a transmission must meet three specified conditions in order to be exempted from copyright liability. The first of these, as provided by subclause (A), is that the performance or display must be ''a regular part of the systematic instructional activities of a governmental body or a nonprofit educational institution.'' The concept of ''systematic instructional activities'' is intended as the general equivalent of ''curriculums,'' but it could be broader in a case such as that of an institution using systematic teaching methods not related to specific course work. A transmission would be a regular part of these activities if it is in accordance with the pattern of teaching established by the governmental body or institution. The use of commercial facilities, such as those of a cable service, to transmit the performance or display, would not affect the exemption as long as the actual performance or display was for nonprofit purposes.

Content of Transmission.'--Subclause (B) requires that the performance or display be directly related and of material assistance to the teaching content of the transmission.

Intended Recipients.'--Subclause (C) requires that the transmission is made primarily for:

(i) Reception in classrooms or similar places normally devoted to instruction, or

(ii) Reception by persons to whom the transmission is directed because their disabilities or other special circumstances prevent their attendance in classrooms or similar places normally devoted to instruction, or

(iii) Reception by officers or employees of governmental bodies as a part of their official duties or employment.

In all three cases, the instructional transmission need only be made ''primarily'' rather than ''solely'' to the specified recipients to be exempt. Thus, the transmission could still be exempt even though it is capable of reception by the public at large. Conversely, it would not be regarded as made ''primarily'' for one of the required groups of recipients if the principal purpose behind the transmission is reception by the public at large, even if it is cast in the form of instruction and is also received in classrooms. Factors to consider in determining the ''primary'' purpose of a program would include its subject matter, content, and the time of its transmission.

Paragraph (i) of subclause (C) generally covers what are known as ''in-school'' broadcasts, whether open- or closed-circuit. The reference to ''classrooms or similar places'' here is intended to have the same meaning as that of the phrase as used in section 110(1). The exemption in paragraph (ii) is intended to exempt transmissions providing systematic instruction to individuals who cannot be reached in classrooms because of ''their disabilities or other special circumstances.'' Accordingly, the exemption is confined to instructional broadcasting that is an adjunct to the actual classwork of nonprofit schools or is primarily for people who cannot be brought together in classrooms such as preschool children, displaced workers, illiterates, and shut-ins.

There has been some question as to whether or not the language in this section of the bill is intended to include instructional television college credit courses. These telecourses are aimed at undergraduate and graduate students in earnest pursuit of higher educational degrees who are unable to attend daytime classes because of daytime employment, distance from campus, or some other intervening reason. So long as these broadcasts are aimed at regularly enrolled students and conducted by recognized higher educational institutions, the committee believes that they are clearly within the language of section 110(2)(C)(ii). Like night school and correspondence courses before them, these telecourses are fast becoming a valuable adjunct of the normal college curriculum.

The third exemption in subclause (C) is intended to permit the use of copyrighted material, in accordance with the other conditions of section 110(2), in the course of instructional transmissions for Government personnel who are receiving training ''as a part of their official duties or employment.''

Religious Services. The exemption in clause (3) of section 110 covers performances of a nondramatic literary or musical work, and also performances ''of dramatico-musical works of a religious nature''; in addition, it extends to displays of works of all kinds. The exemption applies where the performance or display is ''in the course of services at a place of worship or other religious assembly.'' The scope of the clause does not cover the sequential showing of motion pictures and other audiovisual works.

The exemption, which to some extent has its counterpart in sections 1 and 104 of the present law [sections 1 and 104 of former title 17], applies to dramatico-musical works ''of a religious nature.'' The purpose here is to exempt certain performances of sacred music that might be regarded as ''dramatic'' in nature, such as oratorios, cantatas, musical settings of the mass, choral services, and the like. The exemption is not intended to cover performances of secular operas, musical plays, motion pictures, and the like, even if they have an underlying religious or philosophical theme and take place ''in the course of [religious] services.''

To be exempted under section 110(3) a performance or display must be ''in the course of services,'' thus excluding activities at a place of worship that are for social, educational, fund raising, or entertainment purposes. Some performances of these kinds could be covered by the exemption in section 110(4), discussed next. Since the performance or display must also occur ''at a place of worship or other religious assembly,'' the exemption would not extend to religious broadcasts or other transmissions to the public at large, even where the transmissions were sent from the place of worship. On the other hand, as long as services are being conducted before a religious gathering, the exemption would apply if they were conducted in places such as auditoriums, outdoor theaters, and the like.

Certain Other Nonprofit Performances. In addition to the educational and religious exemptions provided by clauses (1) through (3) of section 110, clause (4) contains a general exception to the exclusive right of public performance that would cover some, though not all, of the same ground as the present ''for profit'' limitation.

Scope of Exemption.'--The exemption in clause (4) applies to the same general activities and subject matter as those covered by the ''for profit'' limitation today: public performances of nondramatic literary and musical works. However, the exemption would be limited to public performances given directly in the presence of an audience whether by means of living performers, the playing of phonorecords, or the operation of a receiving apparatus, and would not include a ''transmission to the public.'' Unlike the clauses (1) through (3) and (5) of section 110, but like clauses (6) through (8), clause (4) applies only to performing rights in certain works, and does not affect the exclusive right to display a work in public.

No Profit Motive.'--In addition to the other conditions specified by the clause, the performance must be ''without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage.'' This provision expressly adopts the principle established by the court decisions construing the ''for profit'' limitation: that public performances given or sponsored in connection with any commercial or profit-making enterprises are subject to the exclusive rights of the copyright owner even though the public is not charged for seeing or hearing the performance.

No Payment for Performance.'--An important condition for this exemption is that the performance be given ''without payment of any fee or other compensation for the performance to any of its performers, promoters, or organizers.'' The basic purpose of this requirement is to prevent the free use of copyrighted material under the guise of charity where fees or percentages are paid to performers, promoters, producers, and the like. However, the exemption would not be lost if the performers, directors, or producers of the performance, instead of being paid directly ''for the performance,'' are paid a salary for duties encompassing the performance. Examples are performances by a school orchestra conducted by a music teacher who receives an annual salary, or by a service band whose members and conductors perform as part of their assigned duties and who receive military pay. The committee believes that performances of this type should be exempt, assuming the other conditions in clause (4) are met, and has not adopted the suggestion that the word ''salary'' be added to the phrase referring to the ''payment of any fee or other compensation.''

Admission Charge.'--Assuming that the performance involves no profit motive and no one responsible for it gets paid a fee, it must still meet one of two alternative conditions to be exempt. As specified in subclauses (A) and (B) of section 110(4), these conditions are: (1) that no direct or indirect admission charge is made, or (2) that the net proceeds are ''used exclusively for educational, religious, or charitable purposes and not for private financial gain.''

Under the second of these conditions, a performance meeting the other conditions of clause (4) would be exempt even if an admission fee is charged, provided any amounts left ''after deducting the reasonable costs of producing the performance'' are used solely for bona fide educational, religious, or charitable purposes. In cases arising under this second condition and as provided in subclause (B), where there is an admission charge, the copyright owner is given an opportunity to decide whether and under what conditions the copyrighted work should be performed; otherwise, owners could be compelled to make involuntary donations to the fund-raising activities of causes to which they are opposed. The subclause would thus permit copyright owners to prevent public performances of their works under section 110(4)(B) by serving notice of objection, with the reasons therefor, at least seven days in advance.

Mere Reception in Public. Unlike the first four clauses of section 110, clause (5) is not to any extent a counterpart of the ''for profit'' limitation of the present statute. It applies to performances and displays of all types of works, and its purpose is to exempt from copyright liability anyone who merely turns on, in a public place, an ordinary radio or television receiving apparatus of a kind commonly sold to members of the public for private use.

The basic rationale of this clause is that the secondary use of the transmission by turning on an ordinary receiver in public is so remote and minimal that no further liability should be imposed. In the vast majority of these cases no royalties are collected today, and the exemption should be made explicit in the statute. This clause has nothing to do with cable television systems and the exemptions would be denied in any case where the audience is charged directly to see or hear the transmission.

With respect to section 110(5), the conference substitute conforms to the language in the Senate bill. It is the intent of the conferees that a small commercial establishment of the type involved in Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151 (1975), [95 S.Ct. 2040, 45 L.Ed.2d 84], which merely augmented a home-type receiver and which was not of sufficient size to justify, as a practical matter, a subscription to a commercial background music service, would be exempt. However, where the public communication was by means of something other than a home-type receiving apparatus, or where the establishment actually makes a further transmission to the public, the exemption would not apply.

On June 17, 1975 , the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 95 S.Ct. 2040 [422 U.S. 151, 45 L.Ed.2d 84], that raised fundamental questions about the proper interpretation of section 110(5). The defendant, owner and operator of a fast-service food shop in downtown Pittsburgh, had ''a radio with outlets to four speakers in the ceiling,'' which he apparently turned on and left on throughout the business day. Lacking any performing license, he was sued for copyright infringement by two ASCAP members. He lost in the District Court, won a reversal in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and finally prevailed, by a margin of 7''2, in the Supreme Court.

The Aiken decision is based squarely on the two Supreme Court decisions dealing with cable television. In Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists, 392 U.S. 390 [88 S.Ct. 2084, 20 L.Ed.2d 1176, rehearing denied 89 S.Ct. 65, 393 U.S. 902, 21 L.Ed.2d 190], and again in Teleprompter Corp. v. CBS, 415 U.S. 394 [94 S.Ct. 1129, 39 L.Ed.2d 415], the Supreme Court has held that a CATV operator was not ''performing'' within the meaning of the 1909 statute, when it picked up broadcast signals off the air and retransmitted them to subscribers by cable. The Aiken decision extends this interpretation of the scope of the 1909 statute's right of ''public performance for profit'' to a situation outside the CATV context and, without expressly overruling the decision in Buck v. Jewell-LaSalle Realty Co., 283 U.S. 191 (1931) [51 S.Ct. 410, 75 L.Ed. 971], effectively deprives it of much meaning under the present law. For more than forty years the Jewell-LaSalle rule was thought to require a business establishment to obtain copyright licenses before it could legally pick up any broadcasts off the air and retransmit them to its guests and patrons. As reinterpreted by the Aiken decision, the rule of Jewell-LaSalle applies only if the broadcast being retransmitted was itself unlicensed.

The majority of the Supreme Court in the Aiken case based its decision on a narrow construction of the word ''perform'' in the 1909 statute. This basis for the decision is completely overturned by the present bill and its broad definition of ''perform'' in section 101. The Committee has adopted the language of section 110(5) with an amendment expressly denying the exemption in situations where ''the performance or display is further transmitted beyond the place where the receiving apparatus is located''; in doing so, it accepts the traditional, pre-Aiken, interpretation of the Jewell-LaSalle decision, under which public communication by means other than a home receiving set, or further transmission of a broadcast to the public, is considered an infringing act.

Under the particular fact situation in the Aiken case, assuming a small commercial establishment and the use of a home receiver with four ordinary loudspeakers grouped within a relatively narrow circumference from the set, it is intended that the performances would be exempt under clause (5). However, the Committee considers this fact situation to represent the outer limit of the exemption, and believes that the line should be drawn at that point. Thus, the clause would exempt small commercial establishments whose proprietors merely bring onto their premises standard radio or television equipment and turn it on for their customers' enjoyment, but it would impose liability where the proprietor has a commercial ''sound system'' installed or converts a standard home receiving apparatus (by augmenting it with sophisticated or extensive amplification equipment) into the equivalent of a commercial sound system. Factors to consider in particular cases would include the size, physical arrangement, and noise level of the areas within the establishment where the transmissions are made audible or visible, and the extent to which the receiving apparatus is altered or augmented for the purpose of improving the aural or visual quality of the performance for individual members of the public using those areas.

Agricultural Fairs. The Committee also amended clause (6) of section 110 of S. 22 as adopted by the Senate . As amended, the provision would exempt ''performance of a nondramatic musical work by a governmental body or a nonprofit agricultural or horticultural organization, in the course of an annual agricultural or horticultural fair or exhibition conducted by such body or organization.'' The exemption extends only to the governmental body or nonprofit organization sponsoring the fair; the amendment makes clear that, while such a body or organization cannot itself be held vicariously liable for infringements by concessionaires at the fair, the concessionaires themselves enjoy no exemption under the clause.

Retail Sale of Phonorecords. Clause (7) provides that the performance of a nondramatic musical work or of a sound recording by a vending establishment open to the public at large without any direct or indirect admission charge, where the sole purpose of the performance is to promote the retail sale of copies or phonorecords of the work, is not an infringement of copyright. This exemption applies only if the performance is not transmitted beyond the place where the establishment is located and is within the immediate area where the sale is occurring.

Transmission to Handicapped Audiences. The new clause (8) of subsection 110, which had been added to S. 22 by the Senate Judiciary Committee when it reported the bill on November 20, 1975 , and had been adopted by the Senate on February 19, 1976 , was substantially amended by the Committee. Under the amendment, the exemption would apply only to performances of ''nondramatic literary works'' by means of ''a transmission specifically designed for and primarily directed to'' one or the other of two defined classes of handicapped persons: (1) ''blind or other handicapped persons who are unable to read normal printed material as a result of their handicap'' or (2) ''deaf or other handicapped persons who are unable to hear the aural signals accompanying a transmission.'' Moreover, the exemption would be applicable only if the performance is ''without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage,'' and if the transmission takes place through government facilities or through the facilities of a noncommercial educational broadcast station, a radio subcarrier authorization (SCA), or a cable system.

Amendments2005'--Pub. L. 109''9, §'¯202(a)(4), inserted two pars. relating to par. (11) at end of concluding provisions.

Par. (11). Pub. L. 109''9, §'¯202(a)(1)''(3), added par. (11).

2002'--Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯13301(b)(2), inserted concluding provisions relating to par. (2).

Par. (2). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯13301(b)(1), added par. (2) and struck out former par. (2) which read as follows: ''performance of a nondramatic literary or musical work or display of a work, by or in the course of a transmission, if'--

''(A) the performance or display is a regular part of the systematic instructional activities of a governmental body or a nonprofit educational institution; and

''(B) the performance or display is directly related and of material assistance to the teaching content of the transmission; and

''(C) the transmission is made primarily for'--

''(i) reception in classrooms or similar places normally devoted to instruction, or

''(ii) reception by persons to whom the transmission is directed because their disabilities or other special circumstances prevent their attendance in classrooms or similar places normally devoted to instruction, or

''(iii) reception by officers or employees of governmental bodies as a part of their official duties or employment;''.

Par. (4)(B). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯13210(6), substituted colon for semicolon at end of introductory provisions.

1999'--Par. (5)(A). Pub. L. 106''44 redesignated cls. (A) and (B) as (i) and (ii), respectively.

1998'--Pub. L. 105''298, §'¯202(a)(2), inserted concluding provisions relating to par. (5).

Par. (5). Pub. L. 105''298, §'¯202(a)(1), designated existing provisions as subpar. (A), inserted ''except as provided in subparagraph (B),'' after ''(A)'', and added subpar. (B).

Par. (7). Pub. L. 105''298, §'¯202(b), inserted ''or of the audiovisual or other devices utilized in such performance,'' after ''phonorecords of the work,''.

1997'--Par. (8). Pub. L. 105''80, §'¯12(a)(6)(A), substituted semicolon for period at end.

Par. (9). Pub. L. 105''80, §'¯12(a)(6)(B), substituted '';'and'' for period at end.

Par. (10). Pub. L. 105''80, §'¯12(a)(6)(C), substituted ''paragraph (4)'' for ''paragraph 4 above''.

1982'--Par. (10). Pub. L. 97''366 added par. (10).

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Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:47

In the music industry, a blanket license is used to give blanket permission to use any music from a specific catalog. A blanket license usually is used in a situation where issuing individual music licenses for each piece or each use would be cumbersome.

Blanket Music Licenses and Performance Rights Organizations Although the term "blanket license" can have a few different applications, one common blanket license occurrence that people are likely to encounter in the music industry is a blanket license issued by a performance rights organization, such as Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), for the music they represent. These licenses are issued to radio stations, venues and other places that host public performances of music.

Understanding the Process of Licensing Before you can understand how these music licenses work, you have to understand a little bit about how performance rights organizations work.

Songwriters and publishers each join a performance rights group independently to register the works they represent '-- 50% of a song is credited to the songwriter by the performance rights group and 50% to the publisher. Songwriters are only allowed to join one performance rights organization, so they must register all of their works with that one group. For instance, if a songwriter joins BMI, then BMI exclusively represents that songwriter's entire catalog.

Publishers, meanwhile, need to have memberships with every performance rights organization in the territory in which they represent songwriters. That way, they can claim their 50% share of the compositions their songwriters write from each performance rights organization, regardless of which one the songwriter joined. For instance, if a publisher has one songwriter with a membership at ASCAP and another at BMI, the publisher has to have a membership at each of those groups to manage each songwriter's catalog.

When the publisher joins a performance rights group, that group represents the publisher's entire catalog of work composed by songwriters with memberships in the same group. In other words, if a publisher joins BMI, then that one membership puts BMI in charge of representing for the publisher all of the works of all of the songwriters that have publishing deals with that publisher, plus BMI memberships.

Issuing Blanket Licenses Performance rights societies then use these exclusive rights to allow them to issue blanket licenses. A group (perhaps a radio station) will go a performance rights collection group and apply for a blanket license to be able to use the music represented by that group.

The performance rights group will charge a fee to issue the blanket license. The license allows that applicant to then use all of the music represented by the group. For example, if a radio station is issued a blanket license by ASCAP, then that license gives them the right to use all of the music represented by ASCAP on their station.

For this reason, most venues that host public performances of music need blanket licenses from each performance rights society. Continuing with the example of radio stations, it would be difficult for a station to survive by only playing the music of one society's members '-- only playing music written by writers who are ASCAP members would exclude the station from playing a major hit that happens to have been written by a writer with a BMI membership.

When a blanket license is issued, the recipient must comply with certain tracking and reporting guidelines set out by the royalty collection group. The purchaser may be required to turn in playlists for a certain period of time, or to report the setlists of shows played in their venue. These reporting criteria vary depending on who is using the music and how, as well as between performance rights agency.

The fees for blanket licenses also vary wildly, depending on how heavily the license recipient uses music and how large of a listener base they reach. Large radio stations can pay millions in blanket licensing fees, while very small venues and businesses may only need to come up with a couple hundred dollars per year to get a license.

The licensing fees collected from blanket licenses go to pay songwriters and publishers.

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Sat, 27 Jun 2020 23:06

A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of royalties, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works publicly in locations such as shopping and dining venues. Legal consumer purchase of works, such as buying CDs from a music store, confer private performance rights. PROs usually only collect royalties when use of a work is incidental to an organisation's purpose. Royalties for works essential to an organisation's purpose, such as theaters and radio, are usually negotiated directly with the rights holder.

In some countries PROs are called copyright collectives or copyright collecting agencies. A copyright collective is more general than a PRO as it is not limited to performances and includesreproduction rights organisations (RROs). RROs represent works distributed via mediums such as CD, audiocassette, or computer file rather than use of works in public settings.

History The first performing rights society was established in France in 1851. In the United Kingdom, the Copyright Act 1842 was the first to protect musical compositions with the Performing Right Society, founded in 1914 encompassing live performances. The rights for recorded or broadcast performance are administered by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society, founded in 1924. Italy introduced a performing rights society in 1882 and Germany in 1915. In the United States, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) was founded in 1914; Society of European Stage Authors & Composers (SESAC) in 1930 and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) in 1939.Sociedad Puertorrique±a de Autores y Compositores de Musica (SPACEM) was founded in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1953. SPACEM's name was changed to ACEMLA, or Asociacion de Compositoes y Editores de Musica and remains today PRO No. 76 in the CISAC's[1] roster of performing rights societies.

Activities Other than their primary purpose as an intermediary between rights holders and customers, PROs are highly active in legal arenas. PROs take alleged rights violators to court, or in the U.S., to the Copyright Royalty Board, of the Library of Congress. PROs lobby on behalf of rights holders, especially in discussions of legal royalty rates.

As a side benefit of tracking public performance of works for royalty collection, PROs publish statistics of publicly performed works.

The licensing services provided by a PRO arguably provide advantage to customers, who can simultaneously license all works the PRO represents.

Criticisms PROs have been criticised for charging non-profit organisations for their use of copyrighted music in situations where the non-profit organisation was not earning money from the use. ASCAP, for example, was eventually forced in the face of public opinion to abandon its attempts to charge the Girl Scouts of the USA for singing campfire songs. ASCAP's and SESAC's policy of charging non-commercial educational (NCE) radio stations for playing copyrighted music has also been criticised, especially by college radio stations across the U.S., which rely entirely on student and listener support for funding and have difficulty affording the extra fees. Community Orchestras, which mostly play classical works in the public domain, may occasionally play a work within copyright, but are forced to pay licenses to rights societies on all concert revenues including concerts where all music is in the public domain, which is then distributed to songwriters of pop songs.

PROs are often criticised for stretching the definition of "public performance." Until relatively recently[when? ] in the U.S., playing copyrighted music in restaurants did not involve legal issues if the media was legally purchased.[citation needed ] PROs now demand royalties for such use.

"One exception to the rule allows businesses of a certain size (stores under 2,000 square feet, restaurants or bars under 3,750 square feet) to play music from a radio, television, or similar household device without a license, provided there are fewer than six speakers (with limits on the placement of speakers), and customers aren't charged to listen. Other exceptions include educational and charitable functions... If your business falls into one of the categories listed above (size of business, number and placement of speakers, etc.) radio/TV] you may want to check out section 110(5) of the Copyright Act. As you likely won't need a license. But, before making a decision, check with a lawyer." [2]

By discouraging performances in limited public arenas, again using the restaurant example, critics[who? ] say PROs eliminate the free publicity such performances provide for a work thereby depressing media sales. Incidentally, lower media sales conflict with PROs, but disputes between the two parties are not known to occur since each type of organisation represents the interests of the same parties - rights owners - and are forced to work in common interest.

Rights owners '' especially independents and newcomers not represented by large publishing companies '' criticise the PROs for what they deem to be "mystical" formulas for deciding who gets what share of the total licensing revenue received. They also criticise PROs for slow or non-existent payments and excessive membership dues or service fees.[citation needed ]

Organisations International North America United States AllTrack (U.S.)[3]ASCAP (U.S.)BMI (U.S.)Global Music Rights (U.S.)[4]SESAC (U.S.)SoundExchange (U.S.)Canada SOCAN (Canada)Re:Sound Music Licensing CompanyCMRRA (Canada)Others Most countries (that observe copyright) have the equivalent:

CountryAgenciesArgentinaSADAICAustraliaAustralasian Performing Right Association (APRA)AustraliaPhonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA)AustriaAutoren, Komponisten und Musikverleger (AKM)BelgiumSABAMBoliviaServicio Nacional de Propiedad Intelectual (SENAPI)BrazilECAD (Escrit"rio Central de Arrecada§£o e Distribui§£o)BulgariaMUSICAUTHORCanadaSociety of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), Re:Sound Music Licensing CompanyChileSociedad Chilena del Derecho de Autor (SCD)ColombiaSAYCO/ACINPROCroatiaHDSCzech RepublicOSADenmarkKODAEstoniaEAUFinlandTeostoFranceSoci(C)t(C) des auteurs, compositeurs et (C)diteurs de musique (SACEM)GeorgiaSASGermanyGesellschaft f¼r musikalische Auff¼hrungs- und mechanische Vervielf¤ltigungsrechte (GEMA)GreeceAEPIGreeceGEA-GRAMMO, ERATO-APOLLONHong KongCASHHungaryARTISJUSIndiaThe Indian Performing Right Society LtdIrelandIrish Music Rights Organisation, Phonographic Performance Ireland (PPI)IsraelACUMItalySIAEJapanJASRACLithuaniaLATGA-AMalaysiaMACPMexicoSACMNepalMusic Royalty Collection Society Nepal (MRCSN)NetherlandsBUMANew ZealandAPRANorwayTONOPanamaSPACPeruAPDAYCPhilippinesFILSCAPPolandZAIKSPuerto RicoACEMLARomaniaUCMRRussiaRAOSerbiaSOKOJSingaporeCOMPASSSlovakiaSOZASouth AfricaSouthern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO)South KoreaKOMCA, KOSCAP[5]SpainSGAESwedenSTIMSwitzerlandSUISATaiwanMUSTThailandMCTTrinidadCOTTUkraineUACRRUnited KingdomPRS, PPLUnited States of AmericaASCAP, BMI, SESAC, ACEMLA (SPACEM), AllTrack, Global Music Rights (GMR)UruguayAGADUVenezuelaSACVENState regulation and income taxes Although the Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution delegates the power to establish Copyright law in the United States, in recent years, a number of States have enacted transparency laws in respect to Performing Rights Societies. These generally force Performing Rights Societies to discloses the musical works they license. Because many establishments pay blanket license fees to Performing Rights Societies but have little or no idea if the fees they pay actually secure the rights to perform musical works. This can result in unfair business practices called tolling. Many performing rights societies send representatives into businesses who attempt to disrupt or shut down a concert, claiming an insufficient or performing right license, and some states have banned this practice.

Moreover, states with income taxes hope to withhold royalty income for "performances" inside those states rather than in the state where a composer/songwriter lives or the Performing Rights Society is located. In practice, state income tax accounting is very difficult to regulate. Notable is Colorado's law, which requires each Performing Rights Society to disclose its entire catalog.

References Choquette, Frederic, "The Returned Value of PROs", Music Business Journal, Berklee College of Music, May 2011Schulenberg, Richard, Legal aspects of the music industry: an insider's view, Random House Digital, Inc., 1999. Cf. Chapter 13, "Performance, Performing, and Neighboring Rights".

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Sat, 27 Jun 2020 22:56

USING MUSIC IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS: What you should knowGUIDELINES PREPARED BY ASCAPMusic use requires planning and securing the appropriate permissions. ASCAP has put together this list of Q & As to help you navigate your way to campaign success through the proper use of music.WHAT IS THE VALUE OF MUSIC IN A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN?Music possesses a unique power to inspire, motivate and energize a campaign. And music has been used in campaigns since the founding of our country. George Washington effectively used ''God Save Great Washington'' (a parody of ''God Save the King''), Franklin Roosevelt used ''Happy Days Are Here Again'' (written by ASCAP members Milton Ager and Jack Yellen), Dwight Eisenhower used ''They Like Ike'' (written by ASCAP founding member Irving Berlin) and President Barack Obama used ''Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours'' (written by ASCAP member Stevie Wonder) just to name a few of the Presidential campaign success stories.WHAT IS THE ISSUE AND WHY ARE MUSIC USE GUIDELINES IMPORTANT?It has become increasingly significant for political candidates in the public spotlight to conduct their campaigns in compliance with copyright law. Recent controversy over unauthorized music use has created unwanted negative publicity for candidates that want to do the right thing but many times require clarification on their legal obligations relating to music use. Knowing these guidelines is good for all involved.IF A CAMPAIGN WANTS TO USE A SONG IN A CAMPAIGN COMMERCIAL, WHAT PERMISSIONS DOES IT NEED?This kind of use may involve rights such as synchronization of music with video and the possible use of the master sound recording. The campaign will need to contact the song's publisher and possibly the artist's record label to negotiate the appropriate licenses with them. And remember, campaign videos containing music that are posted on the internet also require these licenses. Once the commercial has been produced, the TV and radio stations, and any websites that transmit the commercial, must have a public performance license.WHAT IS ASCAP AND WHAT IS ITS ROLE?ASCAP is the country's first and largest performing rights organization, representing more than 11.5 million musical works from over 725,000 songwriters and composers and their music publishers. ASCAP represents the non-exclu-sive public performance right for these works, and is responsible for licensing their public performance on radio, television, cable, satellite, the internet, on mobile devices and in venues and establishments. ASCAP tracks the use of music, identifies the copyright owners and distributes the appropriate royalties. ASCAP is a membership organization operating on a not-for-profit basis that is dedicated to protecting its members' rights and obtaining fair compensation for the public performance of their copyrighted musical works.ASCAP provides an important income stream for its members and allows music users an efficient and effective way to obtain the necessary permission to perform music for their business or their other public communication needs.

WHAT LICENSES DOES A CAMPAIGN NEED TO PLAY MUSIC AT CAMPAIGN EVENTS?First, while many venues have proper ''public performance'' licenses, as a general rule the ASCAP licenses for convention centers, arenas and hotels exclude music use during conventions, expositions and campaign events. If a campaign is holding many events at dozens of different venues, it may be easier for the campaign itself to obtain a public performance license from ASCAP (and possibly the other US performing rights organizations if the music is licensed through one of them). This license is issued to an individual candidate's specific campaign and extends only until the candidate is sworn into office '-- not for the candidate's full term in office. Having such licenses in place would guarantee that, no matter where you have a campaign stop, the performances of music at the events would be in compliance with copyright law.CAN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS RELY ON VENUE LICENSES?Because licenses for venues such as convention centers and hotels generally exclude rights to perform music at events organized by a third party, political campaigns need their own ASCAP license to use the works in its repertory. This makes sense because the third party organizer is the main beneficiary of the performances, not the venue, and is in the best position to control the performances. For this reason, event organizers (in this case political campaigns) have traditionally assumed responsibility for obtaining the permission from the rights holders.WHAT MUSIC IS COVERED BY THE ASCAP LICENSE FOR POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS?The ASCAP Political Campaign License agreement provides a blanket license to perform any or all of the millions of compositions in the ASCAP repertory. However, ASCAP members may ask ASCAP to exclude specific songs from a particular political campaign's license. In that event, ASCAP will notify the campaign of the excluded works. HOW CAN THE CAMPAIGN PROTECT ITSELF AGAINST THESE OTHER CLAIMS?If a campaign wants to eliminate any of these claims, particularly if the campaign wants to use a song as its theme, they should contact the management for the artists and/or songwriters of the songs in question and obtain their permission. In addition to permission from management, a separate negotiated license may be required by the publisher of the composition, and if the master recording is used, the record label that controls that recording.IF THE CAMPAIGN EVENTS ARE PROPERLY LICENSED, CAN THE CAMPAIGN STILL BE CRITICIZED OR EVEN SUED BY AN ARTIST FOR PLAYING HIS OR HER SONG AT AN EVENT?Yes. If an artist is concerned that their music has been associated with a political campaign, he or she may be able to take legal action even if the campaign has the appropriate performance licenses. The campaign could potentially be in violation of other laws. Specifically, the campaign could be subject to claims based on:1. The artist's Right of Publicity, which in many states provides image protection for famous people or artists2. The Lanham Act, which covers confusion or dilution of a trademark (such as a band or artist name) through its unauthorized use3. False Endorsement, where use of the artist's identifying work implies that the artist supports a product or candidateAs a general rule, a campaign should be aware that, in most cases, the more closely a song is tied to the ''image'' or message of the campaign, the more likely it is that the recording artist or songwriter of the song could object to the song's usage by the campaign.

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Fri, 26 Jun 2020 09:26

Ahead of President Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his 2020 re-election campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted about the event. ''Just passed 800,000 tickets,'' he wrote. ''Biggest data haul and rally signup of all time by 10x. Saturday is going to be amazing!''

Parscale's numbers for the rally'--originally scheduled for Juneteenth and still set to occur just miles from the site of one of American history's deadliest acts of racial violence'--have come in for criticism after only 6,200 people actually turned up, with sign-up numbers supposedly inflated by pranking teens and K-pop fans. But even on the surface, his claim was confusing: the venue holds only 19,000 people. So what was the campaign doing signing up so many people for tickets?

The clue lies in Parscale's use of the phrase ''data haul.''

Data collection and targeted online messaging were integral to the 2016 US presidential election, and they will be again in 2020. But there has been a shift. In the same way that candidates in the last cycle used Facebook to reach and persuade voters, ongoing research from our team at the propaganda research lab at UT Austin's Center for Media Engagement suggests that 2020 will be defined by the use of bespoke campaign apps. Purpose-built applications distributed through the App Store and Google Play Store allow the Trump and Biden teams to speak directly to likely voters. They also allow them to collect massive amounts of user data without needing to rely on major social-media platforms or expose themselves to fact-checker oversight of particularly divisive or deceptive messaging.

Trump 2020: A data-hungry channel for disproven claimsThe Official Trump 2020 app, which has been downloaded approximately 780,000 times according to the measurement service Apptopia, launched in mid-April.

The app has ''News'' and ''Social'' tabs offering carefully selected feeds of tweets and articles that reinforce the campaign's talking points, often actively deceiving readers with highly questionable or entirely disproven information under headlines such as ''Media Continue to Spread Debunked Theory About Tear Gas,'' ''Media Mask-Shamers Keep Getting Caught Breaking Their Own Rules,'' or ''Top 8 Moments from Joe Biden's Embarrassingly Disastrous, Epically Boring Livestream.'' Most messages, articles, and announcements inside the Trump app have no named author; they rarely cite sources beyond government press releases and tweets from Trump's own supporters and White House staff. The app also has campaign releases that attack social-media companies like Twitter and Snapchat, berating them for perceived bias and lack of transparency on one hand while adopting opaque and attention-driven strategies themselves.

Users are required to provide their phone number full name, email address, and zip code. The campaign intends to collect the cell-phone numbers of 40 to 50 million voters.

Data collection'--as Parscale's comment suggested'--is perhaps the most powerful thing the Trump 2020 app does. On signing up, users are required to provide a phone number for a verification code, as well as their full name, email address, and zip code. They are also highly encouraged to share the app with their existing contacts. This is part of a campaign strategy for reaching the 40 to 50 million citizens expected to vote for Trump's reelection: to put it bluntly, the campaign says it intends to collect every single one of these voters' cell-phone numbers. This strategy means the app also makes extensive permission requests, asking for access to location data, phone identity, and control over the handset's Bluetooth function.

The app has already received some criticism, not least from security researchers who found it had left information exposed that could allow hackers to access the user data. The response to this made the campaign's priorities clear: they rapidly fixed the bug once it had been disclosed, but still maximized the data they themselves could collect. They want as much voter data as possible, even if they don't want it left vulnerable to outsiders'--and will use it in any way they see fit.

A member of our research team discovered that the app was compiled with an older version of Android, which does not include some of the latest privacy improvements, and uses software provided by a company called Phunware, well known for collecting people's location information and relations with the Trump campaign, a role highlighted by a Wall Street Journal investigation last year. Phunware has come under major scrutiny recently for accepting millions of dollars in federal loans intended to help small businesses cope with the coronavirus, and in May Nasdaq filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to delist the company over its finances. Phunware's invasive tactics for gathering data and reaching voters have drawn comparisons to Cambridge Analytica.

Team Joe: Your contacts are criticalTeam Joe, the app put together by Joe Biden's campaign, has some surface similarities to the Trump app, but it is a very different proposition. It does some things that the Trump app does, including sending users notifications of upcoming campaign events or training sessions for digital activists. But where the Trump app has range of uses, from spreading tailored campaign messages to airing live streams of rallies, Team Joe is largely built for a single purpose: relational organizing. This concept is spelled out in the Team Joe Digital Tool Kit:

''Relational organizing is when volunteers leverage their existing networks and relationships in support of our candidate, Joe Biden. Friend-to-friend contact is one of the most effective methods for having meaningful conversations about our campaign, and it is an efficient way to persuade and identify supporters '... We are calling voters and caucusgoers to identify supporters and persuade friends and family to support Joe. These conversations with targeted voters and caucusgoers to increase support will make a big difference in electing Vice President Biden.''

Practically, this means that when you download the app you are prompted to share your contact list, which is then cross-referenced with the party's voter files. The system identifies people you may have a personal connection with who might be persuaded to vote for Biden. From there, it prompts you to send these potentially undecided folks personalized messages.

One organizer explains how this works during a Joe Biden Action Center app orientation:

''Conversations that you have with friends or family are always a little more meaningful. And sometimes, if I'm calling a voter, they might have gone through something very traumatic, like a really bad hospitalization that they might not want to talk about with a random volunteer ... but they might talk to you about 'Oh, yeah. I had cancer and it was terrible but the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, really helped me in that process.' So if you do want to help us do that you can text App to 30330, or if you don't wanna do that you can just go to joe.link/app.''

Relational organizing is a nuanced version of data targeting. Its principles are not new'--both Obama presidential campaigns heavily relied on it'--but like many political communication strategies, it has consequences that change with scale, advanced data analytics, and automation. The Biden app uses advanced data parsing practices but is not exactly automated. It blurs the line between the personal and the political.

With relational organizing, the Team Joe app blurs the line between the personal and the political.

Our ongoing research'--which is mostly qualitative and involves interviews with tech makers, political marketers, and campaign members'--has revealed that data-driven relational organizing is becoming the go-to outreach strategy for US political campaigns. Interviewees extol the virtues of highly personalized text messages sent by volunteers, a practice fine-tuned by the Bernie Sanders campaign. This and similar forms of relational organizing are already the norm in Mexico and Latin America, where they are used not to increase civic engagement but instead by mass manipulators seeking to adapt to the increased scrutiny of bots and sock-puppet accounts. In our study'--where the participants were interviewed on condition of anonymity, as is typical in our work'--one prominent Mexican journalist elaborated on this:

''Well, in Latin America and in Mexico we don't use bots or software. It was left behind a few years ago because it was really easy to detect on Twitter or Facebook and by researchers like me '... we are entering an era of war propaganda, and I think that's where the trend is headed.''

What they want from youIf you want to understand what the Trump and Biden apps are really for, compare the permissions requested in the Google Play Store. Besides some basic network and notification permissions, the Team Joe Campaign App may ask for access to your contacts. The Official Trump 2020 App has a much longer list of access requests. It wants to read your contacts and know your precise and approximate location (GPS and network based). It requests the ability to read your phone status and identity (a vague permission that sometimes gives access to unique device numbers), pair with Bluetooth devices (such as geolocation beacons), and perhaps read, write, or delete from SD cards in the device.

The use of Bluetooth is especially notable because it can capture data and target people with political messages as they travel through a physical space. This practice has jumped to politics from the advertising industry. In one recent example, Bluetooth beacons (the radio transmitters used to track cell-phone users via Bluetooth signals) were found in campaign yard signs. In another, people were surveilled using these practices when they went to church. Our team has been exploring how this phenomenon'--which we term geo-propaganda'--has increased.

As you walk past a beacon embedded in a campaign sign or some other part of the physical environment, you are recorded and identified through Bluetooth or similar means. This data is then used to build a profile that can be used to advertise to you or people like you. One political consultant we interviewed for our study explained how this practice developed long before political apps were created:

''They [the apps] are plugged into different marketplaces, so if you open up Facebook or Google Maps or Candy Crush, even though you didn't explicitly do anything'--if you have location access enabled on those apps, that app will record your location at the instance you opened that app, and then that information can be sold to a third party.''

These third parties include data brokers like Acxiom or Resonate, which are part of a billion-dollar shadow industry dedicated to buying and selling data collected from disparate sources. To understand how granular the data can be, take a moment to look through the categories in Acxiom's consumer data products catalogue. Political campaigns purchase that information and combine it with other data and tools'--from other social-media companies, say'--to build ''lookalike audiences'' that include people similar to those who had their data scooped. This means that even if you have your own location permissions disabled, you may be caught in politicians' nets because you behave similarly to other people who have shared their location.

This makes campaign apps part of a larger system of surveillance capitalism. Yes, they provide firsthand data about a campaign's strongest supporters. But they are also designed to use that data to build lists of similar citizens. Meanwhile, they provide the infrastructure to help users in these closed media environments bring in like-minded people through relational organizing by way of the addictive engagement strategies that social media and apps have perfected in the past 20 years.

What next? Look at IndiaTo understand the future of political campaign apps, it is useful to look to India. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, a controversial right-wing populist, launched his Namo app in 2015. It has since become one of the most widely used politician's apps in the world, with over 10 million downloads in the Google Play Store. The app was pushed through official government channels and collected large amounts of data for years through opaque phone access requests. In late 2019 it received a makeover that included live events, Instagram-like ''Stories'' about Modi, gamified engagement strategies, means of accepting micro-donations, and promises of a direct line to the prime minister. President Trump's app is clearly following in those footsteps.

Other tactics of Modi's might tell us where Trump's and Biden's digital campaigns will go. His team's abuse of WhatsApp and Twitter is essentially an open secret, with cells of supporters in local districts given the task of spreading information (and disinformation) on these and other channels, often through shared Google Docs of approved tweets and images created by the party heads. His app itself is a fertile propagator of misinformation. and his party, the BJP, also engages in extensive data targeting campaigns, bolstered by data broker equivalents and the social stratification imposed by the caste system. Another signal we are seeing lies in the rise of centralized messaging repositories similar to those banks of content used by Modi and his cells. The Biden campaign, albeit with more transparency and without the inclination toward disinformation, is utilizing these scripts much as the Clinton and Obama teams did.

The parallels between Trump and Modi run deeper than their apps, of course. Both politicians have publicly honored Twitter trolls. Both actively cultivate reciprocal relationships with content creators on the radical and far right, ultimately seeking to build a direct line to these groups over the heads of media watchdogs and fact-checkers. Similarities appear in their day-to-day rhetoric too, with Trump referring to his digital activists as the ''Army for Trump'' and Modi calling his local actors ''IT warriors.''

For political movements revolving around a charismatic, illiberal leader, the shift to individualized apps that blur the line between government and private communication is the next step toward independence from both the ''mainstream media'' and the social-media platforms that allowed them to create a fact-agnostic communication channel in the first place. The line between government and campaign is not always clear either. Local governments often hand out free phones that have the Modi app pre-installed. Swati Chaturvedi, an Indian journalist and the author of I Am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP's Digital Army, said of the app:

''This is where it gets interesting, because [the app is] partially funded by the BJP, it is a BJP tool, but it is now officially used by the government of India. So there is a huge gray line there. There's an overlap because it is also putting out government material '... it's an epidemic of fake news now '...

The government is pushing it. Everywhere Mr. Modi goes on a foreign visit, there's a stall '... and you just kind of walk in there and you get a sign-up for the Namo app and it's just like a one-way tool of propaganda. So it is funded by the BJP, Mr. Modi's personal idea, intellectual property, but now it's also pushed by the government of India.''

Trump's casino-like campaign app seems to be his own attempt to create a ''one-way tool of propaganda.'' Its deployment is part of a global trend, piggybacking on years of unresolved privacy and security issues within the app ecosystem. As researchers studying the intersection of technology and propaganda, we understand that political groups tend to lag behind the commercial ad industry. But when they catch up, the consequences to truth and civil discourse can be devastating.

The array of data-gathering tools the Trump and Modi apps use are a legacy of a ''freemium'' social-media and app landscape that is manipulative, non-transparent, and purposefully addictive, with a mentality of ''collect data first and ask question later.'' For the last five to 10 years, the pervasiveness of these tools and their use in data scooping has been well documented. Sporadic, state-by-state data regulations have been the only response. In Europe, the GDPR was a big step toward meaningful consent and transparency, but the Official Trump 2020 App does not fall under its jurisdiction. A global perspective is now critical to understanding the implications of data-fueled political manipulation and preparing for the next wave of disinformation. Countries must work together to create effective regulation, and citizens must demand this of them.

It took about five years for Modi's strategies to jump from India to the US, and in the next few years we are on track to see the arrival of strategies used in the dark-money disinformation campaigns of Mexico and Latin America. The Mexican journalist we'd interviewed for our study put it this way: ''I think what's coming all around the world is going to be very chaotic, at least in [the US], I think you're on the brink of a sort of civil war in one or two years ... You're going to have a lot of work to do.''

'--Jacob Gursky and Samuel Woolley are members of the Propaganda Research Team at the Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at Austin.

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Fri, 26 Jun 2020 14:26

Are Twitter notifications from @realDonaldTrump not enough? Want to check your phone and immediately know what President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are up to in the campaign trail?

The Official Trump 2020 App is getting a boost in functionality '' and no pesky fact-checking from Twitter.

Phunware, a Texas-based software development company, announced Wednesday its partnership with American Made Media Consultants on the development, launch and ongoing management of the Trump-Pence 2020 Reelection Campaign's mobile application portfolio for Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones.

Tech meets politics:Twitter and Trump on a collision course with the truth

Regulation:Trump threatens to 'strongly regulate' or 'close down' social media platforms

The mobile application, launched last month, will continue to "let people engage with the campaign from their couch, or wherever they are," as Brad Parscale, Trump's presidential campaign manager said, through:

Dedicated news feed to read articles, watch videos and stay up-to-date with Trump's social feedSign-up tool to volunteer, fundraise and help Trump's reelection campaignScheduling tool to discover and register for local, state and national eventsGamified loyalty system to accumulate reward points, including redemption capabilities for exclusive merchandise and upgraded experiencesLivestream events for virtual engagementMobile ticketing for in-person events"Our software provides the Trump-Pence team with powerful mobile tools for their high profile reelection campaign, allowing seamless one-to-one user engagement and interactions on a reliable and proven global platform," Alan S. Knitowski, president, CEO and co-founder of Phunware, said in a statement.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump threatened to "strongly regulate" or "close down" social media platforms a day after Twitter added a "fact check" label to two of his tweets about mail-in ballots.

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices," Trump tweeted, "We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."

The Official Trump 2020 App that's currently available for download has a 3.9 rating in Apple's App Store and a 3.8 rating in the Google Play Store.

Follow Josh Rivera on Twitter: @Josh1Rivera.

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Fri, 26 Jun 2020 14:18

Stellar Acquisition III Inc. (Stellar>>) is a blank check company formed for the purpose of acquiring, through a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization, recapitalization, exchangeable share transaction or other similar business transaction with one or more operating businesses or assets. Stellar's units, shares of common stock and warrants are currently listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbols ''STLRU,'' ''STLR'' and ''STLRW, respectively.

On February 28, 2018, Stellar announced it had entered into definitive agreements to combine with Phunware, Inc. (''Phunware'') and enter the mobile cloud software and blockchain sectors. Phunware's investor base includes several prominent strategic investors/partners and has a large and diversified customer base including numerous Fortune 5000 companies. Through numerous mobile application portfolios Phunware has a reach of more than 2 billion Phunware IDs for more than 1 billion monthly active unique devices across more than two trillion database events and petabytes of information. Additionally, Phunware plans to consummate an initial block-chain technology token generation event via the launch of PhunCoin with cash gross proceeds of up to $100m.

Following the closing, the common stock and warrants of the combined entity will trade on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the name Phunware, Inc. and trading symbols ''PHUN'' and ''PHUNW'', respectively. The combined company will be led by Mr. Alan S. Knitowski, who will continue as Phunware's Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Matthew Aune, who will continue as Phunware's Chief Financial Officer. As part of the transaction, the combined company will redomesticate from the Marshall Islands to Delaware.

For further information about the Company's proposed business combination with Phunware, please refer to Stellar's SEC filings.

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Archived Version

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 14:15

President Donald Trump's reelection effort has retained the services of a technology company that specializes in the mass collection of smartphone location data, which can be used to track voters for political targeting purposes.

Phunware, an Austin, Texas-based firm, announced the connection in a little-noticed press release in October, touting ''new and existing customer wins including American Made Media Consultants,'' the consulting firm set up this year by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale to handle advertising services for a variety of official Trump reelection PACs. The release noted that the deal was signed in conjunction with the Trump-Pence 2020 reelection effort.

A growing subset of advertising firms rely on data brokers that use third-party apps '-- from popular mobile games to apps used for checking the weather, perfecting a selfie, and online banking '-- to harvest vast troves of information about potential voters. Phunware, in a section of its website, discusses the company's ability to obtain GPS location data and the Wi-Fi network used by an individual, as well as user data that can infer an ''individual's gender, age, lifestyle preferences'' '-- potential tools for identifying and influencing voters.

The company claims to offer a wide range of services based on user location data. Individuals who attend a political rally or protest can be identified as potential targets for ads, a technique known as geofencing. Location data can provide insights into how long a shopper spends at a particular clothing store, type of religious venues, or the night clubs they tend to frequent.

''Unfortunately Phunware does not comment on customer-specific data or information,'' wrote Brent Brightwell, a spokesperson for Phunware, when contacted about the company's work with Trump campaign. ''Please contact the Trump reelection campaign directly should you have any questions about their activities or efforts.'' The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this year, deleted scenes from the documentary ''The Brink'' revealed that Steve Bannon, Trump's campaign manager in 2016, had used similar location-tracking technology services to target church-attending Catholics during the midterm elections.

''If your phone's ever been in a Catholic church, it's amazing, they got this data,'' Bannon said in the film clip. ''Literally, they can tell who's been in a Catholic church and how frequently,'' he added. ''And they got it triaged.''

Though the Trump campaign's use of this particular data broker has received little attention, Phunware was featured in a recent investigation by the Wall Street Journal, published in October, into the use of location tracking by political interests. Federal Election Commission records show both Democratic and Republican congressional campaigns in Texas last year retained Phunware. Kimberly Taylor, a Democratic strategist, told the Journal that she used the firm to find attendees who went to the Women's March as potential voters to help unseat Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. The story noted an independent pro-Trump group had also used location-tracking services.

The payments to Phunware by the Trump campaign do not appear in FEC records because the firm serves as a subcontractor to American Made Media Consultants, the Trump media-buying company. American Made Media Consultants has been paid more than $11.7 million by the Donald J. Trump for President, Trump Make America Great Again, and Republican National Committee this year, according to FEC records.

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Thanks for doing a make good on my 33 [in binary - $1000.01] donation. I

couldn't miss the opportunity to have my boss and friend of 10 years

called a douchebag - David Carlock. I hit him in the mouth several months

back, and after a few listens, his amygdala seems to have returned to

normal size. He may require a second dbag to get through his thick skull.

Also, I'd like to call out Brian Hagenmair as a douchebag.

Two quick q's: I know it's been talked about before, but has anyone put

together a short 5-minute primer/intro for NA onboarding? I feel like the

nuances and inside references creates a lengthy (2-5 episode) onboarding

period that could be dramatically shortened with a concise intro "Start

Here" episode.

Secondly, I've tried to find the NA Jingle repository in the past, and I

think there's an opportunity for a Jingle Generator - There are a ton of

hidden gems, when unearthed and put together, that could spice up the

donation segments. At least once a week there's a jingle request that goes

unanswered due to misnaming/can't find. I've

registered najingles.com and najinglegenerator.com - if there's an

opportunity to tie into your jingles folder, I would love to create a

drag-and-drop jingle generator for donation notes. Mix and match, do your

worst, share with the gitmo nation!

No jingles, but need lots of job karma, which I will redistribute equally

to all in the Gitmo Nation.

Love and Light.

PS - the end of show tune for 1251 with Anderson Pooper giggling may be

the best post-show song I've heard. Kudos to whomever crafted that amazing

piece of work.