Friday’s Endnotes – 01/08/16

Why Music Makers Are the Real American Innovators — Musician Blake Morgan pens this stirring call to arms. “We know all about American innovation. Rock & Roll is an American innovation. Hip-Hop is an American innovation. Jazz is an American innovation. Blues, Country, Gospel, Bluegrass, each of these — and so many others — are distinct American innovations. Music is one of the things America still makes that the world still wants. The people who make that music should be paid fairly for their work.”

Why we fear Google — In this open letter to Eric Schmidt, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer SE, explains why Google’s global monopoly on user data and behavior is so chilling.

Major piracy group warns games may be crack-proof in two years — Reports from a number of groups who devote their time to circumventing copying restrictions on newly released games show that the task is getting more and more difficult. This underscores the importance of anti-circumvention laws to the software industry.

Richard Russo on Authors Guild v. Google — On December 31, the Authors Guild filed a petition to the Supreme Court, asking it to review the Second Circuit’s decision involving the Google Books Project. Here, author Richard Russo shares his thoughts. “It’s completely disingenuous for [Google] to argue that their behavior is selfless when it leads directly to an improved bottom line and increases their value as a corporation. When libraries loan books, the democracy benefits, not the library. Google may be larger than many public institutions and wealthier than some nations, but that doesn’t mean they are acting in the public interest simply because they claim to be and can demonstrate some benefit to the public sector.”

Industry efforts to fight digital piracy complement government action — “While these voluntary efforts have been largely successful, more can be done. For example, the private sector still needs a stronger framework for payment processors to cut off pirate sites from their payment networks. And Internet domain name registrars, together with content creators and others, should come together to develop better methods for enforcing terms of service that prohibit criminal groups from using websites that promote the theft of digital content. Finally, the private sector should continue to improve industry efforts to demote search results that involve piracy.”

Why Canada has nothing to fear over TPP and Intellectual Property — Canadian attorney Barry Sookman responds to critics of the intellectual property provisions in the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership. The twelve nations making up the TPP hope to sign the deal in early February.