The Bittersweet reality of copyright protection

We have been thinking a great deal about copyright at Doxmart recently. We have a strong stance on copyright and document protection. If you feel the same as we do about the importance of respecting copyright you can use Doxmart’s Respe©t for Copyright logo and buy document protection.

Recently, a judge ruled in favour of Harry Potter author JK Rowling in her copyright infringement lawsuit against a fan and website operator who was set to publish a Potter encyclopedia – The Harry Potter Lexicon. Rowling and Warner Bros were awarded $US6,750 damages. The judge blocked permanently the publication of the Lexicon saying that it would ‘cause her (Rowling) irreparable harm as a writer’. This latter point (and clearly not the damages!) was the crux of the matter for Rowling.

This made me think about British band The Verve (now on a comeback although last year they were panned at Nottingham Arena). Bittersweet Symphony is one of my favourite songs of all times and is still played regularly on the radio (not quite as much as ‘Had a Bad Day’ or ‘Chasing Cars’ but still I hear it a lot). And the galling thing for The Verve is that they do not receive a penny in royalties for it. No, that money goes to The Rolling Stones (or I think one of the members of the Stones but can’t remember who). All because The Verve sampled an orchestration on “Bittersweet Symphony” from The Rolling Stone’s “The Last Time”.

According to web site Sampling Law.com: “Before the release of the album, The Verve negotiated a licensing agreement with The Rolling Stones to use the sample — at least the composition rights to the sample. In 1997, The Verve’s album “Urban Hymns” peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Charts. What ensued was a bitter (and not sweet) legal battle as the Rolling Stones argued that The Verve had violated the previous licensing agreement by using too much of the sample in their song. The Verve argued that The Rolling Stones got greedy when the song became successful. “The last thing I ever wanted was for my music to be used in a commercial. I’m still sick about it”, The Verve’s lead singer Richard Ashcroft said in a recent interview after the Stones’ manager let Nike and Vauxhall use it for ads. The real salt in the wound is that when “Bittersweet Symphony” was nominated for a Grammy, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were named the nominees and not The Verve. “It could’ve been worse,” Ashcroft continued. “If we hadn’t fought, ‘Symphony’ could’ve ended up on a cheeseburger ad and never have been taken seriously again.”

Bittersweet indeed.

So, excellent coverage in last week’s Guardian Blog/Elevator Pitch describes Doxmart as: “a marketplace for writers and creators” and “an interesting mash of an eBay-esque distribution system and a publishing network. Fresh out of the blocks at just one month old, the site employs 12 people across offices in Berlin, Milan and sunny Leicester”. Writer Jemima Kiss goes on to say: “who’s to say that a service offering a more bespoke, specialised community environment (than Google) wouldn’t appeal more to some creators?”

Who indeed.

That’s why we’re getting lots of great documents posted now and our numbers are growing rapidly.  And recent important improvements to the site will open the doors to many more businesses and individuals keen to to interact with each other and offer or receive help and advice on any topic.

Next to be hot off the press (early next week) will be our new Personal and Charity profile pages.  These will allow members to share whatever details they want with the community to promote their interests or business activities.    Charities will be able to share their aims and fundraising missions and have hotlinks to enable Doxmart members to nominate them as their chosen charity to receive all or part of royalities.  In short, we are creating a new way of donations or ‘legacies in your lifetime’.  Charities, like all businesses are facing some tough times ahead as we go into an economic downturn and now is the time to turn your knowledge and old documents into a way of making money and helping them keep up their great work.

So, what else have the Doxmart team been up to?  Well on the dev team they are working on a cool new member and information search facility and tons of other stuff along with planning a move to bigger and better premises (good luck!).  The marketing team are busy talking to the media – see:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/sep/19/2?gusrc=rss&feed=media and signing up our first batch of charities to work with and helping other bulk uploaders along with networking out there in cyberworld.  A thought?  Do you know of Dave Gorman and his Google Whack adventure ? (A Googlewhack is a Google search query consisting of two words that returns a single result).  Well we still have some categories on Doxmart where there are no posted documents so why not start your own Doxmartwhack adventure and see if you can be the first to post a document in any category? We are going to monitor it and will award MP3 players to the Doxmartwhacker who manages to go into most categories and also give out some random prizes to people who upload documents that we just plain old love!  Get Doxmartwhacking now!

So, suddenly, we in Britain are taking a new interest in the Olympics. For years, the event heralded a horrible few weeks as we watched plucky Brit after plucky Brit try and, mostly, fail to succeed in a host of sports. The have-a-go but hapless British sportsman was embodied in the bespectacled ski-jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards. Remember him?

And then this year, from seemingly nowhere, come a host of medal winners, and we are third in the medal table behind China and the USA! Newspapers are deliciously filled with reports of foreign coaches at the cycling track events muttering: “Are you going to leave anything to the rest of us?”

And we have women and men in space age costumes with pointy hats and amazing bikes and even more amazing names as Wendy Houvenaghel battles it out with champion Rebecca Romero at the Laoshan Velodrome track. Twenty first century or what!

After all the unseen hard work they and the other medal winners have obviously put in, I don’t begrudge Romero’s comment that: “Everyone else looks to me like they are rolling over and dying”. As the BBC says: “We have this sport (cycling) in a most un-British, vice-like grip”. I would add rowing and swimming to that and had it not been for Zara Phillips’ horse having an injury I’m sure we would have done well in the equestrian arena too.

All of which makes me realise that we are a nation of undercover rural champions.

I live in a village, and every weekend there are massive cycle races and meetings with men and women in tight Lycra suits and beautiful bikes gathered together at about 8am before they set off for the odd 50 mile or so ‘fun’ race. I see them, heads down, peddling away as they ascend some of the rare hills around here and I’ve never thought ‘Oh there goes a potential Olympian”. No, I think to myself: “I must get my old bike out and go for a five mile round trip later, stopping off at the Reindeer pub en route”.

Similarly, I see boats on the reservoir near the Trent River and horses and their riders everywhere. Again, I think pleasant thoughts about how they are keeping fit and having a great hobby. I have been conditioned to expect to see Olympians training in a stadium or even, in a Rocky kind of way, suffering for their sport in a gritty urban landscape.

This is the thing really. So much of what we do is hidden. You wouldn’t think anything much goes on in my village other than the shops and restaurants and pubs you can see. And the Women’s Institute and bowling green. But I know of a law practice, architects practice and leading Villa lettings agency and that’s just from word of mouth. There are so many people working from home or in small businesses that we have a whole knowledge economy and hidden wisdom pulsating under our nose.

Who knows, the 2012 shooting champion could be the same person I heard shooting across the fields late yesterday afternoon. The next Richard Branson may be popping in the Co-op on Main Street now for a sandwich to break up his day at his computer as he conducts business around the world. I love it. It suddenly feels exciting here and I can’t wait for the next cycling race as I may well stand and watch this time!

Why not check out a great UK site on cycling:

http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/