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| Theft of intellectual property shouldnot to be taken lightly! |
An unvarnished blog that dips into the past and comments on the present of WBAI-FM, a once significant, intelligent New York radio station that for years has suffered chronic abuse from within and now nears extinction. Your comments are welcomed and will not be censored.
The entertainment companies don't care and don't take WBAI seriously. The only ones who do are the ones who read this blog, and as for me, I read it only for the lulz.
ReplyDeleteKGT
Very few people take WBAI seriously these days, and those who do generally do so for the wrong reason. Reading this blog "only for the lulz" is what a troll would do—it, too, is the wrong reason, but at least you are honest about it.
ReplyDeleteIf WBAI plagiarizes, how many would actually notice?
ReplyDeleteI take it you mean if WBAI duplicates and sells unauthorized copies of copyrighted material. Not many would notice, nor would we be talking about more than a handful of "premiums," but there is a principle involved so the enforcers cannot afford to ignore any such illegal activity. That said, $150,000 for each infringement can make one sale fatal for little WBAI.
DeleteThere have been incidents when the entertainment industry has gone after one downloading consumer. A radio station, no matter how insignificant in the broadcasting sense, serves even better to publicize the enforcement and set an example. So, KGT is wrong when he so readily dismisses the possibility. I spent most of my life in the entertainment industry and they aren't asleep under their desks, as it were.
Chris--I mean that a.) There aren't enough people listening to BAI and b.) Too many of the remaining listeners wouldn't notice, wouldn't care or simply don't have any concept of what intellectual property is. Then again, they may not have much idea of what "intellectual" anything is.
DeleteI agree, Justine, but the intellectual property theft I speak of is just one more hook upon which to hang a suit... as it were.
DeleteA friend is a lawyer in the whole copyright, patents, trademarks field. We often talk about this sort of stuff and how it affects torrents, usenet, etc. (whistles innocently).
ReplyDeleteIt all comes down to a few factors:
Is it major label/company? If not, you're nearly safe, since the major labels/companies only care about themselves and not indies. In fact, another friend was part of a small production company, which found someone bootlegging their product. When he contacted the organization that handles this matter for the MPAA, he was blown off, being told they only cared about major companies. His one option was suing the offender, which would have cost more than it was worth.
Many of the persecutions of individuals downloading stuff isn't done by the companies and their in-house lawyers. There are many independent slimebag lawyers who handle this matter in a way like independent debt collectors do. They hire themselves out to major companies and go after people, if successful, they get a cut of the money. There was a matter in Texas a few years back with a slimebag lawyer doing this who even had the judge saying how he was throwing out a net and sending letters to people demanding payment for downloads that often didn't occur.
I DO know of a guy who was bootlegging Russ Meyer films and was successfully sued over it, though. Meyer was pretty aggressive about that stuff. So, small labels can take action, if they want to deal with the expense, but they often don't.
Anyway. It get more techy than that, but I don't want to bore people with the whole thing about IP address ranges, etc.
I doubt WBAI will have a problem, unless some lawyer wants to go after them as mentioned above. A cease & desist letter is probably enough, though. However, if someone wants to sell mix stuff at night, NO ONE will know since NO ONE listens, except Fred and a few loons.
Yo ho ho and a V-P-N...
SDL
While one is hard put to find people with a measurable IQ who want to see the current WBAI preserved, I think it would be a lot easier to locate some who want to replace the dysfunctional Pacifica menagerie.
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