E. Michael Harrington, Music and Music Management, William Paterson University
E. Michael Harrington, Professor of Music, Music Management & Intellectual Property and music copyright expert witness/consultant, will present a four-part analysis of the present troublesome state of affairs in the music industry. The focus of the presentation will revolve around the often confusing and competing roles of copyright, creativity, ethics, technology and business.
Beginning with the reasons why copyright exists and how it is supposed to function, Harrington will demonstrate why copyright succeeds and fails, how it has changed in light of new technology, and how new technologies ranging from social network sites (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and others) to file sharing applications and services (LimeWire, PirateBay, Mininova, BitTorrent and others) have been and will remain far ahead of the music and entertainment industries, attorneys and legislators. Secondly, he will describe the four principal reasons why copyright law is often inadequate and frequently unobserved. Thirdly, he will discuss the present “solutions” to the problems posed by the new technologies, spanning the gamut from extreme anarchy to moderate middle-of-the-road measures to draconian proposed federal legislation and the ineffective “sue ‘em all” fervor of the entertainment industry. Cases pertaining to current issues of the digital delivery of IP, including MGM v. Grokster, Twentieth Century Fox et al. v. Cablevision Systems Corporation et ano and Atlantic Recording Corp., et al. v. XM Satellite Radio Inc. will be discussed. Finally, he will recommend more realistic and more daring solutions, as well as a glimpse of what new music copyright issues will arise in 2009 and beyond.