We think that the Timberlake jokes are a little dismissive of the revamped social network, which successfully combines free music streaming and discovery with the social layer. It definitely has its kinks and problems, but the new Myspace is an undeniable improvement over the service that has been wasting away for the past couple of years.

Impressive or not, the new Myspace is already running into some problems with its free streaming music. Apparently, one large agency is accusing the company of making tracks available that they no longer have the rights to.

According to the NY Times, Merlin Network claims that Myspace is currently streaming songs from over 100 independent labels under its wing, although their permission to do so expired over a year ago.

Merlin, a global right agency representing various independent labels like Sub Pop, Merge, and Domino, says that its deals negotiated with Myspace on the labels’ behalf ended in 2011. But much of that music is still streaming to users worldwide.

“While it’s nice that Mr. Timberlake is launching his service on this platform, and acting as an advocate for the platform,” said Merlin’s Charles Caldas. “On the other hand his peers as artists are being exploited without permission and not getting remuneration for it.”

Myspace has responded, saying that any remaining Merlin-represented artsits remain due to users uploading their music, and that they would cooperate in removing the “unlicensed” tracks per Merlin’s request.

For a social network looking to rebrand itself and battle in a crowded market, the last thing they need is a rights battle.

For a look at the redesigned Myspace, check out our hands-on.

The key patent, invented by Lawrence F. Glaser and owned by Nixon Peabody LLP and Studebaker & Brackett PC, discloses methods that offer significant new revenue opportunities for a wide range of communication networks. The patent covers methods of advertising on networks using data processing devices. This includes any user, network form, advertising form, data processing form and potentially any communication form.

The patent is broad and only recently issued, so the terms of the patent specification and scope of the claims include but are not limited to the following:

An ad is a banner, coupon, auction, reverse auction, video, hologram, animation, video or any other form. The unique demographics of the sender or recipient can affect content. A “user” references any entity attached to a network, either human or machine. “Data processor” is a very broad term and covers a wide and growing range of devices including PC, SmartPhone, iPad, even a smart watch with texting capabilities. “Network” is also a very broad term including but not limited to the internet. The claims cover automation of the ads going into the communications as well as the automatic use of demographic data mined about about users to determine the ads to embed.

This patent is critically important with tremendous implications and market potential for large networks and services who have electronic advertising as part of their business model.

Senate Prepares Grill For Google

Google will find out if the $580,000 spent on lobbying this year, and the addition of in-house lobbyists to complement the firms they employ in Washington, will have yielded a good return on investment.

The Washington Wire blog at the Wall Street Journal said Google will face the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights on September 27th for a 2 pm examination of the merger.

Washington Wire blogger John R. Wilke expects Microsoft and Yahoo to have participants in attendance to challenge Google’s attendees over the transaction. Microsoft in particular has stridently objected to a deal that could create an online ad monopoly, in their view.

Scott Cleland of Precursor is expected to attend, and present the case for blocking the merger on antitrust grounds. Thomas Lenard, acting president of The Progress & Freedom Foundation, will appear in support of Google’s proposal.

We noticed Google has a little something going on with DoubleClick already, related to their debut of Gadget Ads. One of the help questions related to the new product noted that Gadget Ads will run on DoubleClick’s DART network as well as sites participating in Google AdSense.

A Google spokesperson contacted for additional details about Gadget Ads could not comment further on DoubleClick’s role in participating with the new service.

We’re betting the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee won’t appreciate ‘no’ for an answer next week.

Here’s Your 15 Minutes And Your DMCA Notice

Have a seat. This could take a minute.

A YouTube user submits his video to YouTube and it becomes popular to the tune of millions of views. And the user gets, well, his 15 minutes.

According to YouTube’s terms of use, YouTube gets the rights to sell that video to whomever they like. The user hasn’t forfeited rights to the video, just rights to profit from the upload. YouTube and the user both hold rights to the video as long as the video is on the website.

However, it’s unlikely that the user has a connection to media powerhouses like, say, Viacom, which slapped YouTube’s parent company Google with a billion-dollar copyright infringement lawsuit as soon as the ink was dry on the acquisition papers.

Admittedly, nearly a year later, you can still find virtually any music video you want on YouTube (Viacom owns MTV and VH1) – in fact, YouTube’s pretty much the MTV of the Internet. So Viacom’s concern about their intellectual property is understandable.

What many have taken issue with so far though, is the company’s overzealous pressing of its rights. Viacom sends out DMCA takedown notices like AOL used to send out free CDs. YouTube has blindly complied with the notices, removing content whether or not it was actual infringement in efforts to protect itself.

This led to the MoveOn.org laying some Fair Use bait for Viacom, and a subsequent lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that forced an admission from the media giant that there is, indeed, such a thing as Fair Use. In fact, much of Viacom programming, like Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" rely on it.

As does another show: "Web Junk."

"Web Junk" is a show that runs on VH1 featuring the week’s most popular viral video from the Internet. Much, nearly all, of the content on the show comes from you-know-where.

Now, the irony would be much too sublime if Viacom was violating YouTube’s terms of use that prohibit transmitting YouTube videos in a non-streaming format for commercial use without YouTube’s permission. No, we’ll assume Viacom licensed the videos through YouTube like they were supposed to.

Which means, again, YouTube and Google, who are being sued by Viacom, are also making money from Viacom, who is also making money from YouTube content while the uploader gets his 15 minutes.

But wait it gets worse.

Christopher Knight has a word for one of Viacom’s latest actions: "chutzpa." It’s a Yiddish word, if you didn’t know, for "unbelievable gall or audacity." Knight’s video was viewed a few hundred thousand times on YouTube before being featured on "Web Junk."

He didn’t complain, according his blog post about it, and thought Aries Spears’ commentary was funny. He posted a clip from the episode featuring the commentary on his YouTube video back on YouTube.

You can guess what happened next.

Knight writes, "So Viacom took a video that I had made for non-profit purposes and without trying to acquire my permission, used it in a for-profit broadcast. And then when I made a YouTube clip of what they did with my material, they charged me with copyright infringement and had YouTube pull the clip.

"Folks, this is, as we say down here in the south, "bass-ackwards".

Well, that’s one way to put it. Another way might be to suggest that Web 3.0 comes with some user content rights.

The oft-repeated argument that Canada is some sort of free zone for harboring content has been called into contention by Canadian law professor and copyright expert Michael Geist. As noted on Boing Boing, Geist and filmmaker Daniel Albahary have released a short, under nine minutes, video disclaiming the bitter complaining from their southern neighbors.

A dream come true for American interests would be the establishment of laws similar to the much-criticized DMCA in the US. Takedown notices could then be dispatched to any ISP suspected of having an evil content-uploader or host on their network.

There are a few problems with the perception American interests have tried to establish about Canada, and it’s these that Geist chose to fight with the video. In one example, he shows how Canada complies with international copyright law, including the well-known Berne Convention.

With regards to illegal camcording claims by Hollywood, Geist noted, “Canadian copyright law already addresses illegal camcording with the possibility of jail time and significant fines.”

Geist also cited a confidential report on global Hollywood movie revenue growth in 2006. The so-called pirate haven to the north experienced the highest revenue growth in the world for movies.

That looks at odds with claims of rampant piracy.

On the music side, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) depicted Canadians as thieves who “will continue to steal other people’s property.” But Canada’s 122 percent digital music download sales growth easily eclipsed growth figures for the US (60 percent) and Europe (85 percent.)

“Peer-to-peer downloading is arguably compensated by the private copying levy, which places a levy on each blank CD sold in Canada,” Geist noted in the video. He blames the industry’s reliance on DRM for their woes.

Nailing down accusations of widespread counterfeiting products has been difficult. Geist claims not enough data exists, and that an investigating committee relied on data later acknowledged by the collecting agency to be inaccurate and overstated.

“Canadian policy should prioritize Canadian interests, not those of foreign governments and lobby groups,” said Geist.

 Human Rights Watch asks:

How will China’s pervasive censorship and control of domestic and international media and the Internet play out when thousands of international journalists descend on Beijing? How are the Olympic Games being used to justify the violent forced evictions of thousands of people from their homes? (…) Human Rights Watch hopes that the 2008 Olympics will be an impetus for China to demonstrate greater respect for the human rights guaranteed to all under international law.

You got one answer right there on Google when you compare the search results for the query china olympics: the page I quoted from above is available Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&lr=”>on Google.com’s Chinese search engine, but censored on Google.cn.

Certainly, this example is arbitrary… because whatever Human Rights Watch writes will be censored in Google China, completely automated. And certainly, it’s an English query, and many Chinese will query in Chinese. But you’ll be hitting on these censored queries in Chinese too: I just translated “olympics criticism” into Chinese using Google’s translator, and there’s again a self-censored result in the top 10 (per Google’s own disclosure, which reads “?????????????????????” – along the lines of “in compliance with local laws or regulations, some search results are missing"; you can find further validation by following up with a site-query for the domain you suspect to be censored, e.g. site:news.bbc.co.uk). Arbitrary as the example may be, you can be sure that there’s tens of thousands to millions of “missing” results for Chinese users on Google everyday. Because we often consult search engines in times where we want to learn something, a missing piece of knowledge can shape our thinking and have real-life consequences. Many Chinese users, thankfully, will be too smart to fully trust Google.cn results at this point.

Google claims they have 100 different means to rank a website – PageRank just being one of many –, and out of 7 million pages, Google’s algorithm decided that the Human Rights Watch page in question belongs into the top 10 for the query china olympics (even though it’s dangerous for any Chinese webmaster to link to this page, which can have the effect of downranking it almost “naturally”). But there’s a single thing which can overrule any of those 100 fine-tuned algorithms: a single government decision.

Google’s Eric Schmidt argues that engagement will bring improvement – but these are just overgeneralizations. Some engagement can have horrible consequences (IBM “engaged” in Nazi Germany by providing machines that were specifically tailored to register racial data among the population, even at a time when the Nazis delivered openly anti-Semite statements – in fact, even at a time when it was illegal per US law for US businesses to engage in Germany), while other engagement might bring improvements. So instead of such statements, Google should give people specifics. For starters, which “local laws or regulations” does HRW.org violate, justifying that its around 46,300 pages indexed in international Google are censored by Google China? When webmasters find their site banned, they can file a reinclusion request with Google; but where do I file my request if I suspect my site to be banned not due to cloaking or hidden links, but due to government-critical statements? (Is it good SEO in China to not speak critical of my government – are there any Google webmaster guidelines as to what may get you removed?) And who at Google is responsible for making the decisions which censorship requests are acceptable and which aren’t – or does Google accept every censorship request in China (and other countries where there are self-censored results)?

Comments

Tag:

Google, Holocaust Museum Map ‘Crisis in Darfur’

Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have lost their lives since the Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003. Systematic human rights abuses have occurred, including killing, torture, rape, looting and destroying of property by all parties involved in the conflict, but primarily by the Sudanese government and government-backed Janjawid militia.
-- Amnesty International, on human rights concerns in Sudan

An online mapping initiative backed by the Holocaust Museum and empowered by Google Earth will bring the Darfur crisis into focus. Today a Global Awareness layer containing photographs, data and eyewitness testimony about Darfur became available in Google Earth.

Crisis in Darfur is the first project of the Museum

The problems started with an ice storm that naturally led to flights being grounded, but once air travel resumed JetBlue found itself lagging in getting their operation running again. We all know things happen and in this case JetBlue dropped the ball. However their response to the situation is more telling about the company than the temporary problems they faced.

As someone who had flown JetBlue I received an email a few days after the events as did all JetBlue customers. The email was a public apology from CEO David Neeleman.

You deserved better – a lot better – from us last week and we let you down. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to once again welcome you onboard and provide you the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.

Sure the apology is in part about damage control, but I think they went beyond reputation management here. JetBlue could very easily have blamed the weather and moved on. Instead they took responsibility for not being able to handle the circumstances better and owned up to their mistakes. They didn’t stop at the apology, though.

JetBlue drafted a customer bill of rights to insure the company remains accountable for its service in the future. Included in the customer’s rights are vouchers up to the price of the one way ticket for long controllable delays.

Additionally the airline is taking an internal look at why they had the issues they had during the weather emergency and taking measures to make sure something similar doesn’t happen again. Much of the measure involve hiring and training additional staff and improving the flow of information to it’s customers.

A lot of companies point to their superior customer support as part of their marketing. For most companies this is little more than lip service. JetBlue is showing with their apology, their customer bill of rights, and their internal improvements that customer service is more than just a promise from them. The company is actively practicing customer service and there is no better way to market customer support as a selling point.

Things happen. We all know and accept that. Sometimes circumstances beyond your control lead to less than successful days for your business. Owning up to your mistakes and learning from them is the best approach to maintaining the loyalty of your customers. Your customers will understand if you’re not perfect. What they won’t understand is you trying to convince them otherwise. Make yourself accountable and work to improve your systems so the same mistake doesn’t happen again.

There are reasons JetBlue has been one of the fastest growing airlines over the last few years. One of them is a clear commitment to providing the best experience they can for their customers. Their recent apology and customer bill of rights are examples of that commitment.

Comments

Billable Rights of the SEO Client

1. The client has a right to expect the SEO to fulfill contract in full. If you don’t have time to work on the account, refund my money so I can hire someone who does.
2. The client has a right to know what will be done to his site by the SEO. Don’t give me any nonsense about "proprietary strategies. You’re messing with my site, I want to know what you’re doing.
3. The client has a right to know the SEO tactics to be implemented externally. I’m paying you so tell me what you’re doing for me.
4. The client has a right not to have their site penalized or thrown out of the search engines due to SEO tactics.
5. The client has a right to question SEO results and value of the work performed. If I don’t see results I’ll be asking you why. Maybe I just need you to show me how to see the results.
6. The client has a right to consult other SEO experts about the value of the work performed.
7. The client has a right to buy out of the SEO contract at any time. If I don’t want your services anymore, let me pay for the full contract so I can move on.
8. The client has a right to maintain ownership of all work performed by the SEO. I’m not paying per click, so anything you do with my money is mine to keep.
9. The client has a right to expect SEO work performed to increase traffic and sales/conversions. If I’m not seeing more sales then I’m not getting my money’s worth.
10. The client has a right to not have site hijacked, mutilated or destroyed by SEO. I expect quality work for my money.

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

About the Author

Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing (www.PolePositionMarketing.com), a search engine optimization / marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook and contributes daily to the E-Marketing Performance (www.eMarketingPerformance.com) marketing blog.

The legal wrangling has actually been going on for some time, and this was only the latest decision that didn’t fall in the search engine company’s favor. Google’s opponent: German-born venture capitalist Daniel Giersch, according to The Register’s Jan Libbenga.

“The German entrepreneur founded a same-day mail delivery service called G-mail designed to offer a swifter alternative to the Deutsche Post,” wrote Libbenga. “Giersch, who has held his trademark for six years, has been fighting this battle since Google launched its email service in 2004.”

Now – much to Google’s chagrin – the matter appears to have been resolved. The company’s latest appeal was rejected, and it doesn’t look like there’s anywhere else for it to go (in a legal sense).

“That’s got to sting,” Nate Anderson observed, “as Google is a company used to getting its way, but it comes as consolation to Giersch, who said in an interview last year that ‘Google’s behavior is very threatening, very aggressive and very unfaithful, and to me, it’s very evil.’”

Maybe Google Germany isn’t so much evil as cranky – things really haven’t been going its way lately. About a week ago, the company even lost ownership of the google.de domain, and although the situation was quickly resolved, it couldn’t have improved anyone’s disposition.

At least bookkeeping for Google’s e-mail service will be a little simpler – Anderson writes that “it now looks it will be ‘Google Mail’ throughout Europe.”

—
Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.