Artfacts: Australia Council for the Arts

Take a look at the new web page of the Australia Council for the Arts called Artfacts here. They are collecting and presenting statistical information on musicians and music in Australia. There are some cool graphics you can share on facebook and twitter and the site enables you to explore the ecosystem of music through statistics. Here are some interesting facts:

1. 9 out of 10 Australians listen to music each week; 4 out of 10 exercise
2. 20% of kids learn to play music; 70% of adults wish they had
3. Australians continue to spend $2 billion on music each year
4. Australian's buy 3 recordings per second, that's 100,000,000 a year
5. Live music brings over 42 million fans into Australia's pubs and clubs
6. Digital music revenues set to take over CD sales in 2012
7. In the multi billion dollar music industry, musicians earn $7,200 a year
8. 9 of Australia's top 100 chart singles last year were Australian
9. Just 7,800 people work as musicians as their main job
10. 80% of songwriters are men; 70% of music teachers are women

A very interesting and well presented site - check it out!

Spotify blog embeded button

Just trying out the Spotify embeded button for blogs... one of my favourite songs from Blue King Brown - Say Peace.

Rock for Recognition

Today the musician Dan Sultan announced a series of concerts to raise awareness of the need to include Australia's Indigenous people in the preamble of the Australian Constitution.

As ANTaR point out, the Australian Constitution still allows for laws that stop people voting, owning property or working in certain professions based on race.

ANTaR presented a report to the Australian Government in January 2012 supporting changes to the Constitution, to specifically: 'recognise the prior occupation and continuing cultures, languages and heritage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples; acknowledge the continuing relationship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples to these lands and waters; remove the ability of States and Territories to bar certain races from voting [section 25]; remove the capacity of governments to make laws to the detriment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples or the people of any race [section 51(xxvi)]; and insert a protection against discrimination on the basis of race, colour or ethnicity.'

ANTaR have a fact sheet and community participation program you can access here if you are interested in more information on the issue.

Dan Sultan, a member of the Gurindji Nation, is putting on a series of shows to help raise awareness of these issues for the Indigenous community called Rock For Recognition, as helping promote the need for recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples in the Australian Constitution. Bands such as Yabu Band, Leah Flanagan and DJ Ken Eval will be playing.

The shows will be held as follows:
 
Thursday November 8: Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Friday November 9: Factory Theatre, Sydney
Saturday November 10: Bakery Artrage, Perth
Sunday November 11: Fly By Night, Fremantle





Further Reading
ANTaR, Constitutional Recognition < http://www.antar.org.au/constitutional_recognition > at 22 August 2012

Tone Deaf, Dan Sultan Announces Indigenous Rights Concert Tour (22 August 2012) < http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/news/tournews/191430/dan-sultan-announces-indigenous-rights-concert-tour.htm > at 22 August 2012

The Music Network, Dan Sultan to head Rock for Recognition concerts (22 August 2012) < http://www.themusicnetwork.com/music-news/artists/2012/08/22/dan-sultan-to-head-rock-for-recognition-concerts/ > at 22 August 2012

ALRC seeks input into Copyright law reform

This week the Australian Law Reform Commission released the first consultation paper for the Inquiry about Copyright law—Copyright and the Digital Economy (ALRC IP 42, 2012). In their press release from 20 August 2012 they write:

"Under the Terms of Reference for this Inquiry, the ALRC is to consider whether exceptions and statutory licences in the Copyright Act 1968 are adequate and appropriate in the digital environment and whether further exceptions should be recommended. The Inquiry recognises the emerging digital economy and the need to ensure copyright law provides incentives for investment in innovation and content while also allowing appropriate access to that content so that Australia’s needs in the internet age are met, both domestically and internationally... The Issues Paper forms a basis for consultation and asks more than 50 questions relevant to how the current copyright framework is affecting both commercial and creative enterprise and how current exceptions and statutory licences are working in the digital environment. The Issues Paper provides background information, highlights the issues so far identified in research and consultations, and outlines the principles that will shape the ALRC’s proposals for reform. The ALRC invites individuals and organisations to make submissions in response to the questions contained in the Issues Paper, or to any of the background material and analysis provided.  This community input will help inform the development of draft recommendations for reform to be released in a Discussion Paper due in mid 2013."

The Issues Paper is available free of charge from the ALRC website. The ALRC prefers submissions via the ALRC online submission form: www.alrc.gov.au/content/copyright-and-digital-economy-online-submission. Written submissions can also be posted, faxed or emailed to the ALRC.

Postal address GPO Box 3708 Sydney NSW 2001.
Closing date for submissions is Friday 16 November 2012.
For more information about the ALRC inquiry or to subscribe to the Copyright Inquiry e-newsletter please go to www.alrc.gov.au/inquiries/copyright.
The Final Report is due to be delivered by 30 November 2013.


Further Reading
ALRC, ALRC seeks input into Copyright law reform (20 August 2012) < http://www.alrc.gov.au/news-media/media-release/alrc-seeks-input-copyright-law-reform  > at 22 August 2012

Pussy Riot: guilty

As you may have heard Pussy Riot were found guilty of hooliganism in the trial against them in Russia this week  - see my earlier post on this here. Today I found this note on facebook from Billy Bragg and thought to share it with you:

Traffic Shaping in Australia

Torrent Freak recently published an article indicating the extent of BitTorrent traffic shaping across the globe and I thought it interesting to note the extent and possible reasons for traffic shaping in Australia.

Interestingly enough throttling in Australia has reduced over the last 12 months. The most heavily throttled network is iiNet at 11% of BitTorrent traffic with the best being Dodo at 0%. iiNet throttled 32% of BitTorrent traffic last year where as Dodo was shaping 14% of BitTorrent traffic last year.

There is reason to suggest that iiNet are the heaviest throttlers because of the litigation against them in recent years in which they were accused of secondary copyright liability for not responding to private notices about their customers downloading music. AFACT lost the case in the High Court in the end but the litigation most likely led iiNet to an increased awareness and concern for their liability. Alternative or contributory factors may be the need to prioritise other forms of traffic on the network.

This compares badly to the United States of America where Comcast, as the worst ISP only shapes 6% of BitTorrent traffic the best ISPs are Comcast, Verizon, AT&T (and others) that shape a mere 3% of BitTorrent traffic.

Torrent Freak note: "BitTorrent throttling in the US is not as prevalent as it used to be. The main reason for this is the Comcast BitTorrent blocking controversy which started in 2007. The FCC eventually ruled that Comcast had to stop its targeted interference of customers’ BitTorrent traffic. As a result of this ruling, the throttling percentage took a dive from nearly 50 percent to only 3 percent in 2010. In the first quarter of 2012, Comcast’s throttling level was still at 3 percent, which puts the provider among the best behaving ISPs."

Of course there are reasonable arguments to be made about these statistics as indicators of the need for network neutrality legislation in this country. It is a slippery slope towards disaster to allow private corporations the ability and freedom to determine what information users are able to access, a potentially dangerous loss of free speech and a step more than needed toward censorship. However, it is positive to note that the prevalence of traffic shaping has reduced in the past year.

Further Reading
ArsTechnica, Australian High Court rules ISPs need not act on private infringement notices (20 April 2012) < http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/australian-high-court-rules-isps-need-not-act-on-private-infringement-notices.ars > at 26 April 2012 

TechDirt, Hollywood Loses Its Big Copyright Lawsuit Against ISP iiNet Down Under (20 April 2012) < http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120420/02110118571/hollywood-loses-its-big-copyright-lawsuit-against-isp-iinet-down-under.shtml > at 26 April 2012

TorrentFreak, New Data Exposes BitTorrent Throttling ISPs (9 August 2012) < http://torrentfreak.com/new-data-exposes-bittorrent-throttling-isps-120809/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter > at 15 August 2012
 

Digital Music News: The Most Infamous Music Infographic, Updated for 2012..

I have been given permission from Digital Music News to publish this graphic - it is an updated version of a graphic by Information Is Beautiful from 2010. The sources data is available from the DMN article - 'The Most Infamous Music Infographic, Updated for 2012...'. As you can see from the graphic, for a solo artist to earn the US monthly minimum wage they must sell 1,706 copies of an MP3 on iTunes, 2,320 CDs (major label) or there must be 232,000 streams on Spotify (independents). This presents a very interesting picture of the comparative revenue sources.

 

Free Pussy Riot!

The trial of the members of Pussy Riot in Russia has been reported on recently in Australian news. For those that are unaware of the case, three Russian women Maria Alekhina (24), Nadezhda Tolokonikova (23) and Ekaterina Samucevich (29) formed an anonymous feminist performance art group in October 2011. The group sought to draw attention to "the values and principles of gender equality, democracy and freedom of expression contained in the Russian constitution and other international instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the CEDAW Convention."

They were arrested and charged with hooliganism - a charge that carries a prison term of 7 years imprisonment - after they performed and filmed a 1 minute piece highlighting the association between President Putin and the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church and uploaded it to YouTube. They have now been in jail for 10 months with the matter yet to be heard. There is a website set up to document the trial here. 

On the 20th July at Moscow's Khamovinchesky District Court an application for the women's release was rejected and they were ordered to stay in jail pending an appeal. Their lawyer has asked to summon Mr Putin as a witness.

This is a very interesting example of political musicians being persecuted for freedom of speech and well worth reading about. In addition to the website you can also check out a recent article from Freemuse here. 

Further Reading
Free Pussy Riot < http://freepussyriot.org/ > at 2 August 2012


Freemuse, Freemuse calls for free and fair trial for Pussy Riot (30 July 2012) < http://www.freemuse.org/sw48226.asp > at 2 August 2012

Wayne Swan on Springsteen and political music

Just read an interesting article from the (Australian) ABC News site - here - on Acting Prime Minister/Treasurer Wayne Swan's musical preferences. The article states that Swannie has a particular interest in the music of Bruce Springsteen - he states:


"It's often the case that great artists - people like Bruce Springsteen - tend to pick up the subterranean rumblings of profound social change long before the economic statisticians notice them. Changes start long before they become statistics... If you listen to the albums that came out after Born to Run - albums like Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, Born in the USA and Nebraska - you can hear Springsteen singing about the shifting foundations of the US economy which the economists took much longer to detect, and which of course everyone is talking about now."

Take a quick look at the article if you can because it highlights the connection between music and politics very well - its only short. Swannie also lists Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil and the Hilltop Hoods as being inspirational - who'd of thunk it? A tresurer that likes the Hilltop Hoods - ace man!

Further Reading 
ABC News, Swan enlists Springsteen to bash the bosses (1 August 2012) < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-01/wayne-swan-channels-springsteen-in-attack-on-miners/4168174 > at 1 August 2012

 

TPP and Secrecy

Take a look at this article on TPP negotiations and the secrecy around the drafting of the agreement. The article is titled: "The Most Important Trade Agreement That We Know Nothing About" and is written by  David S. Levine. It is available here.

David states:


"Here’s what we think we know. Based upon the leaks that have occurred, it seems that an enacted TPP would require significant changes in U.S. and/or other signatory countries’ laws.  It would curb public access to vast amounts of information in the name of combating intellectual property infringement (or piracy, depending on your choice of words). The owner of the copyright in a song or movie could use a “technological protection measure”—what are often called “digital locks”—to prevent your access to it, even for educational purposes, and regardless of whether the owner had the legal right to do so. Your very ability to read this article, with hyperlinks in it, could be affected by TPP. So, too, might your access to works currently in the public domain and available free of charge. And these concerns are only related to the intellectual property rights chapter of TPP. There are apparently more than 20 chapters under negotiation, including “customs, cross-border services, telecommunications, government procurement, competition policy, and cooperation and capacity building,” as well as investment and financial services. Technically, TPP would only take effect in the 10 negotiating countries: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam. Mexico joined recently, and Canada and Japan may soon follow. But in reality, it would also affect citizens of any nations that interact with at least one of those 10—which means even the shut-off North Korea might feel its influence."

TechDirt reported in March this year that the Intellectual Property chapter of the agreement is also likely to introduce ISP liability and in effect censorship and surveillance.


Further Reading
TechDirt, TPP Talks Deadlocked; Still No Transparency (15 March 2012) < http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120314/09065218105/tpp-talks-deadlocked-still-no-transparency.shtml > at 22 March 2012


David S. Levine, The Most Important Trade Agreement That We Know Nothing About (30 July 2012) < http://mobile.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/07/trans_pacific_partnership_agreement_tpp_could_radically_alter_intellectual_property_law.html  > at 1 August 2012