The Social

Keyboard Cat rocks out with Hall and Oates' band on YouTube.

(Credit: YouTube)

This is really quite sad.

Citing copyright concerns, YouTube has deleted the audio from a hosted video that depicts the Internet meme "Keyboard Cat" showing up in a vintage TV after-school special and then embedded in the foreground of the '80s-era music video for the song "You Make My Dreams" by pop duo Daryl Hall and John Oates. It was an extremely awesome match, because the musical feline fit into the minimalist Hall & Oates video a little too well.

The audio appears to have been deleted on behalf of music label Warner Music Group. "This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG," a message adjacent to the video read. "The audio has been disabled."

The Keyboard Cat-Hall & Oates video was getting popular, with over 375,000 views on YouTube in fewer than two months and press from blogs like the AOL-owned Urlesque, so it's not quite clear whether WMG was alerted to the video directly or if the sound was pulled because an audio fingerprinting technology trawled through it.

Earlier this year YouTube started giving people who uploaded videos with copyrighted content the option to silence the video rather than have it taken down. As my colleague Greg Sandoval noted at the time, while YouTube once had deals in place with all four major record labels, its deal with Warner fell through.

So there goes one of the greatest music videos to hit YouTube ever. (In my opinion, of course.)

"I hate you, Warner Music Group," one commenter on the muted YouTube video wrote. "This video is hilarious and promotes a song that would otherwise never reach the ears of young people. What is wrong with you? When did the music industry go so wrong?"

Other comments are along the lines of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and "A f***ing injustice to the world."

So, clearly, I am not the only one saddened by this takedown. It's a quintessential example of the music industry missing the point. The presence of a funny video that makes it look like a cat has joined Hall & Oates' band is not going to suddenly make hordes of people start pirating the duo's songs who otherwise would've paid for them. In fact, as commenters pointed out, some of the Internet-meme-savvy kids who were swapping links to the video probably had no idea who Daryl Hall and John Oates are. (Embarrassing confession: I bought "You Make My Dreams" on Amazon MP3 after the Keyboard Cat video got it stuck in my head.)

The Internet breaks plenty of new trends, but it can also make older bits of media rocket back into the spotlight. If the label with the rights to onetime pop star Rick Astley's catalog had freaked out over the ubiquity of "Never Gonna Give You Up" on YouTube, for example, Astley (whom I had never heard of before the "Rickrolling" phenomenon took off) would not have been lip-syncing on top of a float at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade last year.

I understand that traditional media rightfully has a lot of qualms about copyright alternatives and "remix culture," some aspects of which are fairly radical, and Hall & Oates have a history of tightly guarding their catalog. But every time there's another instance of copyright-induced silliness like pulling the audio from an innocuous Internet sensation, it just makes me shake my head and wonder when, if ever, they'll finally get it.

It's time for Keyboard Cat to play the record labels off.

On an otherwise placid holiday weekend, one blog's commentary on a change to Facebook's terms of service created a firestorm of banter on the Web: does the social network claim ownership to any user content on the site, even if the user deletes it?

Facebook reorganized its terms of service last Wednesday. In a blog post, company legal representative Suzie White provided an explanation. "We used to have several different documents that outlined what people could and could not do on Facebook, but now we're consolidating all this information to one central place," White wrote. "We've also simplified and clarified a lot of information that applies to you, including some things you shouldn't do when using the site."

The blog post sounded benign. But the brouhaha arose on Sunday over a revision in the wording of Facebook's policy over what happens to profile content--shared items, blog post-like "notes," photos--when members delete their accounts.

Consumer advocacy blog The Consumerist phrased Facebook's fresh policy as "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever," pointing out that Facebook's ToS spruce-up removed several sentences in which the company said its licenses on user content expired upon account deletion. And that's where the hysteria began.

"Facebook should now be called The Information Blackhole," one Consumerist commenter proclaimed. "What goes in never comes out. Be careful what you huck in there."

Truth be told, most Facebook users won't give a hoot, the same way that the flurry over the Beacon advertising program in late 2007 was fueled by a few vocal privacy advocates while the general population didn't seem to care about it one way or the other. But for advocates of copyright reform and privacy, not to mention photographers and writers who may want the photos they upload or "notes" they write on Facebook to eventually lead to some kind of profit, the news was alarming.

Some prominent Twitterers and bloggers, like New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, announced that they were deleting their Facebook accounts or pulling all uploaded content.

So Facebook issued somewhat of a clarification on Monday to explain what the change really meant.

"We are not claiming and have never claimed ownership of material that users upload," a statement from Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt read. And indeed, Facebook's terms of service do say that "User Content and Applications/Connect Sites" are exempt from its claims on content ownership.

"The new Terms were clarified to be more consistent with the behavior of the site," Schnitt's statement continued. "That is, if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, etc...), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend)."

Project Playlist has struck a deal with Sony BMG to bring the label's catalog to its streaming-music service. It's the first major-label deal for Project Playlist, which recently brought former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta on as CEO but has been dealing with legal problems that have seen its widgets banned from social network MySpace.

Currently, Project Playlist has been sued by Warner Music, EMI, and Universal Music Group, as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), because of the amount of unauthorized content that members have uploaded to the service. Industry rumors have persisted that Project Playlist was interested in a merger with Imeem, a similar service that has deals with all the major labels.

Reports had surfaced in April that unlike the other labels, Sony BMG was negotiating with Project Playlist rather than seeking legal action against it. Now, months later, that deal has come to fruition.

"Collaborating with Sony BMG is a significant milestone in our effort to improve the access and quality of content on Project Playlist, and enhance the overall user experience," founder Jeremy Riney said in a release. "We hope that we soon will be able to provide our users with ready access to even more of the music they want in the way that they want it."

There are a ton of social music sites out there, but Project Playlist is growing fast: Traffic firm ComScore pegs its user base at 40 million.

MySpace has officially blocked access to embedded widgets from Project Playlist, one of the myriad start-ups that lets members create music playlists and share them with friends.

This could come across negatively because MySpace runs MySpace Music, a service that competes with Project Playlist. And that's probably why the News Corp.-owned MySpace is making it very clear that it has blocked Project Playlist because of complaints from major music labels.

"MySpace is an open platform that welcomes all developers to build rich and legitimate applications for its global community," according to a statement from the company. "We take copyright issues very seriously and our goal is to help developers build a substantial business by creating an environment that respects rights holders and protects their content."

The statement continued: "MySpace has received notices of infringement about Project Playlist at different times from several of the major music companies currently suing Project Playlist. Per our policy of taking very seriously the requests of rights holders to block access to third party sites that are believed to be infringing, we have evaluated the requests of the major music companies and determined that it is in our best interest not to allow Project Playlist widgets on MySpace, and effective immediately, we will no longer be allowing these widgets within the MySpace platform."

Indeed, Warner Music, EMI, and Universal Music Group have ongoing lawsuits against Project Playlist, which recently hired former Facebook Chief Operating Officer Owen Van Natta as its CEO. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)--itself going through a major transition as it ends legal action against individual file-sharers and is rumored to be on the verge of budget cuts--also sued Project Playlist this past spring.

The fourth major label, Sony BMG, has been negotiating with the start-up.

The labels' complaint against Project Playlist was industrywide, not restricted to MySpace. However, Facebook, hasn't blocked Project Playlist widgets. Whether that's due to Van Natta's Facebook connection (he's also an investor in Project Playlist), or to anything else, is unclear. Because litigation is involved, neither party is commenting.

In the digital music industry, 2008 really was the year of the playlist. Streaming music companies took off, and improved social-network sharing features made it easy to swap your favorite music lineups with your friends.

Despite its rampant and well-documented problems, the music industry's muscle has been what's steering the direction of the movement. For example, the two highest-profile "mixtape" start-ups, Mixwit and Muxtape, both shut down amid the threat of legal action that their young founders didn't want to handle. Meanwhile, bigger companies like Imeem and iLike, both of which have negotiated with the record labels and struck deals, have fared better--despite a number of rumors that Project Playlist wants to merge with Imeem.

As for MySpace, the labels have all invested in MySpace Music, so it's understandable that the social network would be quick to respond to its concerns.

When Scrabulous, a popular game on Facebook's developer platform, was shut down earlier on Tuesday because of copyright infringement issues with the manufacturer of the Scrabble board game, word game fans weren't totally left in the dark. After all, Electronic Arts (which handles the digital rights to Scrabble for the game's parent company, Hasbro) had recently created an official beta version of Scrabble for the platform.

Problem is, the servers that were hosting the "real" Scrabble app couldn't handle the load of new migrants, and the application crashed on Tuesday afternoon. Oops!

"We'll be back up shortly," an apologetic error message read. "We're working on some tech problems and Scrabble will be ready to play as soon as possible!" The game is slated to exit the beta phase in the middle of next month, and some (my colleague Rafe Needleman among them) initially found it to be a better-quality game experience than Scrabulous had been.

But in the wake of a server crash, Facebook users weren't too pleased, as the message wall for the Scrabble application revealed. "Wow, does this suck," one Facebook user wrote. "Why can't you guys work out a licensing deal with the Scrabulous boys? Now we're back to square one and have to go through all of your debugging process."

Well, to be fair, rumor has it that Hasbro put out an acquisition offer for Scrabulous, only to have it rebuffed because its creators thought the amount offered was insufficient.

"Sucks, sucks, sucks," another Facebook user said. "Locks up at 30 percent loading. Sucks. Oh, did I mention it sucks? Get a grip, Hasbro."

Too bad "FAIL" will net you only seven points.

Facebook users in the U.S. and Canada can no longer access Scrabulous, the faux-Scrabble game that quickly became one of the most popular applications on its developer platform.

This was done independently on behalf of the Scrabulous creators, a Facebook representative told CNET News in an e-mail Tuesday. "In response to a legal request from Hasbro, the copyright and trademark holder for Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada, the developers of Scrabulous have suspended their application in the U.S. and Canada until further notice," the e-mail explained.

The game's disappearance comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed last week by Hasbro, the game manufacturer that owns the rights to Scrabble in the United States and Canada. In the suit, Hasbro named as defendants the creators of Scrabulous--India-based brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, and their company, RJ Softwares. The suit asked Facebook to pull the game, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and asked the Agarwallas to close their Scrabulous.com site.

That hasn't happened completely, though. Outside the U.S. and Canada, the rights to Scrabble are owned by game company Mattel, so Hasbro doesn't have jurisdiction there. Both game companies have released separate official Scrabble games for the Facebook platform. Meanwhile, the Scrabulous.com site, which existed before the Facebook application, is still working just fine.

Hasbro representatives were not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

When Hasbro initially filed its suit last week, Facebook responded in this way: "Over the past year, Facebook has tried to use its status as neutral platform provider to help the parties come to an amicable agreement," the statement sent to CNET News.com read. "We're disappointed that Hasbro has sought to draw us into their dispute; nevertheless, we have forwarded their concerns to Scrabulous and requested their appropriate response."

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had said in speeches that he was a fan of Scrabulous. That was before Hasbro started making it clear earlier this year that it wanted the game taken down.

Accessing the Scrabulous application on Facebook now leads to a message that states, "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice" and allows members to submit their e-mail addresses to the Scrabulous creators to receive updates.

This post was updated at 7:31 a.m. PDT with comment from Facebook.

Creative Commons, the nonprofit dedicated to reforming copyright in the digital age, said Tuesday it has received a $4 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The money will bolster Creative Commons' five-year financial plan, which has also seen support or pledges of support from Google, Mozilla, Red Hat, and the Omidyar Network.

Out of the $4 million from the Hewlett Foundation, $2.5 million will go to the main Creative Commons organization over the next five years, and the remaining $1.5 million will go to its CCLearn education project.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Lessig, the organization's founder, a Stanford law professor, and a "free culture" advocate, is stepping down from his role as CEO of Creative Commons.

His replacement will be entrepreneur Joi Ito, who described himself to CNET News.com in 2006 as "sort of part-time entrepreneur, VC and nonprofit board member...(with) some writing, blogging, speaking and government policy work on the side."

Ito has been serving as chair of the Creative Commons board and will be replaced in that role by James Boyle, a current board member and a Duke law professor.

The organization has announced two other management changes. Diane Peters will join Creative Commons as general counsel, coming from a stint at the Mozilla Foundation; the organization's current general counsel, Virginia Rutledge, will take on the new role of vice president and special counsel.

Lessig, who will remain on Creative Commons' board, made headlines earlier this year when he briefly considered a run for Congress. Though that effort was short-lived, Lessig soon thereafter launched an online-and-offline campaign called Change Congress. The new initiative's goal is to cast off the corporate influence on American politics, including lobbyists to big-money political action committees.

With his departure from Creative Commons, Change Congress will become Lessig's primary project. "Although I have changed my focus, I'm still very much committed to Creative Commons and the Free Culture cause," he said in a statement. "The work I intend to do with Change Congress is in many ways complementary to the work of Creative Commons. Both projects are about putting people in power and enabling them to build a better system."

Lessig founded Creative Commons in 2001 to combat what he saw as a rigid and outdated copyright system, encouraging the rejection of the traditional "all rights reserved" standard in favor of a "some rights reserved" alternative that would promote "creative reuse."

While big tech players like Yahoo's Flickr and the OpenSocial Foundation are eager supporters, Creative Commons still has yet to gain true mainstream media acceptance.

"I'll go on a hunger strike!"

So said one adamant Facebook user in the wake of the news that game manufacturers Hasbro and Mattel were trying to do something about the wildly popular, unquestionably addictive online game known as Scrabulous.

The game, which rose to fame when its creators turned it into an embeddable Facebook application, is a word game that's a whole lot like the classic board game Scrabble. It uses a playing board with "bonus" spots just like Scrabble. In fact, the rules are identical to Scrabble's.

The companies in charge of the "real" Scrabble, for obvious reasons, aren't happy.

Game companies Hasbro, which distributes Scrabble in North America, and Mattel, which is responsible for its overseas trademarks, have reportedly asked Facebook to remove the game from its application directory. And you can tell it's a serious legal matter because nobody's talking.

Facebook declined to confirm the report, and it said that it has not yet issued any kind of statement about Scrabulous; representatives from Hasbro did not respond to calls for comment.

The similarities between Scrabble and Scrabulous are crystal-clear, and it's a no-brainer to see why Hasbro and Mattel are miffed. To add to that, Scrabulous serves up advertisements, which means that its creators are making money off the concept. But what the game companies really ought to do is take a step back and realize that they can use Scrabulous to their advantage--without removing the viral game from Facebook.

Fans of Scrabulous, for one, aren't happy about the takedown news. On Facebook, an unofficial group called "Save Scrabulous" is growing fast, with more than 7,000 users at last count (and 5,000 hours before.) Its members, including the aforementioned "hunger striker," are livid.

"Leave Scrabulous alone!" one of them posted in the group's message board, a thinly veiled allusion to the "Leave Britney Alone" viral video.

Others were more visceral: "I've burnt my Scrabble board in protest!" one exclaimed.

A game of Scrabulous on Facebook.

(Credit: Scrabulous)

Scrabulous is the creation of two brothers in India, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, who founded Scrabulous.com in 2006. When Facebook launched its developer platform in May, the Agarwallas soon transformed their Scrabble spin-off into an application designed for the social network, and it caught on like wildfire. More than 2 million Facebook members are active Scrabulous users, and several hundred thousand of them play the game each day.

It was a catch-22 for the Agarwallas. The "Scrabulous guys" became Facebook celebrities, but the exposure meant that they were much more visible--and so were the obvious similarities between Scrabble and Scrabulous.

"It wouldn't be an issue if Scrabulous weren't so popular, right?" observed Darren Herman, director of digital media for marketing firm The Media Kitchen. It's the sheer mass of Facebook Scrabulous users that have made it a high-profile case as well as an inevitably ugly situation, if the game is indeed taken down. "We're seeing the power of social media in its early days. Since we're still trying to figure out the rules of the game, no pun intended, these types of issues are bound to arise."

In other words, according to Herman, the debate over Scrabulous is indicative of the fact that the world--or at least certain mainstays of the game industry--still hasn't quite figured out that a traditional course of action just doesn't always work on the Web.

"I don't think they are crazy to think this way," Darren Herman said when asked if Hasbro and Mattel are totally off base. "Scrabble came out in a time when everyone guarded their (intellectual property) tightly."

In the old order, a takedown notice may have been the only route. But this is the Web, and plenty of people have pointed out that Hasbro and Mattel are sitting on a marketing gold mine with Scrabulous. They have a gleefully addicted fan base, a machine for viral buzz (Facebook's platform), and the deep pockets to offer to buy Scrabulous outright--or at least strike an innovative advertising deal.

There's also no direct competitor. Neither Hasbro nor Mattel operates a Web-based, ad-supported version of Scrabble; video game manufacturer Electronic Arts owns the rights to electronic versions of the game, and it currently sells a PC game of Scrabble for about $20. (EA was not available for comment on the Scrabulous issue.) With Scrabulous, all three companies may be sitting on a marketing treasure trove.

Hasbro and Mattel might not get it. But the members of Save Scrabulous think that they do.

"Do these greedy fools not realize that they should be paying the creators of Scrabulous for all the damn fans of the game they created?" one angry Scrabulous fan from the United Kingdom asked on the group's "wall." He brought up a further point--that this is getting people excited about the musty old board game in a way they haven't in years. "It's like the music vids put on YouTube. It makes me buy tracks I never would have done, and frankly, before this game emerged, Scrabble was just something for rainy days in my childhood."

Another member of the group put it more concisely. "Scrabulous brought Scrabble back in style. They should be thankful."

Pirates getting in the way of business? Let's form Voltron.

(Credit: TV Tokyo)

The announcement has been made--read CNET News.com's full coverage here.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that an impressive cast of major media and technology companies plans to announce a high-profile list of joint guidelines for preserving copyright and fighting piracy online. Sources told The Journal that the companies involved include media moguls CBS Corp., NBC Universal, News Corp.'s Fox (and its MySpace social network), Viacom, and Disney, as well as tech icon Microsoft and French video-sharing site DailyMotion.

It's unclear whether these are the only parties involved in the deal. Inquiries to several of the companies allegedly involved in the agreement went unanswered.

The most notable party absent from the group is Google, according to The Journal's Kevin Delaney. Apparently, the Mountain View, Calif.-based tech titan had been in talks about joining but did not go through with it. Google is the parent company of YouTube, the wildly popular video-sharing site that had come under fire from media companies for making it easy to share copyrighted content.

Google recently announced an antipiracy technology initiative for YouTube.