It was a bit of a squeeze getting the newsletter finished this week as I have been in Kamberri Canberra for Wikimedia Australia’s WikiCon 2026 where Dr Terri Janke spoke about the  draft Wikimedia Australia Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) and Indigenous Data Guide. I can’t share that with my newsletter subscribers just yet, but you can read a recent update about the project on the WMAU website. During WikiCon I also gave an impromptu talk about the new orphan works scheme in Australian copyright law amongst a raft of fascinating and thoughtful presentations from the Australian Wikimedia community.

Despite being busy, some big things happened. An Australian musician has used privacy law to gain access to data about use of their music which left them asking important questions about the international music royalties system. Also concerning is the number of news organisations that are blocking the Wayback Machine as part of their attempts to stop AI bots scraping their news. Regardless of the rationale, there are real ramifications for the historical record.

Also: Concerns are mounting about the Paramount–Warner Bros. merger and the introduction of facial recognition into Meta’s smartglasses. And Meta is tipped to surpass Google in ad revenue this year.

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A short list of other things:

  • Australian Dr Melissa Chiu will be the new Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Shoot through
  • Ruth Atkinson has been appointed as Acting Director of Touring and Engagement at QTouring and Nigel Lavender joins as Producer/Touring and Engagement Advisor. Shoot through
  • In a fortnight the inaugural ceremony for The Luminas will take place at the Sydney Opera House celebrating culturally diverse and First Nations leaders shaping Australia’s media, arts, and cultural sectors. Sadly, I can’t be there to join the celebrations but congratulations to all the nominees. Shoot through
  • In early April, Zotero maker Digital Scholar took on community leadership of RightsStatements.org. Shoot through

What’s been going on?

Here's WTF happened this week:

Music royalty data disclosed to an Australian musician reveals how opaque the system is

TL;DR
Australian musician Jo Loewenthal is on a mission to expose the lack of transparency and apparent collusion within the international music royalty collection system. His use of privacy laws revealed patchy data and an email exchange suggesting collecting societies around the world discussed how to limit the data the musician could access.

An Australian musician – Johan "Jo" Loewenthal, frontman of the indie band Tora – has taken to Instagram calling into question the international music royalty collections system and how difficult it is for artists to verify the information they are provided by music collecting societies. Independent electronic music website Unmixed reports thatLowenthal has been trying for many years to ‘obtain clear, accurate, and verifiable data about his own music from the very organisations created to protect and pay him: Performing Rights Organisations (PROs).’