bluebeat

Judge halts BlueBeat's sale of Beatles tunes

A court has hit pause on the sale of Beatles tunes from the Web site BlueBeat.

Judge John Walter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California late this week issued a temporary restraining order against BlueBeat after being petitioned Tuesday by the Capitol Records unit of music label EMI, which owns the Beatles' recordings.

The judge found BlueBeat's arguments "lacking in clarity" and wrote that the defendants failed to offer reliable evidence to support "their claim that they 'independently developed their own original sounds'."

As Matt Rosoff wrote this week … Read more

Beatles copyright case down a legal rabbit hole

Last week, a music site called BlueBeat made headlines by offering Beatles songs as free streams and 25 cent downloads. The Beatles are known for not making their songs legally available on iTunes or any other online forum, so observers rightly asked "how are they doing this legally?"

EMI, the record label that owns The Beatles' recordings, has a simple response: they're not doing this legally. But here's where the story gets very strange.

BlueBeat is owned by a company called Media Rights Technologies, which specializes in digital rights management technology. DRM is supposed to be … Read more

BOL 1099: Secret ACTA treaty could break the Internet

Leaks from the secret negotiations of the ACTA treaty allege that ISPs worldwide would be required to lose safe-harbor protections, implement three-strike antipiracy policies, and worse. We think this is outrageous. AT&T thinks Verizon is outrageous because of its commercials and so is taking Verizon to court. Also, EMI finally got around to suing BlueBeat.com for selling Beatles tracks online. But you can buy a Beatles USB stick for $280. So, you've got that going for you.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 1099

AT&… Read more

BOL 1097: Beatles Bargain Basement Blowout!

Over at BlueBeat.com, the best MP3-selling Website you've never heard of, has got it all for your listening pleasure, the entire Beatles catalog in MP3 form for just 25 cents each! Get them while you can (which won't be long). In other news, file sharers might buy more music, Bittorrent might save the Internet, and Apple could save the networks (but kill cable).

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 1097

BlueBeat first with legal Beatles downloads — or at least a hell of a lot of cheek. … Read more