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 for CNET, BlueBeat's claims have a good likelihood of being laughed out of court. The company's defense includes the assertion that it didn't post the exact Beatles recordings, but rather "psychoacoustic simulations" to which it added some video content, thus creating a new audiovisual work.

BlueBeat was offering Beatles songs and albums for purchase or download for 25 cents per track, in addition to offering free streaming.

"Given that the Beatles catalog, including the remastered Beatles recordings, has never been released by Plaintiffs for digital download or licensed for on-demand streaming, every day that Defendants offer the Beatles catalog for digital download or licensed for on-demand streaming irreparably harms Plaintiffs' exclusive right to control the use of its copyright materials," the judge wrote in his order.

EMI was not available for comment, nor was BlueBeat, whose Web site has been offline throughout the day Saturday. Offline as well were BlueBeat owner Media Rights Technologies and an affiliated company called BaseBeat, both of which also are listed as defendants, along with MRT founder Hank Risan.

Besides Capitol Records, the plaintiffs include Caroline Records, EMI Christian Music Group, and Virgin Records America.

The court set a hearing for November 20.

[solitare_pax]

Like the Beatles and the greedy old fossils who control their copyrights to keep them off-line: Old News.

[Marcus Westrup]

The Beatles no longer have copyright control over most of their music - they sold that years ago.
I doubt the two surviving members care anyway.

[pentest]

The didn't sell it the record companies tricked them into giving it up back when they were starting out.

[walt-winston]

solitaire you don't get it period. You've never seen or heard the Beatles, obviously so you don't know what great music is or was for that matter. Oh and by the way, Rap isn't music either.

[walt-winston]

Paul McCartney did not sell his rights to the Beatles catalouge, at least not legally. Michael Jackson did a back door deal with Yoko Ono to get the rights and the litigation was still pending against Jackson at the time of his death. Since Jackson owed so much money, its looking like Paul McCartney may get those rights back by default by Jackson.

[Cman666]

Rap isn't music and Bananas ain't food cuz I say so yuck yuck! I only like old rock and no rap Huck huck! I knowz cuz I am real! rapz not music! Forget that it is performed all over the world in virtually every language! Even Scottish rap with bagpipes! What do the Scottish know anyway!

[badasscat]

If it's not Scottish, it's crap!

[fondy]

Whether you like the Beatles or not, this whole 'when will they go online' issue is like a strip-tease that's been drawn out so long that the customer has lost interest.

[pentest]

The ironic thing is that if our nation wasn't controlled by corporations, and we had rational copyright laws, the songs would be public domain by now or near to it.

[gofalcons]

the ironic thing is that pentest is a total loser fanboy and no one here listens to the garbage he spills, yet here his is every day....

[ProDigit]

Great, those are one of the reasons pirates exist!

[Mergatroid Mania]

Yeah, like we couldn't see this coming. One of the most popular bands in history, still popular more than 50 years after they broke up, and these nutcases think a judge is going to let them give the bands music away with their feeble excuses.

And for the few Beatles haters above, tell us all which of your favorite bands (rap or otherwise) will still sell as well and have as many fans as the Beatles 50 years after they break up. You can cry in your beers (if your old enough to drink beer) cause there ain't no rap band that will ever achieve that. QQ

[xenophod]

Ok lets just be honest here, the Beatles were a great band. Anyone that cares about them has their stuff ripped from CD. The younger generation has either downloaded it or borrowed it it and ripped it from their parents CD collection. This is the proverbial on going joke that won't die.

[Lsavagejt]

As usual the wrong argument is being made. The Argument aught be that the public has a right to access any song we want and that the recording industry has a legal obligation to make those songs available at a bearable price - say, $.99/ song.