Music copyright lawsuit targets Microsoft, Yahoo, Real
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm well-acquainted with legal filings from analyzing Microsoft's legal travails for the last nine years. I've seen a lot of aggressive lawsuits, but a copyright infringement suit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee is one of the boldest--and, I'd argue, short-sighted--filings I've ever seen.
The suit appears to have been initiated by Music Copyright Solutions (MCS), which claims to administer copyrights for more than 45,000 compositions. MCS is named as the lead plaintiff, along with a number of songwriters including Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad fame. These folks allege that Microsoft, Yahoo, and RealNetworks improperly licensed the rights to more than 200 compositions that they offered as on-demand streams or limited downloads via the Zune Marketplace, Yahoo Music, and Rhapsody.
Surely these companies paid somebody for the rights to offer these songs. But there's a catch, which TechDirt pointed out earlier Tuesday: these companies may have licensed the rights to the recordings, but that doesn't mean they licensed the rights to the compositions (also known as publishing rights). As section 23 of the legal filing puts it:
In order to transmit, perform, reproduce and deliver any sound recording of any musical work via 'On-Demand Streams' or 'Limited Downloads,' Defendants must first obtain not only the rights for the sound recording itself, but also the rights for the underlying musical composition that is embodied on said musical recording.
Maybe, maybe not--that's up to the court to decide. But that's not the insane part. The insane part is that the plaintiffs are alleging that each time one of the defendants made any recording of a covered song available, that's a copyright violation, and they're seeking damages of $150,000 per violation (or the amount the defendants earned from streaming those songs, whichever is more). So, for example, the lawsuit claims that Yahoo Music offered Conway Twitty's recording of "Fifteen Years Ago" on six different greatest hits albums. The plaintiffs allege that constitutes six copyright violations, which would mean damages of $900,000. Overall, the lawsuit names more than 200 songs, and a far greater number of recordings, meaning that the potential liability for each defendant would be tens of billions of dollars--that's far greater than the total amount of revenues these companies ever earned from any of these services.
These types of cases are usually settled for a relative pittance--something much closer to what the defendant would have paid to license the songs properly in the first place. But imagine for a minute that this lawsuit actually goes to trial and the plaintiffs win damages amounting to 1 percent of what they asked for. No company would ever risk building an online music service again--the legal liability would simply be too high.
When it comes to online music, big legal music services like Zune, Yahoo Music, and Rhapsody are the copyright owners' friends--unlike file-trading networks or free on-demand streaming services, these companies actually collect money from users and disburse it to copyright owners. Perhaps the plaintiffs have a legitimate complaint. But by filing such an aggressive lawsuit to recover billions in supposed damages--I mean honestly, how many Grand Funk Railroad streams have been delivered via the Zune Marketplace?--these folks risk killing their allies and driving music back to the darknet where nobody in the value chain sees a dime.
Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattrosoff. 
The $150,000 the plaintiffs are seeking here seems like a deal compared to that, since obviously Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real had a bigger distribution of the claimed infringed properties than she did over P2P.
I'm not saying either case makes much sense, but with that precedent, I don't see why this one shouldn't go the plaintiffs way either, provided an actual infringement occured...
$150,000 per song is cheap with that as the precedent.
"...our investigation showed that you were sitting in the JFK airport lounge between 1000-1030hrs while a copyright violation was being committed. To avoid further legal action, please settle in the amount of $10,000 or $1,000 per song heard during that period that you were waiting for your flight."
So in this case, it's the person playing the radio (i.e. in your example the RIAA *would* force JFK to pay a copyrigth fee for playing music in a public place.)
So come on people, let's all make a stand and burn those CDs and MP3s.
People?
Hello?
{:v)
My opinion is that judges in these cases are not taking into account the actual value of the music. They are taking the entertainment industry estimated value. How many copies of Grand Funk can they really claim to sell? I like Grand Funk, and I'm sure they still sell records, but to be honest it's old music people have heard on the radio for the past 30+ years. My opinion is that the actual value of this music should be based on numbers NOT provided by the seller / plantiff.
Why don't judges put some of the ownership on the entertainment industry? They have yet to produce a format that cannot be copied. Everyone, including the judges, should KNOW that music purchased on CD is easily copied, and therefore is the leading cause of piracy. Shouldn't the courts pressure them to produce more secure media? It's a drain on the system, and the courts should stand up and tell them to find another way to generate revenue. We should tell these entertainment industry parasites that they will start selling ALL music / movies / games on media that cannot be copied by 2015, and failure to do so means they forfeit their right to sue for copyright infringement.
If you ever want to see what's wrong with America, or why our economy is in such bad shape, take a look at the parasitic entertainment industry.
Unfortunately outside of DRM protected MP3s there is little that can legally be done to protect an audio file. Even that is ineffective.
Don't laugh about the airport comment earlier. The administration is already working with the University of Iowa to perfect a system of using GPS in autos so that the federal gas tax can supposed be replaced by a mile driven tax. What is not being discussed is that the Obama administration can use this to track the movement and location of an individual by vehicle as well as cellular phones. They will know where you go, who you meet with, etc. This is frightening to those who care about individual freedom.
Second, I highly doubt Obama cares where you drive.
Third, if a national were put in place it would be the responsible of the Supreme Court to ensure that it complies with the constitution and does not violate any rights. The Supreme Court has a long history of reversing or requiring changes to various bills passed through Congress on the grounds of being unconstitutional. If you are unhappy with their findings then start a movement for reform.
- by drbyte July 1, 2009 12:50 PM PDT
- How desperate. The revenue streams must be drying up even faster than projected. No more yayo!
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