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Et Tu Brute? EMI to Sue AOL Over Musical Infringement

Posted by timothy on from the sounds-like-an-opera dept.

QGambit writes "Salon.com is running an AP story about EMI Music suing AOL Time Warner for using songs from its music catalog on TBS and the AOL service without paying for them."EMI's publishing unit contends that AOL Time Warner is illegally using songs for promotional purposes from "The Wizard of Oz," "Singin' in the Rain," and other classic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movies." Good. Now that they are turning on themselves, they will leave us alone for awhile."

1 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Talk about picky by Shimmer · · Score: 5, Informative

    The meat of the story is at the bottom of the article. Apparently TBS owns the rights to the movies that contain these songs. TBS is in turned owned by AOL/TW. But EMI claims that TBS cannot transfer the rights to its own parent company! The exact quote is:

    "We gave them very personal use. It was non assignable."

    This just seems like an argument between lawyers about the fine print in an old contract. Not really relevant to the whole IP debate. (I'm sure that won't stop the /. hordes from descending, though.<g>)

    -- Brian

    --
    The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.