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Et Tu Brute? EMI to Sue AOL Over Musical Infringement
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."
Hehehe... The songs they mention are so damn old (How old is The Wizard of OZ, anyway?) that the copyrights should have expired a long time ago if we lived in a sane world. But thanks to the lobbying efforts of Disney, Time Warner and others in the record industry, they get to take their bitter medicine. I only wish they'd learn from their stupidity. I'm personally hoping that they spend oodles and oodles of money on $400/hr star trial lawyers, and maybe (if we're lucky) to reach an unsatisfactory conclusion for both sides - sort of like that recently passed retroactive webcasting fee is being groaned about from both sides. Only this time it would be a pleasant sound to hear Time Warner and EMI groan.
Okay, I hear clips of movie audio played during radio station morning shows and as sweepers between songs advertising the radio station (god, how they annoy me!) and yet nobody says a word, nobody complains, nobody sues - is it illegal? It sure SEEMS illegal; using somebody else's copyrighted data to your own benefit without (I assume) reimbursing them or even getting their approval...
Likewise, I hear music dubbed into low-budget films and shows on public TV; yet I somehow doubt that proper authorization was secured before they did so.
Does anybody know if I'm correct in my assumption that these things are, indeed illegal; and if so, why people get away with it and practice it so blatantly?
Thanks!!
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
The difference is that Strauss' music is in the public domain.
Check out PD Info for answers to most of your questions about public domain music.
In particular, notice that Strauss is listed under s .
True,
But buying a company solely for its IP, stripping the company to the bone and firing all of its employees is a fairly common practice in business. (Although usually this is done with software or patent IP not music, which is readily licensed.)
Making the songs non assignable, protects the company you licensed them to. It also prevents your arch enemy from licensing your stuff by acquisition.
If electricity is produced by electrons is morality produced by morons?
This is just mundane copyright violation. If the allegations are true, then AOL is breaking
core, noncontroversial copyright law. Really pretty straightforward and irrelevant.
And how is the average gnutella user any different?
How long will it be before executives and investors finally realize that the only people making money... are the lawyers?
Do you remember the old story about the two guys who get being chased by a bear? The first guy sits down, ruffles through his bag, pulls out a pair of running shoes, and starts to put them on. The second guy asks, "What the hell are you doing? You can't outrun a bear!" The first guy replies, "I don't have to outrun the bear. I have to outrun you."
To win, media companies only have to do two things: first, become the most successful of the existing media companies, and second, raise the entry barrier so high that no other media companies can come into the picture and compete.
Of course, this is EMI's way of raising the entry barrier higher. I imagine the story submitter found this to be a "good thing" because he can't imagine himself as a content producer himself. More artificial restrictions on the people who create thing won't affect him in any way, because he knows he's never going to create anything anyhow.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
i dont think that this suit is a good thing... this is another axample of how companies are using their lawyers as a souirce of revenue... now victories from suits are considerd "part of the income"... its sad that to think that to make money you must sue...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
To misquote rosen, perhaps this will mean they take 10 minutes out from trying to steal our music.