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."

Comments

Don't worry...

[eparusel]

...I'm sure there are plenty of lawyers to go around...

I don't think so...

[Skirwan]

Good. Now that they are turning on themselves, they will leave us alone for awhile.

I'm pretty sure that most individual lawyers aren't multithreaded, but a massively parallel system like the legal department at EMI or AOL/TW has got to be able to do more than one thing at a time.

--
Damn the Emperor!

Re:I don't think so...

[jukal]

Yes, more than one thing at a time, but remember the common design flaws in a distributed system: cumulating lag, reliability of nodes, communicational problems, congestion, diversity. What happens when that specialist every lawyer needs to understand a word, turns out to be a cocaine junkie and hears voices while meanwhile everyone runs into to the companys coffee shop and asks for that something special resulting in a congestion in the sewer network. Ohh now I am beginning to understand, is it that why an average court case takes a few years and costs a dozen millions.

Talk about picky

[Shimmer]

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

Re:Talk about picky

[T. Will S. Idea]

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.

They made their bed and now it's time to lay in it

[digiZen]

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.

Seems I read somewhere

[thumbtack]

that sharks sometimes attack each other when in a feeding frenzy....

I've often wondered...

[baudbarf]

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!!

Re:I've often wondered...

[darkgreen]

two different things - the movie clips in radio shows can be seen as either excerpted for parody, or for discussion/example (or a loose interpretation of 'educational') - IANAL, but this probably falls under 'fair use' in most cases.

as for in movies and tv, that's a different (and lengthy) story. The songs used in movies (or anywhere else, for that matter) have to get permission from the publishers of the works (think of 'publisher' in this case as 'stock holder' - you can trade and sell publishing rights, as opposed to copyright, which always stays with the creator). You have both copyright and publishing rights to a song as soon as you create it, but you can sell a portion of the publishing or 'controlling' rights to someone else, so they can give permission for use in media. they can in turn sell those or a portion, etc.

This happens in all instances of the broadcast of the song (in canada, the rights are handled by SOCAN, in the states, it's ASCAP or ... damn, i forget the other one), and usage permission from a publisher is required. I recently had two of my songs used in a movie, and although I share writing credits with other people, I was able to give rights for their use. But had they just used it, I would have had proper recourse.

A lot of songs reside on databases that the tv/movie industry searches when they need a certain 'feel' or type of song - they then find on e of the publishers (people/companies with the right to give permission) and work out terms of agreement.

A lot of times, low-budget movies don't bother because they don't expect to make money. you can't get money from someone who doesn't have any, in other words. In most cases in TV, they probably do have permission, and have worked out a percentage deal or one-time fee, depending on the popularity of both the show and music.

It�s still our fault!!!

[DaHat]

All of us are to blame because we watch, if our tv's would prevent the viewing of unauthorized pieces of music then none of this would ever have happened. This is why we need DRM to keep us from being forced to listen to/see illegal broadcasts!

Fighting words

[achurch]

For some reason, this quote sent me into fits of laughter:

"We believe that AOL Time Warner, and a whole bunch of their companies, have been rampantly using our copyrighted material without licensing it or paying for it," said Martin Bandier, chairman and chief executive of EMI Music Publishing.

Re:How long?

[bellings]

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.