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RIAA Loses Case Against Launch Media
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's claim that personalized internet radio stations were 'interactive services' was flatly rejected 'as a matter of law' by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Arista Records v. Launch Media. In affirming the jury's verdict in favor of the defendant, Launch Media — acquired during the lawsuit by Yahoo! — the Court said it did not even need to concern itself with possible errors in the jury instructions, since the trial judge should have directed a verdict for defendant 'as a matter of law' on the question of whether the radio stations were 'interactive services.' At pages 23-42 of its 42-page opinion (PDF), the appeals court carefully analyzed how Launch Media's personalized internet radio stations worked, and noted that the users could neither obtain and play on demand a particular song, nor obtain the transmission of a particular program, thus rendering the RIAA's claim of 'interactivity' meritless."
Does this mean that Pandora does not have to pay per performance interactive service royalty rates anymore? Isn't this huge for Pandora type services?
Will this lead to lower rates for Pandora? From the summary they sound like a similar service, yet the fact they aren't being sued implies to me that they've "paid up" at the higher, interactive rate.
I give Pandora referrer credit for every song I buy from Amazon or iTunes, but since Pandora can't track referrer income to particular uses, I still get hit up to pay their RIAA-tax subscription money or GTFO their service each month. I know Pandora has to do it to survive, but if this ruling lowers their rates maybe they can do away with the audio ads or raise the monthly cap.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
The last line of the ruling says: The district court's judgment of May 16, 2007 in favor 15 of Appellee is hereby AFFIRMED with costs.
Does this mean the RIAA pays the victim's court costs?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Here's something to brighten up the day:
http://www.google.com/search?q=riaa+loses&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.gentoo:en-US:official&client=firefox-a :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The difference is what the words would imply. A matter of law is one where the question (and/or answer) are related to the law on the books. The specific facts of the case aren't relevant, because the law itself is what we are talking about here. A good example would be if a mechanic was charged with 1st degree murder for forgetting to check if the breaks on a vehicle were good. The facts of the case, if the mechanic actually did check or not, wouldn't be relevant. The reason is that as a matter of law, that isn't murder. So the charge isn't sustained on the very face of it, regardless if the facts alleged are true.
A matter of fact is then one where the specific facts are what is in question. The charges are valid per the law, in that if the facts are as alleged they'd support the charge. The question is now if those are indeed the facts or not.
So when something is dismissed as "a matter of law" what it means is that the party bringing the action (criminal or civil) has no idea what they are talking about. They are trying to misapply the law. Even if everything they say about the defendant/respondent is true, it still wouldn't sustain the charges because of the law.
Also one of the important factors is who decides this. In a court, the judge is the judge of law, the jury the judge of fact. What that means is the judge decides if a case has the merit to go to trial, and what is relevant to allow in under the law and so on. They decide how the law applies to the case. The jury then just decides the facts of the case. They are presented with evidence, and told what standard to apply. Their job is to decide if the facts presented sustain the charges or not.
Something like "Redundant Without Prejudice", that would lower a comment's score without affecting karma. Clearly the Parent was being composed as its predecessor was was submitted. It would be nice to mod it down for the benefit of people reading at 1, but I won't penalize somebody for something like this. If it were submitted 20 minutes later, that would be a different story,.
I am not an lawyer either, but the concept between a "matter of law" and a "matter of fact" is pretty basic.
Matters of fact: "I didn't do it." "Yes you did."
Matters of law: "Of course I did it; it ain't against the law, bub!" "Yes it is".
In this case, the fact that internet radio stations were broadcasting copyrighted material (for which they had the proper licenses) was not in doubt. The question was one of law: is that an "interactive service" or not, which has additional restrictions on it?