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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."
I can't wait for the day that headline becomes so commonplace I get bored of it.
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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.
Most people would claim that monkeys are luminous if it somehow hurt the RIAA.
Is this close enough?
This guy's the limit!
What does "as a matter of law" really mean?
How does it differ from "as a matter of fact"?
IANAL - nor can I afford one to answer this question.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Most people would claim that monkeys are luminous if it somehow hurt the RIAA.
You missed this story didn't you. All living things emit visible light at low levels. So with that in mind, the RIAA must be doomed.
I have a request from Slashdot based on this post.
We need a -1: Stupid.
It's not trolling, nor really flamebait, nor offtopic, or redundant. Also, offtopic just isn't quite enough.
As for why I feel that way: Interactive, the way you see it, would mean that radios are interactive. Which would break the whole idea of broadcast to start with. After all, I set my dial to a channel and listen. If I don't like it, I can switch stations. In fact, I know what genres the stations tend to play, so I can add them to a "favorites" list called presets if I like them. The broadcast stations react to listeners by tracking how many they have and adjusting content to keep and expand that base. And, if listeners disappear, a station will react to that input (or lack thereof) and shutdown or change genres.
Oh, even better, many of these stations "take requests" from some listeners and then play those songs. In that regard, broadcast radio is *more interactive* than the services presented by Launch, and Pandora.
So... I don't know what exactly you were going for in your post, but this has nothing to do with just hate for the RIAA... This is a case where we finally see someone applying common sense and *law* to a lawsuit.
Dangit... correction: "Also, overrated just isn't quite enough."
Sorry.
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.
You're absolutely correct.
However, it may also be clearly true that in the way interactivity is defined for the purpose of the relevant law, it is not. Legal definitions are generally more precise, usually different, and sometimes at odds with common usage. Sometimes legal definitions change depending on the exact law.
For instance, "responsibility" may have different meanings in civil and criminal law, and both are different from what is meant in normal English. Every field has specific technical jargon.
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,.
no more and no less than a regular AM/FM radio, you can turn it on or off, volume up or down, change stations but other than that i see no interactive to it, at least a local radio station that broadcasts (on either AM 530Khz to 1710Khz or FM 87Mhz to 108Mhz) has a local request line you can call on a telephone and make requests or dedicate a song to that special someone
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Surely you could have linked to a picture of Andi (the Rhesus monkey genetically modified to glow under a microscope in 2001) or these marmosets
This may or may not impact Pandora, but the service at the center of this dispute was eliminated last spring by Yahoo.
Grooveshark allows you to search for individual songs, play them, make playlists, etc. Is grooveshark doomed to become RIAA fodder?
Your opinion is irrelevant, as is mine. The only people who's opinions matter, that is the appeals court, decided that it isn't interactive.
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
I imagine there's some lower bound here on listeners / channel. I mean with a near infinite number of channels and a channel search tool you can have your personal selection on demand. I haven't counted the radio channels recently but they're pretty few in this context.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
A lot of people would rate -1: Stupid for things they don't agree with regardless of the content of what is being posted.
I'm a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice. If you get your legal advice here, you may as well just sign away your house, children, and car now and savve on legal fees . . .
Anyway . . .
That's not quite right; the facts as alleged by that party do matter. "As a matter of law" means that the evidence doesn't matter. Such a ruling means that even if they could prove everything that they alleged, they would still lose.
In this case, they found that the judge did indeed err--but not by giving the wrong instructions, as the RIAA alleged, but by even letting the jury hear the case, as no reasonable jury could have found for the RIAA. (Yeah, and here we get a bit murky with two overlapping "as a matter of law" usages, one on the allegations, and one on the strength of the evidence. Life's rough :)
hawk, esq
However, it may also be clearly true that in the way interactivity is defined for the purpose of the relevant law, it is not. Legal definitions are generally more precise, usually different, and sometimes at odds with common usage. Sometimes legal definitions change depending on the exact law.
And you're absolutely correct, as well. The ruling makes it clear that the question is whether the application "provides a program specifically created for the user", not whether it's interactive in any technical sense. I mean, an AM radio is interactive.
Don't you think he'd know that?
Although, yes, I can see how that may come in handy should he ever forget.
We need a "-1: Don't agree" mod. Then moderators could use that and the system could decrease karma of the moderator using it instead of the post.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
That'll work for about five seconds...
$ make available
If this is indeed the case, that an internet station is just like a "regular" station, then how many can someone have? I am picturing this:
"This is all The Beatles 'Strawberry Fields Forever', all the time!"
"This is the Foo Fighters 'The Pretender', all day and all night!"
One station playing the same song over and over. Or even just the same album. Actual over-the-air radio stations couldn't afford to do this, but with the Internet, it would be fairly easy. You could "tune in" to the station, record it once and have the song/album. And since it's "just like a radio station", no worries, right?
Letter of the law vs. spirit of the law?
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
Oh, even better, many of these stations "take requests" from some listeners and then play those songs.
I used that just a couple of days ago; WQNA was playing raggae, so I called up and asked for Marley. The next song was a Bob Marley song. If I'd requested "No Woman, No Cry" he'd likely have played that tune as well.
It's a little 400 watt college station, but still...
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