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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!
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.
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.
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.
An issue can be decided as a matter of "law" or "fact". If it a factual matter, than the final arbiter will be the factfinder which is usually a jury, but can be a judge, in a bench trial. However, some issues are considered to be so obvious, or of a public policy or legal nature, such that Congress or the appellate courts have deemed it appropriate to leave the decision up to the judge, rather than the factfinder (jury). This is a very important distinction. First, if an issue is a matter of law, an appellate court can decide the issue "de novo" - meaning that they consider the issue anew, and are not bound by the decision of the lower court. In contrast, appellate courts are required to respect the factual determinations as the factfinder is deemed to have superior information - the ability to view the witnesses' testimony and ascertain its credibility rather than reading a written transcript, for example. So, to apply the standard to this case. If the factfinder at the trial level found that the service was interactive, the appellate court would have no obligation to respect that determination if it was a question of law, however if it was a question of fact, than the factual determination must be respected unless it constitutes an abuse of discretion or is clearly erroneous.
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?
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.
:) It means that there is no factual "issue" for the jury to resolve. I.e., that based upon the known facts, it is automatic that this is not "interactive" within the meaning of the statute.
No charge.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
This may or may not impact Pandora, but the service at the center of this dispute was eliminated last spring by Yahoo.
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?
In the context in which it was said in this case, it meant simply that there was no factual issue, that under the conceded undisputed facts, it was not interactive, no matter how you slice it.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
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
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
>No charge.
*shudder*
C'mon, a country lawyer should know to never point that out or bring attention to it :)
hawk, esq.
Only if they argue that they should be paying the statutory fees instead of the per-song licensing.
If they're happily/unhappily ponying up the per-song license fees, they're in the clear.
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