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EMI Sues Beatles Usurper Off the Net
blackest_k sends along a Wired piece on EMI's successful suit to get Beatles music off the Net. Here is the judge's ruling (PDF). "A federal judge on Thursday ordered a Santa Cruz company to immediately quit selling Beatles and other music on its online site, setting aside a preposterous argument that it had copyrights on songs via a process called 'psycho-acoustic simulation.' A Los Angeles federal judge set aside arguments from Hank Risan, owner of BlueBeat and other companies named as defendants in the lawsuit EMI filed on Tuesday. His novel defense to allegations he was unlawfully selling the entire stereo Beatles catalog without permission was that he — and not EMI or the Beatles' Apple Corp — owns these sound recordings, because he re-recorded new versions of the songs using what he termed 'psycho-acoustic simulation.' Risan faces perhaps millions of dollars in damages under the Copyright Act. And copyright attorneys said his defense was laughable and carries no weight."
also known as the World's Largest Open Air Mental Institution.
P.S. Sorry, but you'll probably only get this if you've actually visited the place.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
The copyright lawyers are laughing at this guy's defense, but these are the same lawyers who think that file sharing is immoral and that record companies should have the right to sue people into poverty because of a few kilobytes of uploads.
I wouldn't put too much weight on what they think.
As for this guy in the article, it's pretty clear he was just trying to make a buck by ripping off the Beatles' music. I'm surprised that the judge didn't hand down a larger fine, actually. His "psycho-acoustic simulation" argument was laughable at best. Facepalm worthy, at least.
So, in your expert opinion, everyone involved is wrong?
It's pretty yellow of EMI to submarine this guy out of the blue like that. It's going to be a hard days night for this guy in the future. Ask me why! Because! He told EMI to come and get it.
Generalize much?
never.
Considering the old copyright case where you had "Achy Breaky Heart" and "Achy Breakin Heart" many, many years ago...
If you added backmasking, or subliminal messages to an audio recording, does that count as altering the work significantly enough to make it your own? If that's what psycho-acoustic stimulation is, he might have more of a case than we thought.
Or that could be what the Abby Road album told me when I played it backwards...
Is it safe to say this is an action of debugging for the whole internet? They did remove some Beatles after all.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Surely Paul McCartney needs the continued royalties from the Beatles music so he can continue to finance large divorce settlements!
Dear Slashdot editors,
please slow down with the new topics, poor Anonymous Coward keeps missing his shot at first post.
Signed,
Nobody really cares about first post.
P.S.
>>>1 - Not every person on Earth benefits from public domain music.
Strawman argument. I didn't say "every person". I said 6 billion, but the actual population is much higher than that, so I did not include "every" person in my first statement.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I just insert random pauses in recordings and call them "RealNetworks Remix".
Instead you just pulled a number out of your ass. Yeah, that's so much stronger an argument.
Bad news for you: Prior Art.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
You'll notice I said "part".
I am scientifically inaccurate.
And that Bach and Mozart? Good God! Bury the stuff already! We need to live in the NOW!
While we're at it, burn the Mona Lisa and the like. We must have art thats new and different always!