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."

Comments

What kind of idiotic title is that anyway?

[Briareos]

Is it just me, or is EMI not suing the Beatles (half of which aren't even going to show up in court), but really some fuckwad that sold illegal copies of their songs?

np: Burial - Distant Lights (Various - 5 Years Of Hyperdub (Disc 2))

Re:What kind of idiotic title is that anyway?

[dmbasso]

The story is tagged badtitle when in fact it should be wrongtitle, or even better toostupidtomakeagoodtitle.

Piracy

[whisper_jeff]

THIS is the sort of piracy that the RIAA (and member companies) should fight against. THIS is the sort of piracy that I think any intelligent human being opposes. THIS is the sort of copyright violation that the laws were written to combat.

Re:Piracy

[0racle]

Shouldn't he have to face the same insane damages that file sharers face? Only a million in fines? If I shared Sgt. Pepper, I'd be looking at several times that and this guy was selling the whole catalog.

No, they didn't

[mcgrew]

I actually RTFA, and Beatles music is still available in internet jukeboxes. What happened is some guy tried to twist copyright law in a foolish and illogical way, saying that resampled Beatles songs are his, and he actually registered copyrights of them. The judge PREDICTABLY and logically ruled against him. I'd have laughed him out of court.

EMI holds the real copyrights, sued, and won. The guy posting Beatles songs was clearly in the wrong. As is the summary.

The true evil here is that the Beatles' music should be in the public domain by now; they broke up in 1971, almost forty years ago. You should be able to reuse their art in your own art by now; that was, in fact, the whole purpose of giving Congress the power to write copyright law in the first place.

Re:No, they didn't

[Just Some Guy]

If falls in the PD, then no one should be allowed to profit

That's possibly the dumbest interpretation of "public domain" I've seen here, and that's saying a lot. Here's a biscuit!

Re:Worst headline EVAR

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah call it "worst evar", "lurid", and "mischaracterizing", but do not try to explain *why* it is wrong, it's much more dramatic that way.

Re:I wouldn't listen to the naysayers

[BrokenHalo]

So, in your expert opinion, everyone involved is wrong?

Why not? I know the dumbing-down of the modern media urges us to think in terms of black and white concepts, but there should be room for this. EMI are obviously evil copyright trolls, and this Hank Risan is equally obviously selling copyrighted material. Shakespeare (as always) has a good line for this:

"A plague on both your houses."

Re:Santa Cruz, California

[Homburg]

The crazy people in Berkeley wander around pushing shopping carts; the crazy people in Glastonbury sit in fields smoking pot. What is distinctive about Santa Cruz is its peculiarly high-functioning crazy people, like this guy, who are entirely divorced from reality, yet somehow manage to, for instance, run a record label.