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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.
Psycho-acoustic simulation sounds like a real good pseudo-science.
It's what most of us call mp3 or m4a.
The blame falls on the lurid headline over at Wired, which completely mischaracterizes the actual article. But it's Slashdot's fault for repeating it both in the headline here and in the summary.
For shame.
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.
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))
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
If you've ever been to Santa Cruz then what the rest of the country would laugh at as ridiculous makes perfect sense there. I think its the magnetic waves from the Mystery Spot
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.
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...
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.
Free Martian Whores!
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
Since psychoacoustic is explicitly mentioned in regard to audio compression tech (like MP3) I think he just invented a term for "I ripped it to MP3"
The guy posting Beatles songs was clearly in the wrong.
I just wrote about this in my journal last night and would like to point out that Media Rights Technology (MRT, owners of BlueBeat.com) has a long history of neurosis when it comes to the legal system. Although not cross referenced above, you may recognize MRT as the very same people who sued everyone in 2007 for not implementing DRM. If you're Hank Risan, you've probably been asking yourself "How can I twist the law in a bizarre way to get rich quick?" And here we are.
My work here is dung.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
If Timothy Leary was born a few decades later, he'd patent psychedelic trips. Then we'd be stuck in the bland 50's forever singing doo-wap tunes.
Table-ized A.I.
Actually, the Bluebeat guys did something a bit more tricky. They compressed the music as MP3 (whch I guess is psychoacoustic simulation - after all, the MP3 was compressed by using psychoacoustic principles to reduce the data contained, producing a simulation of the original). But the trick they're using to get around copyright law was to embed images into it, turning it into an "audio-visual" work. There is a separation, because AV works (think movies) are one entity - you cannot copyright the sound part of a movie separately from the moving images part.
Of course, that defense must fail, otherwise Hollywood would be using music with aplomb instead of having to get licenses to it when they incorporate it into a movie or TV show. Many older programs are tied up from home viewing because licenses don't allow home video distribution, and are often edited to replace licensed works.
I would guess that what was done was one of two things:
Mechanical production of a cover through some device that, on "hearing" a tune, would attempt to duplicate it in some analogue way, thus producing what would be, under some definitional frameworks, a cover rather than a reproduction.
Computer-driven replication of a file through means that are not exactly copying, e.g. churning over random generation of bits of data and comparison with the original (either direct or medium-specific, e.g. audio). Done with high enough granularity a file that's either identical or acoustically practically identical to the original is produced (akin to how re-encoding a song in a different format can leave it essentially sounding the same).
With either of these, one might claim that no true procedural copying took place, just something that is functionally copying.
I would guess this because I occasionally thought about such things myself when I was much younger (and of the over-logicy libertarian mental flavour).
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Why, why, why must people who might otherwise help argue the case that today's copyright is broken spoil their credibility with exageration and mis-statement of facts?
1 - Not every person on Earth benefits from public domain music. Some are too damned busy trying to remain alive.
2 - The Beatle's copyrights do not funnel every penny made off of sale of their music to the surviving band members.
Yes, their music should be out of copyright by now. You'd be a greater help to the cause of copyright reform that would make that happen by sticking to reality and sounding like you've thought the issue through, than by spouting off feel-good numbers that make it sound like you're wearing blinders so you can reach the conclusion you want.
Parent deserves to be modded up for pointing out what most people will likely miss. Psycho-acoustic simulation is the process by which audio compression techniques remove bits of audio recordings in ways that the human brain is likely not to notice. It's part of the reason MP3 files can be compressed at all.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
And didn't YouTube already prove this wrong? Music with video (or video with music) can't be seen as one new work unrelated to the audio copyright, otherwise they could have never removed copyrighted music used in the many many YouTube movies.
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.
An argument I've seen is that the public's willingness to respect copyright law depends on how well we think the law squares with a vague moral sense of fair play. Ie., if copyright were 14 years we'd be more willing to punish piracy than we are with life-plus-70-years copyrights. Do we think the existing copyright terms are there to "promote the progress of science and useful arts", or to let some media conglomerate or celebrity keep collecting checks for something done by long-dead people?
Revive the Constitution.
What about sharin' a lot of songs with the entire unknown world?
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
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.
The SCO that operated in Santa Cruz is not the same SCO that sued IBM. The Santa Cruz Operation company came out with Xenix, SCO UNIX (OpenServer) and Unixware. They purchased Tarantella earlier this decade, and then sold off their Unix-related business to Caldera. As their primary business was now Tarantella, they changed names. Caldera then took over the SCO moniker eventually becoming The SCO Group. It was that company, formerly Caldera, that took on Novell, IBM, et al.
Bad news for you: Prior Art.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Thank you for supporting my viewpoint that copyright has been hijacked. It's meant to benefit the originators of the idea, not suits that were not even born when the songs were first created.
Actually, that's incorrect. Before copyright, there were no artists or writers clamouring for "protection". The people pushing copyright were the publishers, who wanted copyright to benefit themselves (which is exactly what we have right now.) The whole "think of the artists" stuff is propaganda invented to create support for copyright from artists and "average" people.
Before copyright, artists considered it a complement that their work was replayed and enjoyed by others.
This, of course, doesn't make the hoarding of our cultural works and the impingement on free expression right, but I just wanted to point out that it was never meant to protect artists, only publishers.
But EMI don't own the particular soundwaves which comprise the Beatles' songs. Instead they own the very idea of these songs. EMI has sole and total ownership over the platonic ideals of which any particular instance of a Beatles song is merely a shadow. This ideal encompases any sound resembling the songs, any text resembling their lyrics, any album cover resembling theirs, any musical notes close enough to a Beatles tune.
In a very real sense, EMIs ownership of this music is analogous to them owning the number 537. A platonic ideal. No matter who sings it, or performs it, or records it, or sells it, or even hums it this music belongs to EMI because they own the very idea of it. They own it now, and will probably own it in perpetuity, for the rest of eternity.
So which is crazier; this guys argument or the concept of copyrighted music itself?
May the Maths Be with you!
It was not, giving 28 year terms of copyright to a populace that would live only 35 on average.
Statistics. You fail it.
If you have 1000 people, 500 of which died before they reached one year, and 500 of which die when they're 70, what is the average life expectancy?
In that time period, most adults lived into their 60's, not mid-thirties. The "35 year lifespan" is a garbage statistic spouted by people who don't understand math.
>>>So listen up: don't proclaim the 1790 act was "sane"
Last time I checked I'm neither a slave nor a serf, which means my mouth is not your property. And I'm not obligated to follow your orders, creamwobbly. I can say whatever I want, thank you very much, and in MY opinion the original 28 year span was a reasonable length of time. Furthermore...
None of us engineers, programmers, or other laborers get a multi-decade monopoly over our creations.... we get paid an hourly rate, then we get laidoff, and that's it. No more money. I'm not entitled to a lifetime of free cash for a schematic I created at age 25, so why should an artist be entitled to a lifelong cash payment either? Fair treatment dictates they should get an hourly wage same as us engineers/laborers, and that's it. The 28 year monopoly is just a generous extra, and not required.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I'd say they're about equal.
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.'
Who'd have thought it? Preposterous arguments from a Santa Cruz Organisation.
No matter who sings it, or performs it, or records it, or sells it, or even hums it this music belongs to EMI because they own the very idea of it.
That's not entirely true. US Copyright law carves out some "compulsory licensing" exceptions that copyright holders are obligated to accept particular amounts of payment on and cannot deny permission. Web radio, for example. Mechanical reproduction for another (cover bands, etc). Which I believe may have been the exception this guy was going for, by trying to ride the fine line of what constitutes a new recording of the work. Even the makers of Guitar Hero did this (albeit in a much more legal way, by actually playing and rerecording the songs), and resulted with what sounded to the amateur as identical to the originals.
So this guy's idea wasn't necessarily *crazy*, just too close to literal duplication for this judge's taste (seems even the legal system applies some common sense now and then).
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!
I agree that copyright should be reduced, but you lost me when you said:
If you are a programmer, you have the choice to write code, copyright it, and make money on it for as long as it is relevant.. mind you that's probably not decades, but it's also not an hourly rate then "No more money."
Just because you choose "work for hire" doesn't mean that's the only choice out there.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
Actually, that's incorrect. Before copyright, there were no artists or writers clamouring for "protection". The people pushing copyright were the publishers, who wanted copyright to benefit themselves (which is exactly what we have right now.) The whole "think of the artists" stuff is propaganda invented to create support for copyright from artists and "average" people.
Sort of. Did you actually read the Wikipedia article you linked to? While you're right that generally speaking the benefit was generally to the publisher rather than the author, those benefits were not necessarily monetary, a big distinction from the modern situation. When authors were paid for their work, it was more common to be paid a lump sum, rather than modern royalties, since generally in the 16th and 17th centuries many works were only intended to go through one printing. The situation was not "exactly what we have right now."
Read your linked Wikipedia article:
The printing press brought the possibility of compensation for literary labor. Very speedily, however, the unrestricted rivalry of printers brought into existence competing and unauthorized editions of various works, which diminished prospects of any payment, or even entailed loss, for the authors, editors, and printers of the original issue, and thus discouraged further undertaking.
Not just printers.
Protection for the authors and their representatives was sought through special privileges obtained for separate works as issued.
Furthermore, there's more explanation of why publishers as well as rulers might want to grant copyright. Again, from the article:
Most early Italian enactments in regard to literature were framed not so much with reference to the protection of authors as for the purpose of inducing printers (acting as publishers) to undertake certain literary enterprises which were believed to be important to the community. The Republic of Venice, the dukes of Florence, and Leo X and other Popes conceded at different times to certain printers the exclusive privilege of printing for specific terms (rarely exceeding 14 years) editions of classic authors; not so much to secure profits for the printers, but rather to encourage, for the benefit of the community, literary ventures on the part of the editors and printers.
There's a lot more information out there, but I thought it might be nice to quote from the very source you provided.
I've worked with a lot of printed books from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, and early on many of these grants of copyright were certainly more to protect the work of both printer and by extension author/editor so that it would encourage the publication of quality books. And again, most of the early copyright terms were for 5-15 years, enough time for publishers to sell off their stock while preparing more projects. Some of the more elaborate publications of thousands of pages could require months of typesetting and printing, and prominent authors sometimes required the patronage of aristocrats (even kings and emperors) to fund the production of a major work. A printer (and/or a patron) had little incentive to take such a risk when a rare successful publications would immediately be followed by low-quality bootleg abridged copies generated by another publishing house. Hence, copyright for a very limited period after publication to allow the recouping of costs.
So, while you're right that generally publishers were the ones granted copyright, the reasons were not always the same as they are today, and the situation is simply not analogous to the modern corporate greed that tries to keep works out of the public domain for generations.
This story makes me wonder if something more complicated might be going on.
Imagine if you had a library of standard sounds (notes, chords etc. from different instruments)
and the various voice clips, and modifiers (echo, distortion etc...) needed to create an equivalent sound recording.
In effect an method for creating a virtual cover band.
So imagine you buy OMG_Famous_Track, ran it through some sort of computer program, which selects the best samples from your library in order to stitch together an equivalent sound recording. Then an human comes along and touches things up until its virtually indistinguishable from the original recording.
You then proceed to sell THE [ARTIST]'S - [TRACK] by [Company]. That is you sell the equivalent recording made up of all your properly owned samples, with a name that indicates that it should sound like the famous [ARTIST]s [TRACK].
Hell for all that work, I'd probably just start a site for cover bands.
Click on the track you want, we'll give you a list of cover's that we sell.
Here
Let's just say that BlueBeat is an interesting company.
VPS-like shared hosting, on under-crowded servers.
Before copyright, there were no artists or writers clamouring for "protection"
Too often and too easily the geek rewrites history to serve his own needs:
In 1842 there was still no international copyright law, a condition that was stunting American letters and depriving authors on both sides of the Atlantic of a living. American letters and depriving authors on both sides of the Atlantic of a living. Britain was willing to recognize the copyright of foreign writers--but only if their countries reciprocated.
This American publishers adamantly refused to do. Instead, they competed in bribing English pressmen to get early sheets of British books. The sheets were rushed by boat over to the United States, where the jolly pirates churned out cheap editions in a matter of hours.
But it was not only British authors they were robbing. Few publishers were willing to pay American authors for books when they could purloin better-known British ones for free. Herman Melville was hurt by the lack of an international copyright, and such eminent American authors as Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne had to pay publishers an advance in order to have their books produced. The early giants of American literature had to scramble for work at customhouses and in other government jobs, and Edgar Allan Poe, according to his biographer Sidney P. Moss, had to raise advance money for one collection of poems by soliciting 75 cents a head from his fellow West Point classmates, to whom he then dedicated the book.
Dickens was never forced into quite such desperate straits, but neither was he so indifferent to "heaps and mines of gold" as he made out in Boston. He had, after all, spent part of his childhood in a debtors' prison, and as the most popular writer in the world, "of all men living I am the greatest loser.
In private he sarcastically mimicked his hosts: "The Americans read him; the free, enlightened, independent Americans; and what more would he have?... As to telling them they will have no literature of their own, the universal answer (out of Boston) is, 'We don't want one. Why should we pay for one when we can get it for nothing.'"
Copy Wrong
Before copyright, artists considered it a complement that their work was replayed and enjoyed by others.
Before you can write or draw, you must eat.
Before copyright, the writer had a substantial independent income or he had a sponsor or patron.
The church. The government. The merchant price. Each with their own agenda.
A J.R.R Tolkien or C. S. Lewis can navigate that environment and thrive.
But the American writer - particularly the writer of genre fiction - mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, suspense, the thriller - and so on - tends to be an outsider. He and she didn't come into this business to serve their betters - to win their way into the Establishment.
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to Now, The Philip K. Dick Collection