Slashdot Mirror
Universal Music Demands Insurer Pay For Infringement Damages
An anonymous reader writes with a new twist in the recently resolved Canadian music label infringement lawsuit. From the article: "Earlier this year, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording
Industry Association (now Music Canada) — Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG
Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada — settled
the largest copyright
class action lawsuit
in Canadian history by agreeing to pay over $50 million to compensate
for hundreds of thousands of infringing uses of sound recordings. While
the record labels did not admit liability, the massive settlement spoke
for itself. While the Canadian case has now settled, Universal Music
has filed
its
own lawsuit, this time against its insurer, who it expects to pay
the
costs of the settlement."
...that the law to disconnect copyright infringers from the internet would have gone through.
There'd be a small clause somewhere saying that it can only apply to individual people, not corporations.
Agreed to indemnify if Universal lost the case. In this scenario, Universal refused to accept responsibility. Hence they can't get their money from insurer. Or they could accept liability and responsibility, and open themselves for more lawsuits.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
My car insurance has a lot of provisions like "... void if vehicle is driven under the influence ...", "... void if vehicle is used in criminal activities ..." (i.e. smashing while being chased by the police gives no relief).
I would assume most insurances have exclusions if a crime has been involved. Copyright violation is theft, right?
Legally they may be in their right. Morally, not so much. They actually settled for 5$ million _less_ than they had already agreed to pay. And now they are trying to get the insurer to pay the money they already should have paid if they hadn't frauded and there wouldn't have been a case in the first place.
This is just sickening greed. They already got a profit of 5$ million dollars out of their cheating and are now seeking even more rewards for their fraud. If this isn't legally wrong, it should be.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
There were 300,000 infringing works and the statutory damages were 20,000. That's 6 billion bucks.
50 million is chump change. The music industry is willing to take people's retirement savings, ruining their lives, but they get only a slap on the wrist.
No, what's immoral is the life+70 years monopoly before it enters the public domain, DMCA, and many other faults of copyright law. The ludicrously long term hinders creativity. The DMCA makes backing up data you've paid good money for illegal.
Keeping what I've already paid for away from me is immoral. Taking what belongs to we, the people (art and literature) is immoral. Copyright law is in terrible need of reform. Power needs to be taken form the entertainment companies and given to the people who actually create the art and literature.
How is that life+75 years going to entice Jimi Hendrix of Janice Joplin to produce more works? It doesn't. It's a disincentive to the record companies to record someone new; they can still make money off the old. Make the term 20 years and an artist won't be able to retire on the revenues of a single work.
Free Martian Whores!