DMCA Safe Harbor May Not Apply To Old Copyrighted Works

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 25, 2013 @02:07AM from the no-escape-clause dept.

tlhIngan writes "On Tuesday, the New York appellate court denied Grooveshark the DMCA safe harbor protection on songs like Johnny B. Goode. What happened was due to an oddity in the law, the DMCA does not apply to state-licensed copyrighted works (those copyrighted before February 15, 1972). What happened was Congress overhauled copyright law to make it a Federal matter, but all works prior to that date still come under common-law and state statutes. The end result is that Grooveshark does not have DMCA safe harbor protection for older works and may be sued for copyright infringement (barring other agreements, e.g., UMG and YouTube), even though they fully comply with the DMCA otherwise, taking down copyrighted materials. Grooveshark is a "music locker" service allowing users to upload music for others to listen to."

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This is why by Endo13 · 2013-04-25 02:25 · Score: 3, Informative

US copyright is currently bullshit. Those songs should have been public domain for 13 years already.

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1. Re:This is why by jedidiah · 2013-04-25 04:17 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  > Why? Is it because you want to hear this song?
  Nope. Because copyright exists to encourage the current set of artists to create new. Expansive copyright interferes with that and even prevents the publishing of old work too.
  
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