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Sony Accused of Pirating Music In "The Interview"

Posted by timothy on from the such-a-loaded-term dept.

the simurgh writes As the controversy surrounding Sony's handling of its hack, the movie The Interview and its aftermath continues, a singer is claiming that after failing to reach terms with Sony, the company put her music in the movie anyway. Yoon Mi-rae (real name Natasha Shanta Reid) is a U.S.-born hip hop and R&B singer who currently releases music on the Feel Ghood Music label. Sshe and her label claim that her track we learned that the track 'Pay Day' has been used without permission, legal procedure, or contracts.

11 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm ... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, once again, if we do this we get crushed under the heel of a team of lawyers.

    But a multinational like Sony does it and I bet they'll just dicker and claim some bullshit like fair use they routinely deny exists.

    I sincerely hope Sony has to pay a massive fine for this ... something on par with what we'd get beat down with.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Hmmm ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe she should have put a rootkit on her CD?

    2. Re:Hmmm ... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If we do it, Sony is one of the companies who helped pay for the law which says you and I would have to pay massive amounts of statutory damages, with additional punitive damages for having done it on purpose.

      I want Sony to receive the same magnitude of punishment as they would insist we receive.

      Because I really despise multinationals when they argue both sides of the same legal argument as it benefits them.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Hmmm ... by ChromaticDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Rightly or wrongly, and setting legal issues aside for the moment, the general populations around the world seem quite able to draw a rather clear distinction between the two cases you'e seemed to conflate.

      If I partake of the "sharing" of song by listening to it this is one thing. Folk merge together the acts of listening to it on the radio, listening to it via Internet radio, listening to it by downloading and using favorite player, downloading it and putting it onto favorite device and listening to it, etc., etc. You can argue all day long about lost sales, but by and large those arguments are unpersuasive.

      However, if I copy the song in any way and then sell it in any way, people see this differently. I'm selling something that isn't mine to sell. Sure, people may love to buy pirated DVDs on the streets at a tenth of the price. But far fewer people would rise to defend the black marketeers here.

      Sony execs listening to these songs in their office wouldn't bother most. But clearly and unambiguously using material in the production of a movie without permission of the artist is a different matter. It is indeed hypocritical of Sony to champion copyright issues while blantantly violating such concerns.

    4. Re:Hmmm ... by msauve · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Copying a work is often called theft, and it is not - it is copying, and nothing of substance has been taken.

      I think most people agree that some limited form of protection for creative works is a fair trade for encouraging the creation of works which will eventually become public domain. But there is no natural right to "own" a thought, and "intellectual property" laws are merely a privilege which society grants in exchange for value.

      But, the extension of copyright terms prevents works from entering the public domain, making that exchange a fraud. I will submit that creative works made for profit are based on ROIs measured in years, not decades. There is no legitimate need for, or public good which comes from "author's life plus 70 years," or 95 years after publication.

      Why should MS-DOS still be under copyright? Lotus 1-2-3? SVR4? When they enter public domain, they will be useless. They are substantially so already, now add another 60 years (presuming no further term extensions). So, the tradeoff has already failed - the public will receive nothing of value in exchange for giving copyright protection for a time.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    5. Re:Hmmm ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe she did, and that was how Sony got hacked...

  2. Sauce for the goose by ihtoit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    $150,000 per claimed violation. That should be counted as ticket sales. How many tickets were sold for the opening day alone?

    Sony would regret lobbying for that pesky DMCA... >:]

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    1. Re:Sauce for the goose by houghi · · Score: 4, Informative

      So now we know why they didn't want the movie to be shown.

      And isn't is per violation, not per sale. So they must pay for the billions of illegal downloads that get the song as well. They were the ones distributing it.

      But in reality what will happen will that either they win (After all it is their law. They bought it fair and square.) or they settle out of court. This will be some minor sum in the 6 figures and the deal never to talk about it. Then it will go to another court where Sony will claim the money back.
      After a few years the artis will give up or re-settles for an extreme low amount. (5 figures that she will need to pay the lawers AND give up her rights in the process.)

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    2. Re:Sauce for the goose by Zocalo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why limit to just the legal downloads when the **AA's lawyers certainly don't? Remember, according to the *AAs, it's also a crime to *facilitate* theft, so by making available the movie that includes the copyrighted track surely they should also be liable for all the several million torrented copies, plus all the legitmate pay-per-view downloads from Google etc. too?

      While I suspect this is probaby just a case of office incompetence and someone forgetting an action that will probably be quickly cleaned up with a check in the post, I dearly hope this does end up going to court. Watching Sony's lawyers try and get themselves off the hook without setting precedents that anyone else being sued for infringing copyright can use would be priceless.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  3. Re:What's the timecode? by tysonedwards · · Score: 4, Informative

    No idea where the song is in the movie, but I've just verified that it's listed in the credits at 1h51m10s. It's stated as her performance, by her production company. As such, if they didn't actually pay for the rights, that's an extremely baller move as it presents zero ambiguity that it was known as her work and the company they'd need to get the rights from by everyone involved.

    --
    Thirty four characters live here.
  4. Common sense from TFA by resfilter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "It seems unlikely that this lawsuit will result in a messy legal battle. The huge publicity the movie has enjoyed in the past few weeks will virtually guarantee decent sales for Sony, even without lucrative box office revenues. Yoon Mi-rae should not only be able to secure a piece of that but also raise her profile in a way that would not have been possible had Sony paid her in the first instance."