A further note about damages: By law, the damages would encompass the financial loss of the copyright holder, and nothing else. In this case I would think you could be forced to pay for the cost of developing whatever the original company supplied (which they would estimate.) You really should consult a copyright attorney as soon as possible.
Any copyrighted work that is processed becomes a "derivative work." Thus if I write some C code, not only do I own the copyright to the source, but also to any object files compiled (or derived) from it. (This assumes, of course, that I have not signed away my rights to the compiler company.) This also applies to any HTML processor. If I authored the pre-HTML source, I also own the copyright to the resulting HTML.
If the original developer was not paid for their work, then whatever they developed is still copyrighted by them (even if they did not fulfill the terms of their contract.) If they were paid for their work then the copyright would be owned by the customer, unless their contract said otherwise.
The point of the Judge's argument seems to be that the conversion to MP3 altered the original work. As I understand it, US copyright law says one cannot copy and alter another's work without the permission of the copyright holder. As mp3 conversion is lossy, one can argue that the original work is altered (i.e. quality/content is lost.)
Under this premise one could, however, transfer all 650 MB of CD content in original or non-lossy compressed format and remain perfectly legal.
Personally, I think the Judge is really straining on this point, as all sorts of technologies (fax machines, analog tape decks, VCRs to name a few) alter the quality of the original. It would be a real bummer if you had to get permission from the TV network each time you wanted to tape a program!
I'd like to see this decision appealed, but I'm afraid that's not in the cards...
Slashdot Mirror
A further note about damages: By law, the damages would encompass the financial loss of the copyright holder, and nothing else. In this case I would think you could be forced to pay for the cost of developing whatever the original company supplied (which they would estimate.) You really should consult a copyright attorney as soon as possible.
Any copyrighted work that is processed becomes a "derivative work." Thus if I write some C code, not only do I own the copyright to the source, but also to any object files compiled (or derived) from it. (This assumes, of course, that I have not signed away my rights to the compiler company.) This also applies to any HTML processor. If I authored the pre-HTML source, I also own the copyright to the resulting HTML.
If the original developer was not paid for their work, then whatever they developed is still copyrighted by them (even if they did not fulfill the terms of their contract.) If they were paid for their work then the copyright would be owned by the customer, unless their contract said otherwise.
Under this premise one could, however, transfer all 650 MB of CD content in original or non-lossy compressed format and remain perfectly legal.
Personally, I think the Judge is really straining on this point, as all sorts of technologies (fax machines, analog tape decks, VCRs to name a few) alter the quality of the original. It would be a real bummer if you had to get permission from the TV network each time you wanted to tape a program!
I'd like to see this decision appealed, but I'm afraid that's not in the cards...