Quantcast
"These are businesses that were built for the exclusive reason of illegally exchanging copyrighted works, and they make money hand over fist from it. The Court of Appeals should hold them accountable. And nobody should be making money hand over fist on music.”
——Cary Sherman

MUSIC, MOVIE GROUPS APPEAL GROKSTER, MUSIC CITY CASE

Lawyers and Briefs Not as Sexy as They Sound
As the slow, hot season for releases starts to boil up, it’s really only the lawyers who are getting much work done.

The National Music Publishers Association, the RIAA and the Motion Pictures Association of America have filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court, asking it to overturn a lower court’s decision finding Grokster and StreamCast Networks not liable for copyright infringement taking place on their file-sharing networks.

In the original ruling, the district court acknowledged that while swapping copyrighted works without permission is illegal, the network operators weren’t liable.

Said RIAA President Cary Sherman: “We appreciate that the district court affirmed that the underlying activity of downloading or distributing copyrighted works is illegal, but the ruling on the services themselves rewrote years of well-established copyright law. It was wrong. These are businesses that were built for the exclusive reason of illegally exchanging copyrighted works, and they make money hand over fist from it. The Court of Appeals should hold them accountable. And nobody should be making money hand over fist on music.”

Added NMPA President Edward P. Murphy: “The predominant use of these services is massive copyright infringement, causing tremendous harm to the songwriters and music publishers who form the bedrock of the music industry. The district court’s ruling represents a serious blow to musical creativity, discouraging the creation of new musical works. The real losers here include the general public, who will never get to hear those songs, and the really big losers are the people writing this story.”

MPAA President/CEO Jack Valenti said some stuff too, but he’s not in the music biz, so just make up your own quote about how taking property is fundamentally wrong, etc. etc. See, wasn’t that fun? And interactive.

A similar suit against Kazaa is still pending before the district court.

UMG BROADENS SPOTIFY OFFERINGS
Sir Lucian and Daniel are in harmony. (3/28a)
THE COUNT: COLDPLAY IS HOT, COUNTRY'S COOKIN' IN THE U.K.
The latest tidbits from the bustling live sector (3/28a)
YTD MARKET SHARE
Zeroing in on the elite teams (3/28a)
TRUST IN THE TOP 20
Hip-hop is no longer hibernating. (3/28a)
SONG REVENUE:
A STYLISTIC STEW
MC, divas and singer-songwriters rub elbows. (3/28a)
THE NEW UMG
Gosh, we hope there are more press releases.
TIKTOK BANNED!
Unless the Senate manages to make this whole thing go away, that is.
THE NEW HUGE COUNTRY ACT
No, not that one.
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PLAYLIST
Now 100% unlicensed!
 Email

 First Name

 Last Name

 Company

 Country
CAPTCHA code
Captcha: (type the characters above)