Legal news stories and other items of interest

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Warner Music faces 14 lawsuits over download fees

Warner Music Group reported on Friday soaring digital music sales, even as the company continues to lose money and faces numerous lawsuits related to alleged price fixing of music downloads.

zdnet.com

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Beatles lose Apple court battle

The Beatles have lost their court challenge against Apple Computer over its iTunes download service.

news.bbc.co.uk

Beatles loses Apple case

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Warner Music in trouble

p2p news / p2pnet: Warner Music, front and centre in 14 class-action lawsuits mostly alleging price fixing, hints in an SEC filing that it fears it may not, this time, escape.

Leading the way is New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer and now Warner says it's, "unable to predict the outcome of these [the class action] suits".

In addition, "the Company is involved in other litigation arising in the normal course of our business. Management does not believe that any legal proceedings pending against the Company will have, individually, or in the aggregate, a material adverse effect on its business. However, the Company cannot predict with certainty the outcome of any litigation or the potential for future litigation. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on the Company, including its brand value, because of defense costs, diversion of management resources and other factors

Source: p2pnet.net

Hehe Now They're being sued , instead of them sueing their costumers.
Read the whole story at the above link.

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SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgarian police charged two men on Saturday for illegally distributing music and films in what officials called one of Europe's largest Internet pirate groups.

They arrested an administrator and systems operator for putting download links to 20 million songs -- or roughly 3 million albums -- and hundreds of films on the web site http://www.arenabg.com, one of Bulgaria's most popular pages.

Users could download as many of the songs and films as they liked after paying a four lev ($2.50) monthly fee. Authorities estimate the damage to the entertainment industry at around $30 million.

"These people are among the biggest Internet pirates in Europe," said Liliana Yosifova, spokeswoman for the Sofia Investigators' Office. "We are talking about big losses here."

Police also found three satellite receivers and 200 CDs with pirated movies at the suspects' homes, part of what the Interior Ministry said was a high-speed network used to download new movies and songs from foreign pirate sites.

The site was no longer functioning on Saturday afternoon. The men, who were released on 10,000 levs bail, were not immediately available for comment.

Source: Reuters

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Makers of 'Kazaa' software settle global piracy lawsuits
Updated 7/27/2006 1:20 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the big guns of the Wild West days of freely downloading music and movies over the Internet is going straight.

Settling lawsuits around the world, the company behind software called "Kazaa" said Thursday it will redesign its pioneering file-sharing program to block customers who try to find and download copyrighted music and movies. It also will offer licensed entertainment for a price, and it agreed to pay more than $115 million in penalties to leading music and movie companies.

The settlement ends one of the longest-running and fiercest copyright disputes of the Internet era, in which the entertainment industry spent millions suing Sharman Networks Ltd. and the company's customers to end the illegal trade of its products.

Sharman Networks pledged to "use all reasonable means" to discourage online piracy, including building into new versions of its software "robust and secure" ways to frustrate computer users who try to find and download copyrighted music and movies, court papers said.

Kazaa's popularity has declined dramatically in recent years amid concerns over "spyware" monitoring programs bundled with its freely distributed software and as new, more efficient downloading services — both legal and illegal — emerged.

"Kazaa has been yesterday's file-sharing technology for some time now," said Eric Garland, chief executive at BigChampagne Online Media Measurement, which tracks online entertainment. "We're resolving court battles months or even years after the cultural relevance of these software applications has waned."

The settlement included payment of $115 million to music companies and a lesser amount to the movie industry, said people familiar with those provisions. They agreed to speak on condition of anonymity because some provisions were included in secret agreements not disclosed in the public court papers. Sharman Networks has already paid nearly all the money to the entertainment industry, these people said.

"While the award may seem like a vast pot of money, it will merely offset the millions we have invested — and will continue to invest — in fighting illegal pirate operations around the world and protecting the works that our artists create," said the vice chairman for EMI Music, David Munns.

The settlement concludes legal battles against Sharman Networks around the world. Sharman Networks has boasted that its Kazaa software was downloaded more than 389 million times, and the company operated the underlying "Fast Track" file-sharing network that connected tens of millions of personal computers.

It was not immediately clear how or when Sharman Networks will impose filters to frustrate its customers from distributing copyrighted files illegally. Justin Timberlake's Sexy Back and Chamillionaire's Ridin' Dirty— two popular, modern hits — were available on Sharman's network using older versions of its software without cost hours after the settlement was announced.

"Services based on theft are going legit or going under, and a legal marketplace is showing real promise," said Mitch Bainwol, head of the Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the largest labels.

The head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Dan Glickman, called the settlement an important victory in a historic legal case.

Sharman Networks indicated it will negotiate licenses with entertainment companies to distribute music and movies lawfully over its Kazaa service, similar to Apple Computer's iTunes service. The settlement does not prohibit Sharman Networks from legally distributing copyrighted files.

The chief executive of Sharman Networks, Nikki Hemming, said the settlement "marks the dawn of a new age of cooperation" between file-sharing services and the entertainment industry. "This settlement ensures that we will be working together with the content providers to the benefit of consumers, businesses and artists," she said.

The Supreme Court ruled last year the entertainment industry can file piracy lawsuits against technology companies caught encouraging customers to steal music and movies over the Internet. Earlier this month, in a related federal lawsuit, a U.S. judge said evidence was "overwhelming" against StreamCast, which produced similar software called "Morpheus" for downloading music and movies.
usatoday.com

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Family owes $4,080 for music downloads - August 9 - His Klamath Falls family owes more than $4,000 after reaching a settlement with record companies over the illegal downloading of 834 rock and country songs.
Seattle PI

Piracy pair ordered to pay back £600,000 - August 9 - A husband and wife piracy team are paying the price for counterfeiting computer and video games. The pair have been ordered to pay back more than £600,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) following their original conviction for counterfeiting offences back in 2005
pc pro

Skype founders pay out for Kazaa settlement - August 10 - Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the billionaire Internet entrepreneurs who created Kazaa and Skype, have reached into their own pockets to help settle a lawsuit brought by the music and movie industries.
USA Today

Four Sentenced, Critic Pleads Guilty In Operation Copycat - August 10 - As part of the ongoing prosecution arising out of Operation Copycat, four individuals were sentenced today and one more pleaded guilty, bringing the total number of convictions to thirty-two.
tri-state news

RIAA Asks Court to Order Hard Drive Inspection in SONY v. Arellanes in Texas - August 10 - In SONY v. Arellanes in Texas, the RIAA has made a motion to compel an inspection of the hard drive of defendant's computer.
recordingindustryvspeople

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ABBA fan site threatened

p2pnet.net News Feature:- An Australian ABBA site has been threatened with legal action unless it gives Big Four Organized Music cartel member Vivendi Universal, based in France, information on fans who allegedly, "bought or supplied unauthorised or 'bootlegged' live recordings via the site," says the Sydney Morning Herald, going on:

"Abbamail.com, owned by Graeme Read and Grant Whittingham - who also founded the Swedish pop group's Australian fan club in 1976 - has published online news of the band for about nine years."

Read the whole article on p2pnet.

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RIAA goes fishing

p2pnet.net News:- A US Army serviceman who's completed a tour in Iraq, and the wife of a US Army sergeant, are included on the RIAA list of sue 'em all victims.

Tanya Andersen, a single mother living on a disability pension in Oregon and accused by the Big Four Organized Music gang of being a download 'criminal' begged the Big Four's RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to examine her hard drive so they could see for themselves she wasn't the thief they said she was.

However, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG didn't want to know - until March, that is, when out of the blue, they suddenly wanted a court order to allow them mine her hard-drive.

Now Kimberly Arellanes, the wife of serving US Army sergeant Frank Arellanes, is in the same boat.

The RIAA is wants to mirror her computer hard drive so their 'forensic experts' can ferret around, looking for 'proof' that she'd been, “engaged in copyright infringement on a massive scaleâ€

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p2pnet.net News:- Debbie Foster is one of the thousands of innocent parents being routinely victimized by the venal Big Four corporate record labels, Warner Music (US), Vivendi Universal (France), EMI (UK) and Sony BMG (Japan, Germany), in their endless, world-wide pursuit of wealth.

Meanwhile, the RIAA's case against Debbie Foster has been dismissed and now she's asking to have her attorney's fees reimbursed.

The American Association of Law Libraries, ACLU, EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and Public Citizen have filed an amicus brief in her support and it is, to considerably understate things, an essential read for anyone who's been following the corporate music industry's vicious and ongoing persecution of the people who have made them so very, very rich.

Read the news story @ p2pnet.

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First hearings in Finland's largest P2P case

The first hearings in Finland's largest P2P piracy case were made today in district court of Lahti where two users distributed copyrighted movies, music, games and software via BitTorrent network, sharing their torrent links via site called Finreactor (back then, Finland's largest BitTorrent and ed2k site). The two men were among those who got singled out by media corporations as being "major contributors" when the Finreactor site was busted by Finnish police back in 2004.

Media corporations and software companies are seeking total damages worth 3.5 million euros (appx. $4.5 million) from the two users now in court. The two users now facing court are just the tip of the iceberg in Finreactor case. In other district courts across Finland, appx. 60 former users or operators of the site will face similar court cases brought against them. All of the people facing legal challenges against them, were, according to Finnish police, either administrators of the Finreactor site or people identified as the "first sources" of illegally distributed material.

source:afterdawn

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RIAA Wants to Depose Dead Defendant's Children; But Will Allow them 60 Days to "Grieve"

Just when we think we've heard it all....

In Michigan, in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury, after learning that the defendant had passed away, the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to "grieve", after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury's children:

Motion for 60-Day Stay and Extension of "Deadlines"

source: recordingindustryvspeople
Related article on p2pnet.

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Tablature Files Considered Copyright Infringement

The National Music Publishers' Association ("NMPA") and The Music Publishers' Association of the United States, Inc. ("MPA") have ordered the Online Guitar Archive (OLGA) off-line. OLGA - A Tabulation Cooperation hosted tablature for many guitar songs that were created by its members.

Now, the tablature, or more commonly known as tab, sites are under attack. It appears that the first to fall is the well known Online Guitar Archive (OLGA). OLGA has been around for a long time and was a collection of tab created by many different individuals. The users created tab by listening or playing the music and then recording what they perceived to be the correct sequence of playing of the instrument. While the authors of the tab relied on their own interpretations, the music publishers have claimed that the creation of the tab is a violation of copyrights held by the music authors.

The music publishers claim, in a letter to OLGA, "In fact, U.S. copyright law specifically provides that the right to make and distribute arrangements, adaptations, abridgements, or transcriptions of copyrighted musical works, including lyrics, belongs exclusively to the copyright owner of that work." This is the same reasoning being used to shutdown many lyric sites.

Read the whole article @ cybergrass.

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Fletcher woman sued for piracy

ASHEVILLE — A Fletcher woman is one of 42 people in seven states sued last week by the Recording Industry Association of America for alleged copyright infringement.

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Asheville accuses Tiffany Redmond of 134 Upper Brush Creek Road of illegally distributing copyrighted music on the Internet using peer-to-peer services such as LimeWire.

The lawsuit against Redmond asks the court to require the plaintiff to cease making copyrighted material available for distribution and to destroy any copies of the downloaded material. It also seeks unspecified damages and attorney fees.

Redmond could not be reached for comment. The lawsuit lists recordings she allegedly distributed by artists DMX, Avant, Nelly, Dr. Dre, Dru Hill, Ice Cube, Ja Rule and Usher.

Read the news story @ citizen-times.

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New Law empowers Anti-piracy lobby in Sweden

Johan Linander, a member of the Swedish parliament for the Center Party writes that a new law, based on EU directives, has been proposed by the Ministry of Justice. This law makes it possible for “copyright holdersâ€

[p2p-sharing-rules]

RIAA forced to drop Scantlebury case

p2pnet.net News:- Tremendous online public outrage has forced the Big Four Organized Music cartel's RIAA to abandon the lawsuit it had lodged against a former Vietnam helicopter pilot.

Owned by Warner Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Vivendi Universal, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has been forced into ignominious retreat after harrasing Larry Scantlebury and then telling his children it would generously allow them 60 days to mourn for their father, who died this June, before continuing with this element of their bizarre sue 'em all marketing campagn.

"Our hearts go out to the Scantleberry family for their loss," says RIAA mouthpiece Jonathan Lamy unblushingly in what will certainly go down as one of the most disgustingly fulsome statements ever to be issued by an organization that's infamous for its bald-faced lies.

"We had decided to temporarily suspend the productive settlement discussions we were having with the family," says Lamy, quoted in Boing Boing.

"Mr. Scantleberry had admitted that the infringer was his stepson, and we were in the process settling with him shortly before his passing. Out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case."

"Query," posts Ray Beckerman on Recording Industry vs The People.

"What do they mean by 'this particular lawsuit'? The lawsuit against the decedent would have had to be withdrawn anyway. Are they going to now sue Mr. Scantlebury's son? Or have they given the Scantlebury family enough grief'?"
source: p2pnet