The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has announced, jointly with the Congressional members of the International Anti-Piracy Caucus (IAPC) the first ever Notorious Illegal Sites list, calling out the six most “notorious” sites used for unauthorized downloads of music, movies and other copyrighted works.
Additionally, the groups named Russia, Mexico, China, Canada and Spain as the “Top Priority Countries” for lax anti-piracy efforts.
The sites to make the list are: China’s Baidu, Canada’s IsoHunt, Ukraine’s mp3fiesta, Germany’s RapidShare, Luxembourg’s RMX4U.com and Sweden’s The Pirate Bay.
The groups say these sites and their services provide little other uses than an exchange of unauthorized copyrighted works.
“The release of this report casts a damning spotlight once again on several nations with lax copyright protections and websites that brazenly traffic in copyright theft. I’m particularly struck by the IAPC decision to identify significant global websites that facilitate massive theft; theft that destroys jobs and cuts short the dreams of creators who find it more difficult to attract the capital they need to build their careers. Just last week, five years after the 9-0 Supreme Court landmark decision against Grokster, we saw a federal judge rule against the most significant theft machine in this country – LimeWire. While it took some time for the judicial process to work, we did see that in a nation of laws, those who set up elegant schemes to profit from theft will be stopped. There is basic accountability, although much work needs to be done to achieve a fully accountable Internet space,” says Mitch Bainwol, Chairman and CEO, RIAA.
Result for: federal judge
A federal judge has officially placed graduate student Joel Tenenbaum on the line for $675,000 USD, the fine he was given by a jury after being found guilty of sharing 30 unauthorized songs via P2P networks.
Judge Nancy Gertner signed off on the damages, meaning Universal gets $292,500, Warner gets $225,000, Sony BMG gets $112,500 and Arista gets $45,000.
Despite signing off on the giant fine, Judge Gertner once against expressed concern over the “astronomical penalties” available to copyright holders, and noted that Tenenbaum missed out on an opportunity to shape the future of fair use laws.
“As it made clear previously, the Court was prepared to consider a more expansive fair use argument than other courts have credited—perhaps one supported by facts specific to this individual and this unique period of rapid technological change. For example, file sharing for the purposes of sampling music prior to purchase or space-shifting to store purchased music more efficiently might offer a compelling case for fair use. Likewise, a defendant who used the new file-sharing networks in the technological interregnum before digital media could be purchased legally, but who later shifted to paid outlets, might also be able to rely on the defense,” says Gertner.
Tenenbaum has said he will declare bankruptcy leaving the record labels with nothing if the fine is ruled constitutional on January 5th.
Result for: federal judge
The Big 4 record label EMI sued Bluebeat.com this week, claiming the site is selling unauthorized digital copies of the Beatles albums.
The site sells each track for $0.25 but EMI says they have “not authorized content to be sold on Bluebeat.com.”
Bluebeat garnered the attention of the label and curious downloaders because the Beatles tracks have never been officially been digitized, and certainly would not sell for 25 cents when all other tracks on iTunes sell for $1.
Perhaps just as notably, Bluebeat allows for free streaming of some tracks, including those by the Beatles.
Bluebeat, in their defense, say that they actually own the tracks and the copyrights for those tracks. What? MRT, the parent company behind Bluebeat, says they ran the Beatles tracks through psycho-acoustic simulation and added new pictures to the MP3s, thus making them completely new pieces of media. Media of which they own the copyrights for.
For those confused, (everyone), “Psychoacoustic simulations are a synthetic creation of that series of sounds which best expresses the way I believe a particular melody should be heard as a live performance,” says MRT CEO Hank Risan.
Today, a federal judge has ruled in favor of EMI and granted the label a temporary restraining order against Bluebeat and MRT. Judge Walter almost immediately agreed that Bluebeat was not selling new tracks, just copyrighted materials run through “psycho-acoustic simulation.”
The judge also tore apart their other argument of having all new “audio visual work” by saying (via Ars): “However, as one court obviously pointed out. [Defendant] cannot invalidate the copyright of an independent and preexisting sound recording, simply by incorporating that sound recording into an audiovisual work.’”
[More]>>
