This post is quite long. I’ve made an effort to present the facts of the legal battle. At the end of the post I leave you with my opinion on the situation and some links for further reading, including the full text of the filed lawsuit.
In an effort to protect copyright holders, MySpace recently announced a partnership with Gracenote to set in place a system to filter unauthorized, copyrighted, works from being uploaded by users. But Universal Music Group says it’s not enough. UMG filed suit friday, Nov 17, 2006, against MySpace for copyright infringement. It really comes as no surprise considering the critical comments label chairman Doug Morris was making last week concerning MySpace.
In the filing UMG states that MySpace “harbors no illusions” that their online community site contains infringing content. They also claim that MySpace
knowingly and intentionally operated it’s business on the fiction that it has obtained the licenses it needs to exist
this in reference to users claiming ownership of content while UMG insists MySpace
well knows are not the true copyright holders
UMG went on to state that MySpace
encourages, facilitates and participates in the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, distribution and public performance
of works owned by UMG. The label is requesting damages of $150,000 per track regardless of form (audio or video). A spokesperson for UMG issued a statement about why the suit was filed.
Businesses that seek to trade off on our content, and the hard work of our artists and songwriters, shouldn’t be free to do so without permission and without fairly compensating the content creators. Our music and videos play a key role in building the communities that have created hundreds of millions of dollars of value for the owners of MySpace. Our goal is not to inhibit the creation of these communities, but to ensure that our rights and those of our artists are recognized.
MySpace has responded publicly to the suit, saying it is “unnecessary and meritless.”
MySpace provides an extraordinary promotion platform for artists ‚Äì from major labels to independent acts ‚Äì while respecting their copyrights…
We are in full compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and have no doubt we will prevail in court…
Moreover, we proactively take steps to filter unauthorized music sound recordings and have implemented audio fingerprinting technology.
Moreover, the very day the suit was filed MySpace began bragging on the efficiency of their new partnership with Gracenote as well as a new tool allowing copyright owners to flag unauthorized uses of their content.
The new tool will allow copyright holders to digitally flag any user-posted video containing content that they own and allege is unauthorized…
With the new tool, MySpace will make it even easier for copyright holders to identify and take down user-posted videos containing unauthorized content.
I understand the difficulties MySpace faces in policing such a large user contributed online portal. The Gracenote partnership and the ability to flag content as unauthorized seems very reasonable to me. This whole online environment is new territory for all parties involved. The copyrights do need to be honored, and yes MySpace should have implemented such measures from the beginning, but none the less, a lawsuit seems rash at this point. The two companies tried to come to a licensing agreement but those talks fell through when MySpace refused to pay retroactively for content that has previously been on the site. Come on UMG, work with us here.
Further reading:
