Recently in Music Category

Joel Tenenbaum, Boston University graduate student, was handed down a guilty verdict by a federal judge late and pegged with a $675,000 penalty last week in his trial for violation of copyright infringement for illegal downloading and sharing of music online in a case brought by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2007.  

The trial had its share of quirks and surprises.  Even before the opening remarks, presiding U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner, held that Tenenbaum's proposed defense of fair use would not fly.  In her ruling, that took a major line of defense away from Tenebaum's team, she stated that Tenenbaum "propos[ed] a fair-use defense so broad that it would swallow the copyright protections that Congres created."

Some momentous events occurred yesterday in the world of digital music that may help to keep your favorite internet and satellite stations pumping out the tunes. 

First, the DC Circuit decided a case between SoundExchange, the organization that collects and distributes royalties to copyright owners, and Sirius XM Radio, who intervened in the case, over the royalty rate that satellite radio must pay to play music for the years 2007-2012.

Owners of copyrights in sound recordings have an exclusive right to "perform the copyrighted word publicly by means of a digital audio transmission," 17 USC § (106)(6).  Thus, in order to broadcast satellite radio, the broadcasters must pay a royalty to the copyright owner.  If they can't agree on a royalty, then the Copyright Royalty Judges step in and set one for them.

Wired's Threat Level blog is reporting that the Recording Industry Association of America has filed a motion to compel Charles Nesson to cease recording and posting depositions and other discovery materials to his blog or to the website for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.  The motion also requests monetary sanctions for Nesson.

The motion comes after Nesson recorded multiple depositions and at least one phone conversation between the judge in the case and RIAA lawyers.  The RIAA lawyers argue that Nesson posted the recordings to the internet, even after the judge instructed him not to.  The judge has already admonished Nesson that taping conversations in Massachusetts is illegal without the consent of all the parties to the conversation. 

If any of the current file-sharing cases make it to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor's potential vote would likely go for the music and movie industries, based on a decision she authored in 1998 while she was a district court judge in the Southern District of New York. 

In the opinion, she endorsed the idea of high statutory damages as a means to deter future copyright infringement rather than a system based on the actual economic damages to the plaintiff resulting from the defendant's infringement.

An obscure company known as Tune Hunter has sued some big names in technology, including Apple and AT&T, for patent infringement, claiming that their promotion of the Shazam application violates Tune Hunter's patent for a music identification system. 

Tune Hunter also sued the company that makes Shazam, as well as Samsung, Amazon.com, Napster, Motorola, Verizon and others. 

I've always thought that the French have some pretty extreme views when it comes to intellectual property, and it looks like they're in no hurry to disprove me, even if it means going against the EU parliament. 

The French parliament just passed a bill that will cut off the internet service for users who are caught illegally downloading music three or more times.  The Senate approved the bill today after the lower chamber approved the bill on Tuesday.  The new law creates a government agency to monitor internet activity for illegal downloads and step in when it detects them.

FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section about legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.

Fasten your seatbelts - if you love music, you absolutely must get hip to the Music Genome Project brought to you at Pandora.com.  This is the next big thing in music.

As pointed out on the web site, Pandora means "all gifted."  According to ancient Greek mythology, Pandora received a variety of gifts from the Gods, including the gift of music from Apollo.  The twist now is that Pandora.com is here to bring the gift of music to you.