The Long and Winding Road

Via Slashdot, I came across this article about a copyright infringement case in California. Essentially, a man set-up a commercial web site which offered songs that users could for download or stream for $0.25 per track. The web site included songs by Radiohead, Katy Perry, and the Beatles, including some Beatles tracks which had not previously been distributed digitally in a legal manner. Naturally, the companies who owned the rights to these cases sued the defendant to get a restraining order to take the web site down.

The defendants argued that they had produced original sounds which were “entirely different” from the copyrighted songs because they were not the actual sounds contained in the copyrighted recordings and because the defendants added visual images to the recordings. The judge shot down their argument, stating that they produced no evidence to support their claims, contrary to the plaintiffs who were able to provide proof that the defendants were using the plaintiffs’ copyrighted material illegally.

The web site in question offered Beatles songs that had not been available for digital download or streaming before and undercut the typical dollar price by 75 cents. The judge noted that the plaintiffs had the exclusive right to do what they wanted with the songs, even if it were not good business. The argument of unavailability to justify downloading copyrighted songs is one that I read often in articles about music copyrights.

One of the most fascinating aspects about music piracy is that, at least on many of the sites I read, people complain about the quality of music that the major record companies produce and release each year, yet people in significant numbers download all that music in large numbers, which leads me to conclude that arguments about quality are disingenuous attempts to justify ripping off content owners.  Personally, if I don’t like a type of music or a band, I choose not to listen to it at all, not download it illegally; it’s not rocket science.