RSSUniversal Music Heads to Court
By Ed Oswald | Published November 20, 2006, 12:07 PM
Universal Music Group sued MySpace on Friday, accusing the popular social networking site of infringing on copyrighted works. Additionally, it also threatened to sue Bank of America earlier this week over a leaked internal video showing a parody of U2's "One."
The label has increasingly ramped up its legal rhetoric in recent weeks, with comments suggesting the company is becoming more aggressive in seeking compensation for lost revenues stemming from piracy of its artist's works.
In the MySpace suit, the site is accused of allowing its users to upload illegal videos and then willfully participating by reformatting and distributing those said videos. It also looks partially motivated by a breakdown in talks between the two companies.
According to news reports, talks failed after MySpace refused to cave in to demands that restitution be paid for videos posted on the site in the past.
"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," the label said in a statement. It also said that in turn, Universal has a right to be fairly compensated for its work.
MySpace seemed to rebut those claims, saying it had kept in close contact regarding its efforts to eliminate pirated content on its service, and adding functionality to help companies highlight possible cases of infringement.
"It's unfortunate they decided to file this unnecessary and meritless litigation," it added in a statement. The announcement of the suit came just hours after MySpace had publicly confirmed earlier reports that it was creating a content flagging system for owners of copyrighted videos.
Universal isn't just limiting its litigation to the Internet - its next target may actually be a major national bank chain. The label sent a cease and desist letter to Bank of America last Tuesday over a video that had appeared on some viral video sites.
In it, two Bank of America employees perform a parody of the U2 hit song "One," although they change the words to commemorate the company's merger with MBNA. However, Universal still didn't seem to care, threatening to sue anyway.
Bank of America had not had a chance to review the letter, while the Universal lawyer that signed the cease and desist letter has refused to comment to the press.
Both Myspace and Youtube allow users to transact in copyright infringement. This is not sustainable. I realize that Youtube have some promising deals with some music giants, however in order for their business model in the long term they require:
- ALL Record Companies to partcipate in this deal
- Music & Video Recognition technology to determine which songs and video excerpts are taken from what sources
Those are BIG requirements. Indications are that Universal are already unwilling to particpate in that type of deal. We have all yet to see this incredible technology capable of separating from millions of uploaded video, what parts of songs require profit sharing. Perhaps the music industry giants who have signed the deal based on advertising revenue sharing, have seen something we haven't.
I am the M.D. of xindevelopment Ltd., a company based in Dublin, Ireland. We launched two weeks ago a website called www.xinportals.com that is now in BETA. It enables users to create websites with online shops that are capable of selling virtually anything including downloadable digital files. Our User Agreement is based on a UNIVERSAL Royalty Free License system. A user can upload a Digital File like an MP3, or a Video file that customers can then purchase and Download. Roughly 7 days after first being uploaded by a seller we review the file to check for copyright infringement. If a user has sold a File containing illegal content we delete the file from the system and refund the customer in full and issue the infringer with a 3 strike warning. If the File checks out the purchaser of the File can use that particular file within the content of a new piece of work. In other words, a filmmaker could purchase a Royalty Free song on a xinportal and use that as the soundtrack on a film they are making.
We believe it is a much more sustainable business model.
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|lol @ the stupid universal people.
if i had the people who decided to sue infront of me now, and i had a gun, i wouldn't hesitate shooting them.
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|Don't be so quick to judge. If Universal sues BOA and wins, we could finally see the end of the evil that is karaoke!!
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|"it also threatened to sue Bank of America earlier this week over a leaked internal video showing a parody of U2's "One."
This stupid Italian La Cosa Nostra (Mafia) owned record company knows nothing about parodies and the law! The Percy Sledge estate failed in their attempt to sue rap artist, 2 Live Crew, for recording a nasty take-off on a 60's*** called Pretty Woman. Case closed!
Bank of America didn't distribute that parody song.
You cannot DOWNLOAD their pirated music and videos on MySpace or You Tube. So nobody is really sharing anything there, any more than they are by listening to a radio or watching the crap on TV.
I'll listen this sniveling bull$hit; when a RIAA/MPAA member company stops selling hardware and blank disks to thieves who pirate music and films. Maybe that new Democratic Congress will raise some questions about this hypocrisy...
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|You cannot DOWNLOAD their pirated music and videos on MySpace or You Tube. So nobody is really sharing anything there, any more than they are by listening to a radio or watching the crap on TV
There may not be a download button but it does download to your computer and only takes a second to grab it from your temp files to have a perfectly working copy if you don't mind poor quality videos getting music videos from MySpace or YouTube is faster than torrent sites and p2p programs.
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|The copyright laws need to be changed. Companies like Universal are like a pimp with a flock of prostitutes whining that someone else is taking over their block.
Seems to me that the artists could do a lot better by ignoring companies like Universal, and use the internet to distribute their music directly to the consumer.
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|Or even market directly through Apple exclusively.
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|apple? how is that going to be any good?
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|they should be paying myspace for helping them advertising for their artists. it's music video, yes, the music can be extract from the video, but why go through so much trouble for priate it when it can take less time d/l directly from another source.
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|America is gradually disintegrating into a litigation cesspool. I can see the first one, sort of, but the BofA suit seems frivilous to me. It assumes that issuing a cease and desist (C&D) order automatically grants BofA the right to pull it from all video posting sites? Wow. I'd like to see the system that can do that.
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|On the bright side, it's company on company violence...
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