US Judge Strikes Down Bootleg Law 312
lee writes "BBC News reports briefly on a federal judge declaring a 10-year-old anti-bootlegging law unconstitutional, because it sets no limits on the length of copyright of live performances, and grants "seemingly perpetual protection" to copyright holders."
Longer Article here with links (Score:5, Informative)
By ERIN McCLAM
Associated Press Writer
September 24, 2004, 8:27 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- A federal judge Friday struck down a 1994 law banning the sale of bootleg recordings of live music, ruling the law unfairly grants "seemingly perpetual protection" to the original performances.
U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. dismissed a federal indictment of Jean Martignon, who runs a Manhattan mail-order and Internet business that sells bootleg recordings.
Baer found the bootleg law was written by Congress in the spirit of federal copyright law, which protects writing for a fixed period of time _ typically for the life of the author and 70 years after the author's death.
But the judge said the bootleg law, which was passed "primarily to cloak artists with copyright protection," could not stand because it places no time limit on the ban.
Baer also noted that copyright law protects "fixed" works _ such as books or recorded music releases _ while bootlegs, by definition, are of live performances.
A federal grand jury indicted Martignon in October 2003 for selling "unauthorized recordings of live performances by certain musical artists through his business."
The business, Midnight Records, once had a store in Manhattan but now operates solely by mail and Internet. It sells hundreds of recordings, specializing in rock artists, from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin.
An e-mail message to Martignon from The Associated Press was not immediately returned Friday, and a phone number could not immediately be located.
Megan Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney, said federal prosecutors were "reviewing the decision and will evaluate what steps ought to be taken going forward."
The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that fights piracy and bootlegging, also disagreed with the ruling.
The decision "stands in marked contrast to existing law and prior decisions that have determined that Congress was well within its constitutional authority to adopt legislation that prevented trafficking in copies of unauthorized recordings of live performances," said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the RIAA.
The bootleg law calls for prison terms of up to five years for first offenders and 10 years for second offenders, plus fines. It requires courts to order the destruction of any bootlegs created in violation of the law.
The law did not apply to piracy, which is the unauthorized copying or sale of recorded music, such as albums.
On the Net:
Midnight Records: http://www.midnightrecords.com
Bootleg law: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2319A.html
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
Re:Please (Score:1, Informative)
Here's Reuters... (Score:4, Informative)
Now if they could just ... (Score:3, Informative)
Related links to this story (Score:2, Informative)
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&ta
NY Post (Score:4, Informative)
Or did you want a legitimate source? Try USA Today [usatoday.com].
Re:Confused; could use some answers... (Score:3, Informative)
More details (Score:2, Informative)
BY LOU DOLINAR
STAFF WRITER
September 25, 2004
Long before there was Napster, there were concert tapes, live recordings made and swapped by fans of groups like the Grateful Dead and Country Joe and the Fish. Those recordings have narrow constitutional protection from copyright, a judge in Manhattan ruled Friday, handing the Recording Industry Association of America's anti-piracy crusade another defeat.
The ruling came in the criminal case against a longtime fixture in the New York music scene, J.D. Martignon, owner of the Midnight Record store on 23rd Street in Chelsea. At issue was a federal law that criminalizes the sale of bootleg recording of live performances. U.S. District Judge Harold Beard said the law was unconstitutional because it sets no limits on the length of copyright.
Copyright law covers a work for life of the author plus 70 years. The 1994 criminal anti-bootlegging statute runs afoul of that legal standard because it "grants seemingly perpetual protection to live musical performances."
Martignon, a former rock singer and writer for a French music publication, had offered about 1,000 individual concert sessions for sale for between $10 and $20 per concert at his store, which closed after the government seized his stock as evidence, his attorney, Legal Aid lawyer David Patton, said. He could have gone to prison for 5 years. Martignon said Friday that he's still selling vintage recordings legally at his Web site, https://midnightrecords.com/ index.html, but he can't offer concert tapes pending appeal of the ruling.
"We are reviewing the decision and will evaluate what steps are to be taken going forward," a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office said.
Patton said Friday the ruling solely affects concert tapes of performances where artists do not record their own work for copyright or sale.
"This is not about illegally making copies of CDs," he said. Under the ruling, he said, artists can protect live works merely by recording and copyrighting them, and states can still outlaw live recording.
Edit: No sympathy for those selling pirated works. Jail the f*****.
Re:isn't that the point? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:BBC (Score:5, Informative)
The bottom line is, in a democracy there's no good reason for a very few major media players to own the game. A free and *responsible* press, along with good education, is something without which a democracy cannot function. Media consolidation, and the rampant homogeniety and misinformation it engenders time and time again, are probably the biggest internal threat to American democracy today.
On the plus side, there's always blogs...
Re:That's weird... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Duh, they were *selling* the recordings... (Score:5, Informative)
Ernesto Miranda was not freed. He was re-tried (after being read his rights), convicted, and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
In one of the lesser-known ironies of the century, Miranda was also stabbed to death while on parole. His likely killer was released because he invoked his right to remain silent.
Burn Live® by your pals at ClearChannel (Score:3, Informative)
ClearChannel has a program called Burn Live (the name was changed to "Instant Live"® after an unfortuante incident [newcenturyfriends.net]) that records most of the entire concert direct from the soundboards. Their deal with Worst^H^H^H^H^HBestBuy also has the CDs in those stores after the show.
Some people don't think Burn Live is all that [pitchforkmedia.com], either. Note that ClearChannel is trying to lock out competition [weblogsinc.com] of their live CD burninating model by using the patent system.
See the USC (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the text:
Congress shall have the power
Did you see the article's photograph? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's weird... (Score:5, Informative)
Many bands are now allowing their live shows to be posted on the archive http://www.archive.org/audio/etree.php [archive.org] and there's always bit torrent as well http://tracker.bargainville.org/ [bargainville.org] http://bt.easytree.org/ [easytree.org]
Taping shows for personal, non-commercial use should be ok. Selling is what should be illegal
Re:isn't that the point? (Score:3, Informative)
You know, Disney using stuff from the public domain and copyrights stifling innovation are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, etc were still under copyright, Disney may well not have been able to make their versions, would they?
Re:BBC (Score:1, Informative)
17 USC 105, available at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/105.html (links don't seem to be working today), says that "works of the US Government" do not qualify for copyright. It can be transferred copyrights, and works of contractors are copyrightable, but nothing done by public employees with public money is.
The complete text of the section:
Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise
Re:Position of Dead (Score:3, Informative)
Taping was allowed, and even encouraged, but they prefered that you do so in the "Taper's Section" right near the sound board. The most experienced tapers would have thousands of dollars tied up in their rigs, using Neumann microphones, custom microphone pre-amps, etc. The last I read about them, they were using DAT machines, but I have no doubt they are now using some sort of 24-bit recording system, like a Layla card on a laptop.
There are other bands that explicitly allow taping: Phish, Dave Matthews Band are a couple of the more famous. None of the bands are in favor of anyone selling audience tapes, and most people who tape are opposed to people selling audience tapes either. Someone who tapes a show will give copies to a fellow fan, usually trading disc for disc. If there is nothing to trade, they'll usually do a 2 blanks for one recorded disc swap.
BitTorrent has really revolutionized the taping world. One taper can make a file available (usually in the lossless SHN or FLAC formats) and can get it to hundreds of people in the same time they could get it to one. Besides concerts they have taped themselves, people frequently post "liberated bootlegs" under the theory that, if the artist isn't getting the money, nobody should.
Re:BBC (Score:2, Informative)
A common misconception. It's okay to end a sentence with a preposition, especially if doing so allows you to construct the sentence in a way that makes it easier to understand.
From the Gregg Reference Manual, section 1080:
The place to avoid it, if you're really concerned about it, is where the preposition is unnecessary. For example:Where's he at?
...as opposed to...
Where is he?
Re:Duh, they were *selling* the recordings... (Score:2, Informative)
Just so we're clear, the right to remain silent has always existed. Before Miranda, you didn't have to be told about it. Similarly, today you have the right to refuse to be searched (a right you should always invoke). But the cops don't have to say, "Do you mind if I search you? It's OK to say no. If you say no, I'll just let you go."