Turtles settle 'Pre-1972' case against Sirius XM

Members of 1960s rock group The Turtles have settled their action against Sirius XM in California over what the band claimed were unpaid royalties for the use of 'Pre 1972' copyrights. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The filing of settlement papers was noted by both The Hollywood Reporter and National Law Journal.

The Turtles

But in related news, New York’s highest court has now heard oral arguments in the case, which was brought by the owner of The Turtles’ 1967 hit song “Happy Together” against Sirius XM Radio. The issue at the heart of the case was  whether the copyright holders of recordings made before 1972 have a common law right to make radio stations and others pay for the use of the recordings (in the US, federal copyright law does not allow for the collection of what is called 'needletime' for post 1972 sound recordings. The lawsuit was filed by Flo & Eddie Inc., the company controlled by two founding members of the band that owns the rights to the recordings. Sirius XM argues it’s not required to pay royalties for recordings made before the federal Copyright Act was changed in 1972 to establish limited protections for recordings. The case was referred to the New York Court of Appeals from the federal appeals court.

In California US District Judge Philip Gutierrez had already ruled that Sirius was liable under state copyright law. Two former band members of The Turtles, working as "Flo & Eddie," were representing a class of thousands of owners of pre-1972 music recordings.

In another interesting development, a new case has arising involving royalties for the use of music by broadcasters (rather than sound recordings) which are payable in the USA and are collected by four collection societies. The two largest PROs representing the performing rights in songs – ASCAP and BMI – are regulated by so called 'consent decrees'.  However, there are also two other smaller performing rights organisations in the US – SESAC and the much newer and privately owned Global Music Rights – which sit outside the consent decrees. And now America’s newest performing rights organisation, Global Music Rights, is being sued by the US radio industry in a bid to force the rights agency to submit to independent arbitration to set the rates broadcasters must pay to play the songs it represents.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/just-before-trial-the-turtles-settle-copyright-suit-against-sirius-xm/

http://www.musiclawupdates.com/?p=5525

PRS for Music and Soundcloud settle - war is over - for now

PRS for Music has written to its membership informing them that it has settled the recently launched legal action against the online music platform, which is widely used by PRS members. The licence covers the use of PRS for Music repertoire from SoundCloud’s launch, and extends to. cover SoundCloud in its plans to introduce subscription and advertising supported platforms across Europe in 2016.  Robert Ashcroft, Chief Executive of PRS for Music said: “On behalf of our members, I am pleased that we have been able to reach a settlement with SoundCloud without extended legal proceedings. This ends over five years of discussions on the licensing requirements for the platform, resulting in a licence under which our members are fairly rewarded for the use of their music." adding "The safe harbours in current legislation still present ambiguity, and obstruct the efficient licensing of online services, but our agreement with SoundCloud is a step in the right direction towards a more level playing field for the online marketplace." The letter from Karen Buse, Executive Director, Membership and International, reads:  I wrote to you earlier this year to explain our action against the online music streaming service SoundCloud. After five years of unsuccessful licensing negotiations, we believed that we had no alternative but to start legal proceedings against them. However, we have since, through intense discussion and negotiation, managed to reach an agreement. The agreement covers the use of repertoire controlled by PRS for Music since the service launched and is an important step in our quest to achieve a level playing field in the licensing of online services so that songwriters, composers and their music publishers can be paid properly for the use of their music online. We believe this agreement to be the best outcome because it sets us on the path towards receiving proper reporting from SoundCloud of their use of your repertoire, enables royalties to be paid and also avoids the cost of legal proceedings. Receiving enough accurate data on music uploaded to the platform remains a challenge but SoundCloud have committed to working with us to improve the quality of their reporting over time. We are conscious of the value that many of you derive from using SoundCloud and are pleased to have reached this landmark agreement. Whilst it is only one step along the road to a fully functioning online market, it is an important one. I would like to thank SoundCloud for breaking with the past and agreeing to work with us; a move which we feel is in not only your, but all rightsholders’, interests. We expect you have questions about what this means for you. To help answer these, we’ve put together some frequently asked questions which can be viewed here.

Yours sincerely,  Karen Buse Executive Director, Membership and International PRS for Music

Grooveshark employees settle labels' action

Four former and one current employee of the controversial streaming music service Grooveshark have signed agreements with the major music companies, led by Universal, who are suing the site and a  number of individuals, agreeing in a consent judgment that they will never again infringe the labels' copyrights, or to work for a company that "systematically infringes" copyrights.  Those individuals who had been targeted for infringement will now be removed from the lawsuit. 

Grooveshark lets users upload music into its libraries, meaning tracks are routinely available on the streaming service without the permission of relevant copyright owners. Because Grooveshark has a takedown system, removing infringing copyright material if made aware of it, the company argues it is operating within the US's DCMA ' safe harbor' provisions, even if taken-down tracks are soon replaced by users.

Grooveshark itself is far from out of the water regarding the copyright infringement case: TorrentFreak has published the relevant court documents, and points out that Grooveshark’s co-founders Sam Tarantino and Josh Greenberg have not yet signed similar agreements and  the label's case has focused on the question of whether the company’s own employees were involved in reuploading tracks taken down through that “strict compliance” policy. Tarantino recently described himself as “literally broke” and said 2012 was “a year of getting punched in the face 10,000 times”. 

For their part, Grooveshark owners Escape Media welcomed the development, telling reporters: "We are pleased that the case between Universal Music and Escape Media has been narrowed and simplified by the removal of some individual defendants from the case upon their stipulation to simply obey the law - something Escape Media does every day through its active licensing of millions of tracks and its strict compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Escape Media Group will continue to deliver innovative new solutions and services that revolutionise music consumption for its growing audience of 30 million plus fans around the world".

Last month UMG secured a judgment in the New York State appellate court that held that the DCMA "safe harbor" defence did NOT apply to pre-1972 sound recordings.

http://musically.com/2013/05/20/grooveshark-copyright-case-moves-on-with-individual-settlements/

Dow Jones settles over use of its news content

Last March, Swedish PR firm Cision announced that it had received "a threat from a major US publisher of a damages claim based on alleged infringement of rights." 

The US publisher in question was Dow Jones, a News Corp company, which famously includes, among the other things, The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, SmartMoney and Barron's. 

Apparently Cision engaged in unauthorised reproduction, distribution, and other misuse of news content published by Dow Jones, including full text articles from The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and Smart Money magazines, report RTTNews and PRNewser. 

Following threat of a lawsuit by Dow Jones, Cision became worried that the "likely potential liability [does this suggest that the firm was aware at the very onset that its behaviour was illicit?] that Cision could incur” as a result of Dow Jones's claim could have a significant impact on Cision's full year earnings.

On account of this, Cision announced its intention to work towards an amicable solution.

This is indeed what happened. 

A few days ago, the Swedish firm announced that it has now achieved a settlement with Dow Jones. 

Panic hits the trading floors as copyright is said
to play a major role also in finance
(Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images)

"The agreement [which was signed by both Cision and its US subsidiary] provides for a confidential settlement amount and restricts Cision from redistributing Dow Jones original content." 
This means that Cision's subscribers will now be re-directed to Dow Jones if they seek to access such content.

Although Cision's performance is increasing, the result for the second quarter of 2012 "will … be affected by the undisclosed settlement amount and other non-recurring costs for implementation plus legal / professional fees. As a consequence, the EBIT for the second quarter is now expected to be around negative SEK 10 million [this amounts to nearly $1.5 million]".

As explained by Dow Jones's general counsel, "Dow Jones aggressively pursues legal action whenever necessary to prevent the unauthorized use of [its] content ... This settlement is another reminder that only paying customers enjoy full access to Dow Jones' highly valuable journalism, and anyone who free rides on [its] content will face serious financial repercussions."

Also Sir Reginald is engaged in speculation as to
what the future may hold for news over the internet

Is this a more general warning to other subjects, such as news aggregators? Indeed, in this respect, the legal scenario is still blurred, as there seem to be no specific legal precedents, at least in the US (on this issue see a thorough IPKat post here). Contrary to this, as regards Europe, it is worth recalling the quite recent decision in Copiepresse (see the IPKat report here), in which the Brussels Court of Appeal upheld a 2007 decision that had blocked Google from publishing links to local newspapers on its online news services. Yet, further clarification, especially from other European courts and – possibly – the Court of Justice – is keenly awaited ...