Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 347 posts

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#241

Post by bogomipz »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #199
bogomipz wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright is exactly how a a musical artist is able to turn their creative output into an asset on which they can make a living from. The copyright is the very thing that allows an artist to sell and license their recorded work. An artists record company buys tor licenses he copyright to the master recording from them. There will always be weasels and bottom feeders that seek to exploit but do you really believe copy…

Copyright has been abused to the point where it is more of a detriment than it is worth. There will always be weasels and bottom feeders that seek to constrain every other individual in the world from extending an artistic work or idea, even generations after his or her death; but do you really believe copyright/patent law has somehow pushed forward innovation?

>"Copyright has been abused to the point where it is more of a detriment than it is worth."

Do you really believe that an artist who makes good money licensing their music for use in TV or movies views copyright as "more of a detriment than its worth"? The only reason that revenue stream is possible is because of copyright and the sync royalties paid out on them.

>"...but do you really believe copyright/patent law has somehow pushed forward innovation?"

That's not the point I was making, my point was that it hasn't prevented musical innovation creatively. Not every instance of copyright usage is automatically detrimental to society.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#242

Post by croshan »

bigbluedots wrote: post #161
basseq wrote: post #65

This article reads like a press release from the plantiff (Wixen) and took a little googling to unwind. Long story short, it sounds like there's disagreement about what type of license Spotify needs. Spotify has previously claimed that streaming is not "reproduction" and is more akin to "performance"... and they (may) have those licenses. What they do not have (in some cases?) is a "mechanical" license[1], which carr…

If a mechanical license was required by Spotify, wouldn't that mean I'd be able to keep copies of the songs forever, even if I stopped paying them?

Maybe. Apparently renting CD's is a copyright infringement.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#243

Post by xab9 »

spike021 wrote: post #102
agrippanux wrote: post #96

I was one of the original engineers on MP3.com. Shortly after our music locker service debuted, we got sued by all the major labels. I spent 4 months writing tools to pull all the discovery data for their lawsuits. When it was apparent our court case was going south, the major music publishers sued us as well (lead by Harry Fox Agency). I spent another 4 months pulling discovery data for those lawsuits. When those co…

If you don't mind me asking, is there any particular reason you didn't just leave? I'd imagine this fits the kind of situation where you aren't obligated to stay.

The billion dollar question. Why didn't you leave.

Couple of weeks ago been talking to a coworker and said him that _sometimes_ people end up in uncomfortable situations. Family, children, debt, divorce, medical, elderly parents and so on - he said, that's not possible, because people _should_ plan their lives.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#244

Post by dragonwriter »

333c wrote: post #240
rblatz wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Before streaming when someone bought a CD they bought just that copy you weren't permitted to make a copy of that CD at any time. I guess it depends on what you mean by permitted, was I legally allowed to copy the CD? Yes, was I also able to pick my favorite tracks and make a custom playlist CD? Also yes. You were also free to rip it to your computer and put it on your iPod. It's called Fair Use and since there was…

> Also yes. You were also free to rip it to your computer and put it on your iPod. It's called Fair Use That's not how Fair Use works. Fair Use is about making transformative works like "commentary, search engines, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship" (according to Wikipedia). Not copying entire songs for your personal use.

> That's not how Fair Use works. Fair Use is about making transformative works

Fair Use covers more than transformative works. See, notably, Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, 455 (1984).

Though while audio ripping of the type descrived could have been considered general fair use much like space shifting was in Sony, it actually was covered under a separate statutory allowance to avoid ambiguity, as the Audio Home Recording Act; this was found to cover ripping mp3s specifically in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia, 180 F.3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999), which specifically cited Sony’s Fair Use result.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#245

Post by buster »

nemothekid wrote: post #152
bogomipz wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"we got sued by every 2 bit operation that owned a partial percentage of the country-based rights to a song" Were these these each each country's performing rights societies then? I am confused on why these are partial percentages. I would have though that they would be 100% owned in each country. Does the performing right society divide up 1 pie amongst all its affiliates in each of the countries. Do you have any i…

I worked on a similar system for various music rights holders. It could be a record label, recording studio or even a song writer that holds a partial percentage of the proceeds from a composition, performance, or recording, and the actual percentage owned could vary by country. So in Norway, Sony, Mom&Pop Music and your uncle Joe could hold various rights on a song, and in Sweden hold entirely different rights. Base…

But i think that's what the collecting societies of each country are for. Not every artist/composer is a member of one though, so that's probably where those come from.

What can happen is, that a rights holders music is played in another country so that this countries collecting society has to transfer the money to the respective collecting society in his country. The collecting society then splits up the money for that song among all rights holders (labels, composers, songwriters, etc.). That's where small percentages and sub-cent calculations come from.

At least that's how it works in germany. The GEMA (german collecting society for composers and such) collects money for songs being played in germany. The rights holder may not be a member of the GEMA and as such the money will be transfered to the collecting society of the member. At least that's my understanding.

See https://www.gema.de/en/musikurheber/become-a-member/informat... for distribution on authors/composers/publishers.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#246

Post by thirdsun »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #205
emodendroket wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem outlandish to claim there's a distinction between a broadcast, where you might hear a song at a particular time of day, and having an on-demand copy of a song at any time. The former scenario could see you, for instance, buying a CD because you liked a song you heard on the radio; that is probably not as likely with Spotify.

There is, but that distinction does not exist with internet distribution. It's arbitrarily enforced via DRM (which doesn't really work ), which is in turn enforced by Section 1201 of the DMCA. > The former scenario could see you, for instance, buying a CD because you liked a song you heard on the radio; that is probably not as likely with Spotify. That depends on whether you want to support the record label/artist, a…

I can't seem to follow your argument. If you want DRM-free, lossless, digital music to download and own you can buy it from countless shops - from iTunes (well, not lossless) to platforms like Bandcamp to niche stores like Boomkat.

I think the music industry, in contrast to its Hollywood sibling, has very much succeeded in offering DRM-free content from a wide range of stores, shops and platforms. Physical media like CDs aren't relevant to this development.

Of course a subscription-based streaming service like Spotify can't operate without DRM. It's the whole point of the service: If you stop being a subscriber you lose access to the content.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#247

Post by everdev »

sandworm101 wrote: post #223
everdev wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is too bad there can't be simpler legal ways to compensate someone for distributing their works. Spotify has allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes.

>> Spotify has allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes. Napster allowed me to find and enjoy so much amazing music that I wouldn't have had the budget to pay for via iTunes.

I pay for Spotify though

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#248

Post by easytiger »

basseq wrote: post #65

This article reads like a press release from the plantiff (Wixen) and took a little googling to unwind. Long story short, it sounds like there's disagreement about what type of license Spotify needs. Spotify has previously claimed that streaming is not "reproduction" and is more akin to "performance"... and they (may) have those licenses. What they do not have (in some cases?) is a "mechanical" license[1], which carr…

I wonder how this works as they've been available on Spotify for as long as I can recall. I assume they will have to show they requested discussion on the licensing long before taking extraordinary measures such as this.

Wixen allegedly represent Neil Young who is founder of a now defunct (I believe) digital music distribution service called Pono^ focused around lossless encoding.

To quote Neil himself (as CEO) when he had to shut the service down by Apple acquiring their store partner=. he said:

    I had to put up with lots of criticism for the high cost of music 
    delivered in the way all music should be provided, at full 
    resolution and not hollowed out. I had no control over the pricing, 
    but I was the one that felt the criticism, because I was the face 
    of it. And I pretty much agreed with the criticism. Music should 
    not be priced this way.
Basically he was squeezed by licensers to pay more because he had a higher fidelity product:

    Record companies believe they should charge a premium for high res 
    recordings and conversely, I believe all music should cost the 
    same, regardless of the technology used.
I think they just wanted him to not cloud much much bigger deals and gave him the cold shoulder.

Young is one of the most productive workers in the history of music and clearly a dedicated, business minded chap. I'd have a hard time believing he isn't involved in this in some way or perhaps the death of their client Tom Petty has liberated their ability to pursue anti consumer legal avenues for short term revenue generation.

^ https://www.ponomusic.com/

= http://www.noise11.com/news/r-i-p-pono-neil-young-kills-off-...

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#249

Post by eric-hu »

alsetmusic wrote: post #182
DrJokepu wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube is different though because as soon as you have visuals accompanying the audio you are in sync rights territory which is the kind of royalty that e.g. television broadcasters pay. Same goes for Twitch.

> YouTube is different though because as soon as you have visuals accompanying the audio you are in sync rights territory which is the kind of royalty that e.g. television broadcasters pay. Same goes for Twitch. There are endless uploads to YouTube with a static title slide accompanied by a popular song. I see them constantly when searching for genuine music videos from my adolescence. Infringement seems pretty clear…

Google provides a mechanism for copyright owners to claim those videos and either get advertising rights to them or remove them.

Re: Spotify hit with $1.6B copyright lawsuit

#250

Post by Mindwipe »

buster wrote: post #245
nemothekid wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on a similar system for various music rights holders. It could be a record label, recording studio or even a song writer that holds a partial percentage of the proceeds from a composition, performance, or recording, and the actual percentage owned could vary by country. So in Norway, Sony, Mom&Pop Music and your uncle Joe could hold various rights on a song, and in Sweden hold entirely different rights. Base…

But i think that's what the collecting societies of each country are for. Not every artist/composer is a member of one though, so that's probably where those come from. What can happen is, that a rights holders music is played in another country so that this countries collecting society has to transfer the money to the respective collecting society in his country. The collecting society then splits up the money for t…

You can clear some rights through GEMA, but certainly not all.
Post reply on HN