Ruling in suit a setback for record industry

[elektro80]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/11/BUGS896DVE1.DTL&type=business

N.Y. judge finds unconstitutional law against sale of bootleg tapes
Ruling in suit against Midnight Records a setback for record industry

Lou Dolinar, Newsday
Monday, October 11, 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 New York ruled last week, 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 in
Manhattan.

At issue was a federal law that criminalizes the sale of bootleg recordings
of live performances. U.S. District Court 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 five years. Martignon said that he's still
selling vintage recordings legally at his Web site, midnightrecords.com, 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," 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.

[mosc]

Barf... What does this mean? When you play live you don't own the rights to your performance unless you record it yourself and copyright it?

[elektro80]

Yeah, I guess so..

Uncool!