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Comments: 276 +- Your Rights Online: Copyright Troubles For Sony on Tuesday September 08, @04:19AM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday September 08, @04:19AM
from the billion-here-billion-there dept.
from the billion-here-billion-there dept.
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sony
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court
ljaszcza writes "Daily Tech brings us a story about Sony's run-in with the Mexican police. (Billboard picked up the story as well.) It seems that they raided Sony's offices and seized 6,397 music CDs after a protest from the artist, Alejandro Fernandez. Fernandez had signed a seven-album deal with Sony Music; he completed that commitment and then left for Universal. During the time with Sony, he recorded other songs that did not make it into the agreed-upon seven albums. Sony Music took it upon themselves to collect that material and release it as an eighth album. Fernandez claims that he fulfilled his contract with Sony, and residual material belongs to him. Hmm. Precedent from the Jammie Thomas infringement and distribution case gives us $80K per song. Sony vs. Joel Tenenbaum gives $22.5K per song. So 6,397 CDs at an average of 8 songs/CD is 51,176 infringing songs, with (IMHO) intent to distribute. The damages to Fernandez should be $1,151,460,000 using the Tenenbaum precedent or $4,094,080,000 using the Thomas precedent. Seems very straightforward to me."
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If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If only... (Score:5, Informative)
Why does the summary talk about "Precedent from the Jammie Thomas" when this case is in Mexico, while Jammie Thomas was in USA? Precedent's in USA aren't precedents everywhere (how many times this shit has to be told to americans?) and most of other countries actually have sane amount of compensations in copyright infringement cases, unlike USA.
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Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA sister organizations around the world actually point to USA and screams "Be more like them!" when trying to roughshod legislation through... so it only seems fair.
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Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA sister organizations around the world actually point to USA and screams "Be more like them!"
They can scream all they like they are still only a lobby group and as yet don't have the power to pass legislation in there home countries so the GP is right in pointing out the difference between US law and that in other countries. Suffice to say this may change in due course when Corporatism becomes so embedded globally that industry pressure groups are the dudes signing off on legislation . . . ho hum . . .
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Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever.
We all know that Sony will wiggle out of it. Just the same as when the U.S. sued the record-companies for "forming an illegal cartel" and price-fixing CDs from 1990 onward. Although the U.S. could have won that case, the record companies negotiated a deal where they simply returned ~$20 to everyone who asked for a refund. I bet Sony will also weasel a way such that it costs them virtually nothing.
Corporations have power to make the government decide in their favor. I'm about to drive to JCPenney and demand to know "why did I never receive the 50 dollar mail-in rebate promised when I bought this appliance?" I already know the answer I will receive is "too bad, there's nothing we can do about it," and I'll never see that 50 dollars. Technically that's called illegal advertising of the price (they advertise 150 in the newspaper but I paid 200) and a criminal offense.
In reality a call to the California AG won't get me anywhere because the AG is bought-and-paid-for by the corporate dollars who put him in office. JCPenney, Sony, et cetera get away with this stuff because THEY own the governments of New York, United States, Mexico, et cetera.
Sony will weasel its way out just like it always does.
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Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
You need a system like ours. Here, we pay for political ads with tax money. While this may seem a bit idiotic (hey, pay to get pestered with ads?), the alternative is politicians selling out to corporations for ad money.
That, in turn, is tightly regulated here and mostly outright illegal with steep fines and a certain ejection from whatever seat you got elected into.
Personally, I prefer to buy my politicians myself instead of privatizing that.
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Re:If only... (Score:4, Interesting)
That, of course, makes it quite easy for the parties in power to keep out any new comers.
Not that the US system makes starting a new party feasible. They just use different techniques.
It *might* be a trade-off worth making. But lots of parties and Condorcet or Instant-Runoff voting would seem to be a better solution. Also make lying in a campaign speech a criminal offense. (That one's tricky, though. It could so easily be misused. Maybe it isn't worth the danger.)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If only... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should I loan some retailer $50 of my money, at 0% interest, and then have to jump through hoops to get it back (including sending original copies of documents (receipt) that if *they* lose or claim they never got, then I no longer have the original to prove I have a valid claim)? If the goddamn price is $150, then you accept my $150, and *you* (retailer) fark around getting the other $50 from the manufacturer. If I have to give you $200 to get it out of the store, then as far as I'm concerned, the price is $200.
So "$175" (out the door, no hoop-jumping) is a better price than"$150 ('after $50 rebate')"
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Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would really like to see what Sony would tell the Mexican court they feel copyright infringement should be worth. I doubt it will ever get that far though.
I'm sure Sony's view on infringement damages is wildy different when they are the defendants.
Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that the police raided Sony is enough to convince me that this will not be like the USA. At least Mexico gives a shit about their artists as individuals. The suit wasn't be a Mexican RIAA but by the artist himself.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Sony corp. made an official public statement by about what they feel a stolen song is worth"
No, they never did that. They weasel out of such a statement. They just point out how much the legislation allows them. If they made such a statement the damange could be substantiated and would be more realistic ( like 6 dollar per number instead of a value thousends times higher)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The answer to your question is very simple:
The USA is insisting that other nations, to continue to trade with the USA, must comply with US copyright and IP laws.
As a Canadian, we see this tactic engaged regularly.
By logical extension, if other nations ( especially ones in the North American Free Trade Association, AKA "NAFTA")
are to be compliant, then the penalties for breach and theft need to be similar.
Hence the comparisons to the cases where specific fees per song were calculated.
I believe the historic t
Re:If only... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see US law applied in the USA.
-jcr
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Re:If only... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, get off the fence, will you? How do you really feel?
-jcr
Some counterpoints (Score:5, Informative)
One point regarding Jammie Thomas. She actually had 2500 illegally obtained tracks on her PC, but was only prosecuted for a handful of them so the $K22.5 I often see bandied around isn't strictly accurate.
Sony are clearly in the wrong here however. Unless the contracts says music created during those recording sessions, not the songs that reached the final albums. As we haven't seen the contracts I wouldn't like to speculate.
(Just being the Devil's Advocate, guys.)
Re:Some counterpoints (Score:4, Insightful)
Another point on the same topic. What the fuck does American precedent have to do with Mexico?
Parent
Re:Some counterpoints (Score:5, Funny)
Hush you! Quit raining on our parade!
Parent
Re:Some counterpoints (Score:4, Insightful)
If any Cd's were to be sold in the US, they are culpable here in the US.
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Icorrect advocacy (Score:3, Informative)
She wasn't CHARGED with those other files.
If they were to be included in a further lawsuit (which requires the COPYRIGHT HOLDER to start a case, hence not included in this lawsuit), then 80k per track could be put forward as equitable under case law.
So your spouting is farcical.
Re:Some counterpoints (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Some counterpoints (Score:4, Informative)
Well, it doesn't actually matter that they're employees. Under US law (which we're apparently pretending applies in Mexico), any Work For Hire is generally considered the property of the party that did the hiring. The definition of a Work for Hire from the Copyright Act:
Works Made for Hire. -- (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. (17 U.S.C. sec 101)
Of course it's an open question whether their contract said that their work was a work for hire, but it seems likely to me. This is generally how labels work. (That's why the label sues you for infringement, not the artist.)
Parent
No, wrong-o (Score:3, Interesting)
Musical recordings, at least up to now, haven't been accepted as belonging to the enumerated list of types of works which are automatically works for hire if produced for compensation.
In most cases the artist(s) assign their copyrights to the labels, and this means that soon, starting around 2013, there will be an interesting battle in the Federal courts whether or not the artists can terminate these assignments as stipulated in the 1976 Copyright Act [usc.edu].
Re:Some counterpoints (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Some counterpoints (Score:5, Interesting)
Most record contracts include a clause that you're studio time is paid for out of the money made from the albums, so Sony didn't provide facilities, they hired the facilities to the artist.
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Re:Some counterpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
Did Sony provide facilities for recording the disputed songs? Still, what's in the contract is binding...
No. Sony simply provides the artist a loan -- Sony pays all the cost of producing the album up front, but all of the costs must be recouped through album sales before the artist sees any income. Even after that, Sony will still take the vast majority of the profits (usually around 80% if you are lucky), which is why I have an aneurysm every time I hear the RIAA say they are doing something "for the artists".
As ownership of the tracks -- it is all about what is in the contract. I have a sneaking suspicion that Sony lawyers have some sort of loophole written into the contract to protect them from liability in this matter, being the bottom-feeding vermin that they are.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Once again this persistent MYTH that the labels actually provide
the artists with anything more than what amounts to a big bank
loan rears it's ugly head. Artists pay for EVERYTHING. What puny
royalties they do get when the work sells has to be used to pay
back any production costs.
This is how a multi-platinum recording can leave the band in debt to the label.
So how many cd's do we need to sell (Score:5, Funny)
Precedent from Jammie Thomas? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Precedent from Jammie Thomas? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Sweden. United States. Not the same thi... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It happened in Mexico, but does it mean they can't be sued in the US? Although not directly related, I immediately remembered this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hew_Raymond_Griffiths [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Individual. Corporation. Not the same thing.
True. Multiply the figures by a factor of between 2 and 10 to match the usual ratio of "individual fine" and "company fine" for violations of civil laws. Oh look, they're still buggered. Happy days! :)
As another commenter pointed out, whatever precedent they set by weaselling out of this charge will just make it easier for the next person defending themselves against copyright infringement charges in Mexico or wherever this gets fought out. Ah, they'll probably just settle though, which would be the saf
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We already did that sort of thing once.
That's where the bulk of the Western United States comes from.
"You woldn't steal a CD" (Score:5, Funny)
Would you, Sony?
Screw the lottery (Score:4, Funny)
The chances of being able to sue somebody over copyright infringement in the recording industry are a heck of a lot better than playing the lottery.
It's like winning 1000 lotteries at the same time! Screw the lottery!
Time for a career change? I can't sing or dance particularly well, but people can take lessons for that kind of thing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
51576? (Score:3, Insightful)
at an average of 8 songs/CD is 51,176 infringing songs,
Sorry, but you fail. The big companies may be evil, but they aren't stupid. You may only count the 8 songs once. Scratch that. As those song were distributed as one unit, so you can make a good argument for a total count of 1 infringement.
The reason for the $150,000 number in the law was exactly because it was aimed against large scale infringement like the one we are talking about here, but that has just made it even more effective (cruel and unjust) against small scale distributed infringment.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The law is reasonable. Applying it to non-commercial infringement isn't.
Re:51576? (Score:5, Insightful)
Counting the 8 songs as 8 units seems appropriate, since that is the precedent from other file sharing cases. Jammie Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum did not get to argue that their shared songs should be counted as a smaller number of albums.
Which leaves us with $80K per song (Thomas) times 8 or $22.5K per song (Tenenbaum) times 8. That is $640K or $180K. Looks like appropriate damages because this is large scale infringement as you wrote. In the Thomas and Tenenbaum cases I consider it excessive.
This said, Mexican law counts here and the sums may be much lower. Unless Sony also distributed that CD in the US as well, then Fernandez might want to sue in the US too ;-)
Parent
Re:51576? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do you think MediaSentry wanted the connection history from ISPs so they could figure out how many potential copies were made.
Parent
Re:51576? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a more important matter in here. This isn't about unauthorized material reproduction, but unauthorized material reproduction with the INTENT of making a profit.
Sony's screwed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
But, Sony haven't actually distributed the music. They have merely burnt 6,000 backup copies. That's probably how they will get away with it.
His contract may still include these works (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have a contract to produce a certain number of albums, but you also sign over ownership of your works during the contract, then the songs you produce during your contract even if they don't make it to an album belong to Sony (or whoever).
IANAL and it depends on the fine print, but there's a good chance this guy is boned.
Punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be nice if the group involved in drafting ACTA were made aware of this. After all, I'm sure Sony has been involved in "suggesting" elements of the ACTA proposal so I'm sure any punishments they've suggested they would be comfortable with paying...
Re:Corruption is good when it works in our favor (Score:4, Insightful)
Where did you get the idea that the Mexican Police was bribed?
There is nothing about that in TFA.
Besides, raids on suspected copyright infringers are nothing new. There have been similar raids on The Pirate Bay, and Sony certainly operates on a comparable scale. That is not some school kid who shares a few albums on his computer.
If the allegations are true, this is a case of commercial copyright infringement. A rather big fish, certainly bigger than Tenenbaum or Thomas.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, raids on suspected copyright infringers are nothing new. There have been similar raids on The Pirate Bay, and Sony certainly operates on a comparable scale. That is not some school kid who shares a few albums on his computer.
Things like that happen everywhere [google.hu]. Unfortunately Google Translate fails horribly (for example, the Hungarian word "lett" means both Latvian and was/became).
Re:Listed as "Humor?" (Score:4, Insightful)
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