Clayton Ramsay's List: Week 3 Law Suites

• 1999: The Recording Industry Association of America sues Napster, the online, peer-to-peer file sharing service that’s allowing millions of computer users to score free, copyright music. The rules are about to change.
• The case began 13 years ago today and dragged on for almost eight years.
• A federal judge and an appeals court in San Francisco both ruled in 2002 that Napster was liable for contributory or vicarious copyright violations, because it was allowing millions of users to download music for free. Napster eventually shut down and went bankrupt, later re-emerging as a legitimate, online music service.
• With a bankrupt Napster unable to cough up big financial damages, the industry turned to the transnational German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.
• Napster financially with loans totaling $85 million
• “Napster has pointed the way for a new direction for music distribution, and we believe it will form the basis of important and exciting new business models for the future of the music industry.”
• the RIAA has filed about 30,000 copyright cases against individuals, most of whom have settled out of court.

5 more annotations...

• TufAmerica says two tracks on West's 2010 disc "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" include a bit from of "Hook and Sling, Part 1" by New Orleans singer-pianist Eddie Bo. TufAmerica says it bought the rights to the 1969 single more than 15 years ago. The sample appears in West's "Who Will Survive in America?" and "Lost in the World."

   
• "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 496,000 units sold and since has been certified platinum.
• The label made headlines in May when it filed a copyright-infringement suit against Beastie Boys and other entities the day before the rap trio's Adam "MCA" Yauch died of cancer.

1 more annotation...