July 3, 2009
Group Sues AT&T Over Ringtones Heard In Public
Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song-and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal track-but the music industry is trying to make them even more profitable by arguing that someone should pay even more when the 30-second snippet plays in public. The Washington Post reports.
IDG News Service reports (via MacWorld) that AT&T, in particular, has been sued by ASCAP, asserting that ringtones qualify "as a public performance under the Copyright Act." The group wants mobile operators to pay royalties, not individual consumers.
The fight is playing out in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In the operator's defense the Electronic Frontier Foundation, joined by the CDT, argued that copyright law exempts performances that are conducted without a commercial purpose, such as ringtones in a restaurant.
Read Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song-and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal track-but the music industry is trying to make them even more profitable by arguing that someone should pay even more when the 30-second snippet plays in public.
Read full article.
Related:
-- ASCAP and Copyright Doublespeak
-- ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings
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