If someone was to coin the briefest metaphor to describe the height of modern corporate greed, ‘music industry’ would fit the bill well. This is manifest in a recent verdict in which a lyrics site named LiveUniverse has been fined $6.6 million for posting lyrics of songs on its website.
Naturally, the case borders on the absurd but the litigation procedures weigh in favor of the music industry, not a surprise given the huge checks going from the music industry big wigs to the lobbies in Washington D.C.
The original case against LiveUniverse was launched a few years ago. It posted lyrics of a number of songs on its website which apparently made certain publishers realize that this was a copyrights infringement.
The case dragged on for quite a while and the CEO of LiveUniverse, Brad Greenspan, didn’t help things because of his utterly non-serious behavior towards the whole case. He failed to appear on a number of occasions, didn’t respond to the court’s injunctions against his company and finally, had a number of issues even with the law firms representing him in the court.
The publishers who had lodged the case were originally demanding $100,000 per song from LiveUniverse but the court, in its verdict, has ruled that LiveUniverse need to cough up $12,500 per song. The total amount to be paid is $6.6 million for the lyrics of 528 songs that were posted on the site.
Whereas Greenspan himself may not deserve a whole lot of sympathy due to his attitude, the fact remains that the music industry in the U.S. seems to be stooping to new lows on the pretext of copyrights protection, which is fast becoming just another term to blackmail people into paying more money.
Courtesy: Tech Dirt
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