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US Appeals Court Reinstates Digital Recording Suit
 Lester Chambers, The Main Ingredient, the Original Drifters, The Coasters, have won a reversal of Judge Rakoff's decison to dismiss the case in the Federal Appeals Court. In a David vs Goliath like case, recording artists from the past have finally won one.
Rhythm and blues artists who recorded albums dating back to the 1950s won a court battle on Thursday when an appeals court reinstated a copyright suit against major record companies over digitized works sold on the Internet or downloaded from Web sites.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court ruling that had thrown out the case filed by members of The Chambers Brothers, The Coasters, The Original Drifters and The Main Ingredient, who are represented by Feldman and Rifkin, more commonly known as Leflaw.
At issue is whether or not record labels automatically assume rights that did not exist at the time contracts were negotiated. A recent Supreme Court decision in the Tasini vs. NYT affirmed that these rights are not automatically assumed when they are developed, if the "right" did not exist at the time the contract was signed, and that the creator retains those rights to their work. The potential impact on "catalog" artists is tremendous.
The major labels have been licensing music From The Chambers Brothers, The Coasters, The Original Drifters and The Main Ingredient to services that provide digital downloads and streaming. This amounts to the same thing as selling the Brooklyn Bridge, if you are not New York City.
The oral arguments on which the decision was based:
REAL MEDIA:
clip 1 | clip 2| clip 3
MP3:
clip 1 | clip 2 | clip 3
Links:
NEWS.Com
EXCITE
Bloomberg News
LesterChambers.Com
User Comments
(These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)
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milladrive
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Date: February 21, 2002 @ 6:18 PM
very good. :D |
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billhudson
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Date: February 21, 2002 @ 7:08 PM
My hope is Lester will one day see his ray of light and get the respect that has been his all along before its too late.
Still Pickin'
Bill Hudson |
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thumbtack
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Date: February 21, 2002 @ 7:43 PM
It's about time we had a court other than the Supreme Court that understands the issues, and applies the law as it exists today, and takes into account recent decisions. |
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pauldhenry
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Date: February 21, 2002 @ 11:43 PM
I agree.
I think that there needs to be a set of industry specific courts and governing bodies.
I am from Australia but the same thing applies here. Just off the top of my head, I can think of about five governmental or court decisions that have been clearly misguided simply because the people making the decisions had no idea what they were talking about.
Here are my two favs:
1 Senator Alston from Tasmania is really into Christian values for all and censorship to the max. In order to get his support on a tax reform issue, the government here agreed to support his internet censorship bill. At the time, the people making the decision had no idea how such a censorship would be implemented, just that they wanted to do so. Now, ISPs have been lumbered with the burden of blocking content of all websites that our government has deemed "unsuitable". How stupid is that? Internet censorship is just the same as telephone censorship, imagine only being allowed to talk about "suitable" topics on the telephone and the telephone company blocking content of "unsavory" conversations.
2 The government in the UK banned all sales of beef on the bone due to the the "risks" of BSE (mad cow disease). The government clearly was acting out of fear of the unknown. They didn't have the scientific background to sensibly assess the risks of eating beef on the bone and stupidly banned it. Analysis has shown (and this was available before the decision was made) that by banning the sale of beef on the bone a single life will be saved sometime in the next ten years. The same government hasn't made bannisters compulsory on all stairs. Huge numbers of people die falling down stairs. The UK government just got all icky because what they were dealing with was a disease which was something they truly didn't understand and not a physical threat (like a staircase) which they have experience with.
Enough of my rant. Peace. |
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Frawgster
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Date: February 22, 2002 @ 9:09 AM
net censorship...i wouldn't expect that from australia, china, n. korea, iran, etc, yeah, but not australia...that is rather stupid in my eyes. |
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billhudson
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Date: February 22, 2002 @ 5:33 PM
Sorry to hear that Paul..... we have our own right wing people here in Va.,USA that wanted to get the police into all kinds of things. Thank some bodies god that Olile North did't get in. |
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Remye
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Date: February 23, 2002 @ 1:07 AM
I recently had the honor to meet one of the Kingsmen, a band popular in the 60's. He was telling me how the song "Louie Louie" was stolen.. yes I did say stolen. Hope this decision and others makes it easier for these artists to get some compensation for their works. I think it's great that someone finally looked at this from a logic point of view instead of legal. Good job!! |
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thumbtack
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Date: March 25, 2002 @ 8:17 PM
Hey Hudson,
You now my political affiliations and leanings, and I can tell you that my dad, a career Marine, was embarassed and disgusted by Oliver North's actions, deeds and words. He despised the man, and what North assumed was his duty. To undermine the very principles that you have sworn to defend with your life, even in defense of these principles, makes those principles meaningless, and those actions as dispicable as those sworn to destroy those principles at any cost. Fortunately the American public isn't as stupid as the press would have you believe. |
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WickedMix
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Date: March 26, 2002 @ 6:33 PM
Go clear back to when the recording of music started...the slick businessmen sitting in the recording studio and signing people up if they showed the least glimmer of REAL talent.
What they failed to tell the artists, who sometimes had little to no schooling especially if they were the talented R & B artists back at the beginning of the 20th Century, was that they owned all the music the artist would write or perform permanently.
Unfortunatly, those artists were being denied money they earned for their talent and hard work that comes along with making and doing an album or concert. That money went to the man or men who held their contract. Alot of artists literally starved for their art, and sadly, some still do....believe it or not, simply because they aren't represented well enough or are lured into a friendship with the producer/agent. (Case and point, Billy Joel in his early career....but he won his case.)
Enough of my rant for my first posting..I'll duck on outta here and let this soak in.
Until then,
WickedMix |
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