Label Sues Spotify Because Some Of Its Users Create Playlists Of Authorized Music In The Same Order It Did
from the wait,-really? dept
Another day, another wacky copyright lawsuit. Ministry of Sound, the well-known nightclub/record label in London that puts together various compilations of dance music is suing Spotify, claiming copyright infringement in a case that will fascinate copyright fanatics. This one goes a few layers deep, so stick with it: MoS is not suing because the music on Spotify is unauthorized. Nor is it suing because of anything that Spotify itself did. Rather, it's suing because some users of Spotify have put together and published "playlists" (a feature found on pretty much any music playing software ever) that mimic some of the compilations that MoS has released. Again, the music itself is all legally authorized and licensed to be on Spotify. The complaint from MoS is merely that some Spotify users have put them together in the same order. And this is somehow an outrage and copyright infringement:Chief executive Lohan Presencer claims that his company has been asking Spotify to remove the playlists – some of which include "Ministry of Sound" in their titles – since 2012While US law does cover some very loose copyright protection for "compilations," UK law may be worse. As we covered a few years ago, there was a ridiculous case in the UK, in which a court argued that putting together a list of facts could create a copyright. The case involved football schedules, and the court ridiculously said:
"It's been incredibly frustrating: we think it's been very clear what we're arguing, but there has been a brick wall from Spotify," said Presencer.
"The process of preparing fixture lists involves very significant labor and skill in satisfying the multitude of often competing requirements of those involved," Judge Christopher Floyd said. "(It is) not mere sweat of the brow, by which I mean the application of rigid criteria to the processing of data. The quality of the solution depends in part on the skill of those involved."It seems quite likely, that MoS is relying on this kind of language to make its argument, though I'd argue that all this case does is highlight just how ridiculous that original ruling is. Yes, there can be creativity involved in putting together a playlist, but that doesn't mean it should receive a copyright.
And then there's the entirely separate issue of secondary liability. Why should Spotify be liable for how its users group their songs together? Should Spotify actually be forced to police users and stop them from putting various combinations of songs together in a particular order? Does anyone actually think that's a useful purpose for copyright?
Once again, we see what copyright is turned into: a tool for control and stopping what most people think is basic human activity. Putting together authorized, legal songs in a particular order? How could anyone think that should be infringing?
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Filed Under: compilations, copyright, playslists, secondary liability, uk
Companies: ministry of sound, spotify
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anomaly! streisand effect! minions! ect... happy now? :)
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Re: "S. T. Stone I can’t wait to see OOTB defend this."
Mike supports copyright TOO! So why aren't you pirates attacking him at every turn? HMM?
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Re: Re: "S. T. Stone I can’t wait to see OOTB defend this."
a paragraph about how words placed in a particular order constitute the basis of a print copyright and how this is no different. That the actual order of the words is really more important than the words themselves. And an additional bit about how Google search results are copyrightable as well. and they will come get you if your search engine comes up with the same result order so we have to be ever vigilant regarding Google...yada yada...
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Not just a good idea, it's the law...
Sure it is. It just gets commonly ignored like you are trying to ignore it right now.
A number of aspects of the US legal system tend to get regularly glossed over by people that find them inconvenient. This includes the idea that the US Constitution limits what the federal government is allowed to do and does not define (or limit) what an individual is allowed to do.
The legal language about copyright is very clear even if most people try to ignore it.
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Re: Not just a good idea, it's the law...
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Re: Not just a good idea, it's the law...
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Re: Not just a good idea, it's the law...
The legal language might be clear, but your retort isn't.
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The arrangement of facts can be copyrightable if it is novel, but I don't think there's actually much room for the requisite creativity in a CD tracklist.
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You can still assert copyright that isn't registered, but yeah, you have to prove more and pay for the lawyer out of the damages awarded.
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1. it doesn't have anything to do with the lists.
2. I was just correcting the other poster
This list is (c) 2013, by JackN, All rights reserved.
(see)
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This says something about moral rights in the US. Namely, they are not recognized. There's also the Feist v. Rural decision (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural), where obvious compilations of fact were found to not be subject to copyright.
And then there's how the plain language of the Constitution has been interpreted (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause):The Copyright Clause is the only clause granting power to Congress for which the means to accomplish its stated purpose are specifically provided. The exact limitations of this clause have been defined through a number of United States Supreme Court cases interpreting the text. For example, the Court has determined that because the purpose of the clause is to stimulate development of the works it protects, its application cannot result in inhibiting such progress.
Of those, those are just easy citations. I -got- all this from attending IP Survey and Copyright classes in law school.
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2. Moral rights befalls the creater even if the economic rights are sold/leased. The rights have to do with preserving the integrity of the work from alteration, distortion, or mutilation.
Since playlists with the same content as their albums is not truely a rework, the abuse should fall under the traditional copyright. Only moral claims that could be reasonable made here seems to be on wrongful attributions, but that does not seem to be their claim here.
The relevant differences between US and UK in terms of copyright, has to do with precedence. In this case it seems MoS has a weak stand on some bad precedence in UK. Precedence is not universal. Every country has its own precedence even with equal formulations in laws.
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Part of the problem
They do not seem to grasp the idea that someone could let creators publish without any vetting. Hence in their minds Spotify, Google etc. are responsible for what they allow on their sites; because they should be vetting everything.
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Shit
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Re: Shit
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You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
Mike is a professional troll: he has no visible purpose other than to gin up controversy to draw eyeballs.
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Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
Seriously? Is it backwards day?
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Re: Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
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Re: Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
No, Mike isn't backwards: he's SIDEWAYS! What he does here is exactly as I say: just puts this out with some pejoratives and questions, but NO actual statements. I'm not the only one who's tried to PRY out a position from him. You're only assuming he's a pirate too, though he denies that and says he supports copyright, so logically, you must all think that he's lying!
So what is Mike's position on copyright? ... Try to guess from this!
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130121/14473121743/global-hackathons-prepared-to-carry-for ward-work-aaron-swartz.shtml#c377
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Re: Re: Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
Im not interested in your fallacies.
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Re: Re: Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
Blue, now you are being an idiot and misconstruing what Mike has said.
I don't believe Mike has ever stated that he "supports copyright" at all. He has stated that he believes creators should be compensated in some fashion. Period.
But he has also stated many times that he doesn't believe that our current copyright system is the best way or even a good way to do that. Especially with all the collateral damage it inflicts on even more important stuff, like Free Speech and privacy.
Just because you have a black and white view of copyright, doesn't mean the rest of us can't see all the shades of gray.
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Re: Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
Maybe OOTB is Bizarro Mike?
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However, Mike probably tolerates OOTB's existence because it does lead to comments/views/ad revenue.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
I highly doubt that.
Check out this recent comment of Mike's to Blue, it almost seemed to drip with disdain.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070215/002923/saying-you-cant-compete-with-free-is-s aying-you-cant-compete-period.shtml#c140046
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But Blue is so crazy that he presents nothing that approaches controversy, so he'd be a terrible way of generating traffic.
Nobody comes to this site because of Blue's comments. They come in spite of them.
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Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
Next at 11: The weather man only talks about the weather! Sinister!
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Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
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Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
I do believe you mean "what copyright IS".
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Re: You need to invent a word for "what copyright is turned into"!
Hey OOTB, second post on this and you still come up empty. Care to try again?
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If they allow it, I would like to hear the court do some math on random ordering of these playlists. The question is how alike a playlist needs to be to infringe and how exclusion of tracks or inclusion of other tracks influence the infringement.
The relevance of this ruling may be significant since playlists are already being sold today in a significant manner. If MoS wins, making playlists is going to explode into a business the former record companies will be good at monetizing. Unfortunately the chance of top40-radio playlists getting the same songs on them seems far too high given how only few singles make the lists and stay long enough for people to remember them. It is the same or worse for the more specialized genres. Copyright on any type of playlist would be extremely unfortunate given the math of "random" here being rigged.
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Skills are copyrightable?
Last I checked, I don't get to copyright every nail I skillfully hammer into my house. Does a mechanic get to copyright a skillfully repaired vehicle?
I thought copyright was about creative arts, not skillful work.
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Re: Skills are copyrightable?
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Copyright isn't about creative arts, it is about granting a monopoly on culture.
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such madness had led me to a conclusion
apparently the western copyright system is one nightmarish hp lovecraft novel.
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Re: such madness had led me to a conclusion
I am sorry but you are going to have to license that simile.
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Re: Re: such madness had led me to a conclusion
and apparently the entertainment industry is cthulhu.
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In an Innsmouth hentai RPF.
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Re: such madness had led me to a conclusion
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fixed
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he is here for show not substance.
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But, what's being lost here? Are they seriously claiming that people would pay full price for one of their albums if Spotify wouldn't allow them to create that playlist? That's nearly ootb level delusion right there.
They could have a claim on the trademark angle, but that's honestly just fans saying "I want to listen to the MoS playlist that's not officially available on Spotify". As ever, there's an easy fix for that, even if it won't pay for someone's yacht...
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Compilations are eligible for copyright here, if they satisfy the usual requirements for a copyright. In this case, the main question would be one of creativity: does the selection of tracks and their arrangement involve at least a modicum of creativity?
They may or may not, depending on the particular facts at issue. E.g. alphabetical or chronological arrangement is not creative, and neither is having tracks next to each other when they were meant to be on the original album, such as how some Beatles or Pink Floyd tracks are meant to blend together. But having tracks in an order that embodies themes or counterpoints chosen by the compiler likely would be creative.
There are bigger problems with copyright, I don't think this merits much concern.
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Plus it is definitely something to be concerned about. Labels are already foaming at the mouth about how Spotify and similar services aren't paying purchase royalties for their rentals. They're constantly trying to force them to pay undustainable and unjustifiable fees. This is just another backhanded way of screwing perfectly legal services through pure greed, from a label without the foresight to offer the playlists themselves. If they're allowed to do this, these legal services get screwed out of existence, a poor result for consumers and labels alike.
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Again, from a US perspective, sweat of the brow is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if it takes a lot of effort to create, independently create, or reproduce a work, or if it takes no effort at all. The pertinent question is the creativity that goes into making it. (And mere reproduction doesn't involve creativity anyway, so why did you even mention it?)
It's already entirely possible, and commonplace to create anthologies of literature which are copyrightable compilations. Likewise, it's possible to create copyrightable compilations of facts, such as a list of what are in your opinion the 100 best chinese restaurants in the country.
What makes playlists special that they cannot possibly be creative works?
This is just another backhanded way of screwing perfectly legal services
Meh. It's the usual secondary liability issue so far as the service provider is concerned. Maybe with a little more information, depending on whether they had copies of the compilations at issue or not.
Besides -- now it gives people both a reason to be upset with MoS and a tool to use against them: Anyone can create a playlist, so create a lot of them first, make sure that MoS is actually or likely aware of them so that they cannot claim independent creation, and then sue MoS for infringement. After all, you don't need a license for the music or sound recordings just to create a playlist. So if you don't want to get screwed, screw them back.
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You misunderstand my point. I'm sure that it's perfectly legal from a US point of view, but that wasn't what I was questioning.
My point is, MoS are a rather commercially minded label, and most of their compilations are collections of club classics or current club floor fillers. So, the tracks in question usually don't consist of a lot of original ideas. It would therefore be perfectly possible for me to feed a list of top club tracks into a random number generator and get the same list in the same order. No creativity required, and the list can easily be generated well before MoS even look at trying.
Creativity can be protected, as could a mix CD or something requiring more work. In my book, a list of tunes in the order DEBCA instead of ABCDE doesn't deserve protection because it can be arrived at without any creativity at all before an MoS employee even starts their work.
"Meh. It's the usual secondary liability issue so far as the service provider is concerned."
The exact problem. Secondary liability because a user got the DECBA order instead of ABCDE? What a load of crap.
"Anyone can create a playlist, so create a lot of them first, make sure that MoS is actually or likely aware of them so that they cannot claim independent creation, and then sue MoS for infringement."
This is perfectly possible, and frankly I'd hope they did this to point out how moronic the whole exercise is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for creativity and even compilers getting money for their work where appropriate. But, they don't deserve protection for merely listing things in a specific order.
It's just another indication of how idiotic copyright has become and how trivial it is to break it. I do hope that they get mired in legal battles that cost them more than they could possibly gain, however. The first thought is this - OK, sharing playlists can be considered copyright infringement, but private playlists or just happening to play the tracks in the same order? Same result, fuck all they can do about it, and I hope they kill themselves trying if they're that stupid.
Whatever the letter of the law, they stand to gain nothing by fighting this.
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Recipes
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EU database directive does not (normally) cover compilations on CDs
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DISRUPTIVE STARTUPS
It means : DESTROY OLD MARKETS - BUILD NEW ONES - EARN 1000X MORE.
Spotify is a playlist genius project, it obviously is disruptive for playlist makers and dj. ITs obvious.
There is no law to kill disruptive startups.
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Here's my two theoreticals:
Collage artists and the like vs playlists: where do you draw the copyright line for assembling existing materials into a creative whole? Why is one a copyrightable assemblage and the other not?
Playlists vs very similar playlists: Could I get around this by inserting Prince's "Segue" (four seconds of silence) into a playlist? If not, where do you draw the line for infringing similarity?
Looking at those, I think I'll stick with playlists being copyrightable but only if identical. And then tell MoS that they're being asses.
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Really?!
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