MIDI lawsuits

[860tombarry]

Whats the latest on all these lawsuits filed by comercial midi sites against people for creating their own files.

[thingyy]

More info please.

[midimart]

Don't know anything about this one ----- Please elaborate...!

[Steptoe]

I searched the net and found nothing pertaining to this topic!

[860tombarry]

www.discoverynet.com/~ajsnead/sitenote/trouble_2.html
I was refering to this article I came across. Sorry about the wording in the question, I guess "all these law suits" is a bit to much.

[JazzCat]

"All these lawsuits" in my opinion, was perfect wording, however it isn't companies suing individuals for creating their own files, it was one sequencing company suing webmasters for having files he sequenced on their sites.

Go here to see an incomplete, partial list of the many people who Stephen Kern of Trycho Music launced lawsuits against:

members.tripod.com/~wewantmidi/lawsuits/links.html

As far as I know one of the 43 + lawsuits Kern launched That was against Phil Woods of MIDI Hits and was filed in in 1994 and in 2003 it was still dragging on. Details here:
members.tripod.com/~wewantmidi/lawsuits/wood.html

More about the entire mess:
free-the-midi.com/main.htm

[rogerb]

No doubt the lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank!

[860tombarry]

Wow! thanks Jazzcat, that is some interesting reading.
I guess whats going on is someone can produce a midi of someone Else's song and copy right it.
So if a person were to take someones novel and re write it in their own words they could copy right that version?
I thought ASCAP and BMI was created to make sure the song writers were fairly compensated for their creations.

[JohnG]

Er, not quite.

If it's your composition in the first place then okay. But if you're using someone else's work then you're supposed to pay the original copyright holder for each time it's copied or used. That's why Kern is claiming for millions. If 300 people visit your site a day and download a copy of the file. Then that's 300 x 7 cents x 365 days = a little less than 8,000 dollars a year per song you have to pay the original copyright holder. Or something like that. It spells it out on one of the pages on the site JazzCat quoted.

If you take someone else's idea or story, e.g. in a book, and re-write it, then again I suppose the original author could sue you for infringement of copyright if he he felt he could prove plagiarism. Then again if you paid him/her a sensible fee in the first place ... Why not try it with, say, J.K.Rowling? I'd be really interested to know how you get on

Hee, hee!

[oldsage]

the one bugbear that has annoyed some of these lawyers is that one court did n,t recognize a midi file as a standalone music file! as it is a set of instructions.so this is probably why it is dragging on.

[JazzCat]

John said:
If it's your composition in the first place then okay. But if you're using someone else's work then you're supposed to pay the original copyright holder for each time it's copied or used. That's why Kern is claiming for millions. If 300 people visit your site a day and download a copy of the file.


Well let me clarify this a tad. Kern is using other people's work. He sequences cover tunes, not original compositions. He does not own the rights to the songs. He does however, own the rights to the sequences and indeed holds the copyright on them He paid for the mechanical rights to sequence the song. He holds the rights to the sequence. THAT is what the lawsuits are about.

--------------------------------------

Oldsage said:
the one bugbear that has annoyed some of these lawyers is that one court did n,t recognize a midi file as a standalone music file! as it is a set of instructions.so this is probably why it is dragging on.


Not true Oldsage. A MIDI file is now legally considered a format of 'music', and has been for quite a number of years. Free-the-MIDI at one time was trying very hard to figure out how to reverse that. It is also now an accepted format in which you can submit to copyright an original composition. Back in the old days you had to send the copyright office a written sheet of the tune.

Also, keep in mind that the free-the-midi site has not been updated in years. Believe it or not, I'm the one who's suppsed to write what needs to be updated and submit it to the webmaster. Frankly the whole site needs to be revamped to represent today's views. Or at least have the stuff that is on it dated so people going there realize it is old news.

[JohnG]

Sorry Cat I should have phrased it better.

I didn't mean that Kern owned the original but as you explained the mechanical on the MIDI file.

He should have an agreement with the original copyright holder to pay them each time he sells a copy of his MIDI. I would imagine he does otherwise he'd get pretty short shrift from the judge.

You're right about mechanical copyright on MIDIs, there's even a link on the MMA site to the forms for registering mechanical copyright in the US of A.

In fact a quick look at the free-the-midi site shows that the info hasn't been updated for several years. 2003/2004? Is it a lost cause I wonder? The big guns always seem to get their way. Sonny to name but one.

It seems that the copyright holders of the lyrics and music don't seem too worried about MIDIs. In most countries you (or the venue owner) will pay a performance fee if you play the file publicly. It's too much hassle to chase individual file owners and it's not a huge community anyway. Not like mp3s.

Then again I could be wrong!
JohnG.

[oldsage]

thanks for the update cat.it,s been some whlie since i looked at legalities of music!.i love music for the sake of music,and not what you can squeeze out of people to hear it.i think these people want to kill music off altogether with all this red tape. cheers steve

[Steptoe]

I wonder if the same laws apply to the old Piano Rolls?