- For most private-sector employers it’s illegal to let workers take comp time off in lieu of overtime; H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013, would fix that [Hyman]
- Christine Quinn take note: laws requiring paid sick leave do not constitute social progress [Richard Epstein]
- Occupational hazards of bagpipe playing (other than being chased out of your neighborhood) [Donald McNeil Jr., New York Times]
- “Phoenix ‘Not Looking for Strong Swimmers’ for Lifeguard Jobs” [David Bernstein; earlier on discrimination against deaf lifeguards]
- Decline of full-time work in retail sector in response to ObamaCare: year’s biggest employment story? [Warren Meyer, FoxNews (largest movie theater chain cuts hours for thousands of employees)]
- City of Philadelphia not doing well on workers’ comp program, to say the least [Workers' Compensation Institute]
- “New labor rule will violate attorney-client privilege” [Diana Furchtgott-Roth, D.C. Examiner]
- “Calling a Co-Worker ‘Stupid’ Not Enough to Prove ‘Disability’, Court Says” [Daniel Schwartz]
Tagged as:
music and musicians,
ObamaCare,
Philadelphia,
pools,
wage and hour suits,
workers' compensation,
workplace
Terry Teachout, WSJ (via About Last Night):
…In Europe, sound recordings enter the public domain 50 years after their initial release. Once that happens, anyone can reissue them, which makes it easy for Europeans to purchase classic records of the past. In America, by contrast, sound recordings are “protected” by a prohibitive snarl of federal and state legislation whose effect was summed up in a report issued in 2010 by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress: “The effective term of copyright protection for even the oldest U.S. recordings, dating from the late 19th century, will not end until the year 2067 at the earliest.… Thus, a published U.S. sound recording created in 1890 will not enter the public domain until 177 years after its creation, constituting a term of rights protection 82 years longer than that of all other forms of audio visual works made for hire.”
Among countless other undesirable things, this means that American record companies that aren’t interested in reissuing old records can stop anyone else from doing so, and can also stop libraries from making those same records readily accessible to scholars who want to use them for noncommercial purposes. Even worse, it means that American libraries cannot legally copy records made before 1972 to digital formats for the purpose of preservation—not unless those records have already deteriorated to the point where they may soon become unplayable.
That’s crazy.
Tagged as:
copyright,
historic preservation,
music and musicians
- “The patent, used as a sword” [NY Times, Flowing Data]
- Default judgment over 528 songs against contumacious defendant: “Website ordered to pay $6.6 million for posting song lyrics” [NLJ]
- “Monsanto Seed Patent Case Gets U.S. Supreme Court Review” [Bloomberg Business Week]
- New book tells story of Ira Arnstein, whose frivolous suits against Cole Porter, Irving Berlin et al set important precedent [WSJ]
- “Do it ‘on the Internet,’ get a patent, sue an industry — it still works” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica]
- “Court rules book scanning is fair use, suggesting Google Books victory” [Timothy Lee, ArsTechnica]
Tagged as:
copyright,
Google,
music and musicians,
patent litigation
From the summary: “Judge throws out multibillion dollar suit arising from obscure CD-and-audiotape rental law, saying there’s no evidence anyone was actually harmed by Pandora’s integration with Facebook two years ago.”
The suit [by class action firm Edelson McGuire] claimed violations of an obscure pre-Internet era Michigan law, which says a company “renting or lending” sound recordings may not disclose details about customers’ transactions without their written permission. Because it specifies $5,000 penalty per violation, the possible damages could total in the tens of billions — far more than Pandora’s actual $1.8 billion market capitalization.
The judge, however, said the law did not create a right of action on behalf of unharmed consumers, and also was unpersuaded that the music-streaming service was “renting or lending” songs. [Declan McCullagh, CNet]
Tagged as:
class actions,
Facebook,
music and musicians
Update: That’s what we get for posting hastily on a holiday weekend. We — and a great many other sites from CBS News to Business Insider to The Onion — took the below report seriously, but per Mike Masnick at TechDirt, it’s both outdated — Judge Kimba Wood rebuked RIAA’s damage demand as excessive, and the LimeWire case settled for a far lower amount — and more broadly questionable (while the original demands might have reached trillions, and were justly subject to ridicule on that account, the jump to $72 trillion seems to be at best someone’s subjective extrapolation).
Masnick’s story is here. What follows is the original post.
“It’s no secret that LimeWire was once a hotbed of peer-to-peer music piracy, but the RIAA has now attempted to sue it for $72 trillion – more money than exists in the world today. LimeWire was shut down in October 2010, but litigation continues from music bodies around the world…” [Ultimate Guitar]
Tagged as:
damages,
music and musicians,
RIAA and file sharing
- “Fan sues Insane Clown Posse after injury at Illinois concert” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] “As Insanity is not a defense to the claim, the Clowns are now adding litigation counsel to their Posse.” [@colinsamuels]
- Suit on behalf of school-cheat son “wouldn’t have been much of a story” if dad had left argument to hired gun [Mark Bennett, earlier]
- If you can’t buy a Coke with your debit card any more, this may be why [Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason] Related: “a ‘do-nothing Congress’ is sort of like a ‘do-nothing arsonist.’” [IowaHawk]
- L.A. judge reverses much-publicized Honda small claims award [CBS Local, earlier]
- Harris County judge deems pig “common, traditional” pet in homeowner association suit [Houston Chronicle]
- Plaintiffs, not just defendants, can use Daubert to exclude opponents’ scientific theories that fall short of general acceptance by the relevant scientific community. Why is this news when it was clearly part of the intended and expected effect of Daubert from day one? [guestposter Mark Bower at Turkewitz]
- “The unfair attack on ALEC” [Ted Frank and Jim Copland at PoL] More: Wendy Gramm and Brooke Rollins, WSJ.
Tagged as:
animals,
Daubert,
debtor-creditor law,
music and musicians
Lawyer Emmanuel Ludot “is acting for around 100 fans who are members of an association that calls itself the ‘Michael Jackson Community.’ He said that while each fan could be awarded damages of up to 10,000 euros ($A12,400), they were seeking only a symbolic euro.” Jackson’s doctor was convicted of involuntary manslaughter following the singer’s death from an anesthetic overdose. [AFP]
Tagged as:
emotional distress,
France,
music and musicians
- Even before federal raid on Gibson, Lacey Act scared owners of vintage instruments: “I don’t go out of the country with a wooden guitar.” [Eric Felten/WSJ, AW, PoL, Trevor Burrus/Cato]
- Dear NYT contributor Bakan: getting your kids’ attention may not require overthrowing world corporate economy [Nancy French, NR "Home Front"] More: Sullum.
- “West Memphis Three” freed [Damon Root, Greenfield]
- Forest Labs case: after outcry, feds drop effort to force firing of drug company CEO not charged with wrongdoing [WSJ, WLF] Background: Charles Hooper & David Henderson, Hoover (“The FDA’s War on Drugs”), The Economist (“The government seeks to sack an innocent boss”, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Steve McConnell/Drug and Device Law, Josh Wright/Truth on the Market]
- Google paid dearly in smartphone deal for our dysfunctional patent system [Gordon Crovitz] “Google Should Publicly Oppose Software Patents” [Timothy Lee, Forbes]
- Lawyer’s suit: Kasowitz firm ignored his “superior legal mind” [Lowering the Bar, Above the Law]
- “In Chicago, You Need a License To Help Others Get a License” [Mark Perry]
Tagged as:
cellphones,
Chicago,
child protection,
environment,
Google,
music and musicians,
patent quality,
pharmaceuticals
In April the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), which runs the Grammy awards, dropped 31 categories of competition, including Latin jazz, zydeco, Hawaiian and Native American. Musicians remain free to enter their work into competition in overlapping related categories. Now four Latin jazz musicians have filed suit, arguing “that NARAS is in effect forcing Latin jazz artists to now compete in broader jazz categories against more mainstream artists, hurting their chance of winning an award.” [Jazz Times]
Tagged as:
music and musicians
- Dreadful “Caylee’s Law” proposals continue unabated [Balko and more, Lowering the Bar, Skenazy, Frank, Somin] Confirmed non-members of Nancy Grace fan club include Stephen Bainbridge and Scott Greenfield;
- Swedish heavy metal fan has musical preferences officially classed as disability [Cowen]
- In welcome Goodyear and Nicastro rulings, SCOTUS reins in “stream of commerce” jurisdiction [Yeary, Beck, Wasserman and more, Lahav, Fisher]
- Federal lawsuit alleges polka song infringement [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
- EPA winning showdown with Texas, power plants may shutter at cost to Lone Star economy [Chron] Don’t dismiss the Texas job creation story — or the role of lawsuit reform [Rick Wartzman, L.A. Times]
- Breyer backs Thomas on recusal ethics [Adler]
- “Clashing Visions of a ‘Living’ Constitution” [William Van Alstyne on SSRN, his Cato lecture last fall]
Tagged as:
constitutional law,
disabled rights,
Environmental Protection Agency,
music and musicians,
Nancy Grace,
recusals,
Supreme Court,
Sweden,
Texas
Many are lost in a copyright maze: “The American rules infuriate scholars, archivists, musicians and the conservationists who preserve fragile recordings. They fret that by the time the recordings become available, many will be beyond salvation.” [The Economist] “A Trove of Historic Jazz Recordings has Found a Home in Harlem, But You Can’t Hear Them” [Steven Seidenberg, ABA Journal]
Tagged as:
copyright,
music and musicians
The Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved S. 978, a bill that would raise from a misdemeanor to a felony the unauthorized performance or streaming of a copyrighted work when the infringement takes place at least ten times and either reaps $2,500 or more in revenue, or avoids the payment of license fees whose fair market value would exceed $5,000. Mike Masnick at TechDirt thinks the bill could wind up authorizing the jailing of some persons who embed YouTube videos or post videos of themselves lip-synching hit tunes; CopyHype defends the bill and dismisses the concerns as overblown.
Tagged as:
crime and punishment,
music and musicians,
YouTube
