van Gaalen Attorneys Sports & Entertainment law blog

RIAA Sues LimeWire

2006-08-18T08:28:00.000+02:00

The music industry last Friday filed suit against file-sharing operator LimeWire, charging large-scale copyright infringement. The RIAA, which facilitated the suit, took this action a year after having sent several P2P operators cease-and-desist letters in the wake of the US Supreme Court's Grokster decision, which rendered technologies and services culpable for copyright infringement if their business models depend on it.

Judge rules statistics not intellectual property of MLB

2006-08-11T20:31:00.000+02:00

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Fantasy baseball leagues are allowed to use player names and statistics without licensing agreements because they are not the intellectual property of Major League Baseball, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Big Logos at the Big W

2006-07-05T23:46:00.000+02:00

Wimbledon began Monday in typical fashion: with rain delays and warnings that players must adhere to strict dress codes. Strict dress codes will probably disappoint you Maria Sharapova fans. For his part, World No. 1 Roger Federer has been taking the court in a Nike-designed cream blazer.Underneath it all, Nike and Adidas are waging a legal battle over permissible logos. Tennis' governing bodies restrict the size of company logos on players' clothing. (See p. 209 0f the ATP Code of Conduct.) The idea is to prevent the NASCAR-ization of professional tennis players.

Read rest of article at: http://sports-law.blogspot.com/

Free Net TV threatens telecoms and cable

2006-04-18T20:30:00.000+02:00

Walt Disney's bold move to let people download TV shows for free could spell trouble for cable and satellite providers, but it also throws into question the strategy of telephone companies spending billions to get into the paid TV business.

Game ban challenge dropped

2006-04-18T20:28:00.000+02:00

The Australian computer gaming industry has decided not to contest a decision to ban a controversial graffiti-themed game.

McKeever adamant the Spears will not be spiked

2006-02-06T13:06:00.000+02:00

SOUTHERN Spears CEO Tony McKeever insisted yesterday that the newly formed Eastern Cape franchise would play in the Super 14 competition in 2007 and 2008 and that the Spears could be ready to take to the field this weekend if any existing franchise were to refuse to sign Sanzar’s participation agreement.

Van Rooyen’s claims suggest I am a liar, says Basson

2006-02-02T14:00:00.000+02:00

WESTERN Province Rugby Union president Koos Basson yesterday dismissed claims by South African Rugby Union (Saru) president Brian van Rooyen that he was never a member of Saru’s management committee (manco), and said Van Rooyen’s claims implied he was “a liar”.

2005 Year in Review: Legal Actions

2006-01-13T08:04:00.000+02:00

Legal developments concerning DRM-related issues in 2005 were dominated by the US Supreme Court's decision in MGM v. Grokster, which the court rendered at the end of June. In this decision, the justices came down unanimously in favor of the media industry and effectively against not only the codefendants, Grokster and Streamcast (developers of Morpheus peer-to-peer software), but their P2P brethren as well.

SonyBMG Offers Settlement to Copy Protected CD Suits

2006-01-13T08:03:00.000+02:00

SonyBMG Music has submitted a tentative settlement to a class action suit over damages to users' PCs caused by CD copy protection technologies from First4Internet and SummComm. The settlement, which requires a judge's approval, calls for consumers to get exchanges for non-protected CDs, cash refunds, and merchandise credits. More importantly, SonyBMG is agreeing to abandon its use of current versions of both First4Internet's XCP and SunnComm's MediaMax technologies. Parties to the suit include the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the State of Texas.

2005 Year in Review: DRM Technologies

2006-01-10T08:18:00.000+02:00

The major trends in DRM technology continued in 2005 without very many changes from 2004.

Ruling is Music to the Ears of Copyright Owners

2005-12-24T17:11:00.000+02:00

Over the last few years, courts around the world have been wrestling with the question of when Internet service providers (ISPs) may be forced to hand over subscriber information to private parties where the subscriber is alleged to have infringed a copyright, defamed someone, or done some other wrongful act. On 25 November 2005, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands got into the act, upholding a lower court ruling that forced ISP Lycos to identify one of its subscribers to a Dutch stamp trader who claimed that the subscriber's website had defamed him. The relatively low threshold set by the court for turning over data -- requiring that the plaintiff show merely that the subscriber's content "could be" unlawful -- could prompt music and other copyright owners, as well as alleged victims of defamation, to bring suits in the Netherlands to identify alleged infringers or defamers in order to seek damages from them.

RealNetworks moves Rhapsody to the Web

2005-12-05T20:33:00.000+02:00

RealNetworks' core music subscription service is migrating onto the Web on Monday, in a move that includes some of the first fruits of its recent antitrust settlement with Microsoft.

CORRECTED-Kazaa injunction stayed until late Feb.

2005-11-28T23:06:00.001+02:00

Sharman Networks, the operator of file-sharing network Kazaa, on Friday said an Austrailian court has extended until late February a stay of an injunction barring it from distributing copyrighted recordings.

Battle for iTunes.co.uk is over

2005-11-28T23:06:00.000+02:00

The fat lady has sung for Ben Cohen's fight over the iTunes.co.uk domain. The lesson for others embroiled in domain name disputes: use the procedures, don't go running off to court and don't call Apple users a cult

Prinsloo found not guilty

2005-11-14T14:07:00.000+02:00

Cape Town - Johan Prinsloo, CEO of the South Africa Rugby Union was found not guilty subsequent to a formal disciplinary hearing held in Cape Town. Mr Prinsloo's legal representatives, Mr Johan van Gaalen from van Gaalen Attorneys and advocate C Goosen stated that although not surprised, they are satisfied with the outcome of the hearing.

DRM Anticircumvention Law

2005-10-17T08:41:00.000+02:00

The Parliament of Finland on Monday passed a revision to the country's copyright laws that makes circumventing DRM a crime. This helps finally bring Finland into line with the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD); its tardiness in adopting the EUCD earned it the threat of a fine from the European Commission back in March of this year.

iPod tax...?!

2005-10-14T22:19:00.000+02:00

A Japanese government committee is mulling a copyright law revision to charge royalties on digital music players, but the opinion is so divided on the so-called ``iPod tax'' that it isn't likely to be imposed, officials said Wednesday.

Double tax on Net music...

2005-10-14T22:16:00.000+02:00

European consumers are being forced to pay usage rights on legal copy-protected music downloads multiple times because of outdated private copy levies, according to a study.

European copyright to boost online music

2005-10-14T22:15:00.000+02:00

The European Union called on Europe's music industry Wednesday to create EU-wide copyright licenses for online music, saying this would boost demand for legal downloads.

Fingerprinted music...

2005-10-07T09:02:00.000+02:00

Acoustic fingerprinting firm Audible Magic announced on Monday that it will integrate audio watermarking technology from Seattle-based Activated Content into its CopySense Network Appliance, a solution for detecting copyrighted music on P2P networks. The resulting technology will combine two definitions of "fingerprinting" in a single solution.

Digital music sales surge

2005-10-07T07:19:00.000+02:00

The music industry cheered a tripling of digital music sales in the first half of 2005 that was spurred by mobile phone ring tones and online services and offset persistent declines in overall sales.

MS breaks off talks with record labels

2005-10-07T07:18:00.000+02:00

After weeks of negotiations, Microsoft Corp. has suspended talks with the four major record companies over the licensing terms for a new online music subscription service, according to people familiar with the talks.

Update: Battle with the File -Sharing Software companies

2005-09-30T08:38:00.001+02:00

What have happened accross the globe this year in the fight between the Content owners and the creators of file-Sharing software conveying infringed copyright material?

First, of course, was the June decision of the US Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster, which made software developers liable for infringement when they take "affirmative steps to foster infringement by third parties."
Then there was the European Commission’s proposed directive and framework decision in July, which would criminalize both direct copyright infringement and "attempting, aiding or abetting and inciting" such infringement; and
most recently, in Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd. v. Sharman License Holdings, Ltd., an Australian court ruled that Sharman Networks -- the owner and operator of the P2P file-sharing program Kazaa -- and its affiliates could be liable for copyright infringement because they:-
(i) knew that the sharing of copyrighted files was widespread throughout the Kazaa system;
(ii) refused to employ any technical measures that would curtail such sharing; and
(iii) actively encouraged users to increase their illegal file-sharing.
The decision is broadly consistent with Grokster, but may be go even further as the court seemed willing to accept rather less evidence of active encouragement of infringement on the part of Kazaa than was the case in Grokster.

Update: Battle with the File -Sharing Software companies

2005-09-30T08:38:00.000+02:00

Warner Music, MTV sign wireless video licensing deal

2005-09-28T22:05:00.000+02:00

Warner Music Group Corp. said Monday it has licensed Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks to use its recording artists' music videos for creating wireless programming on mobile phones and other gadgets

China's largest search engine attempts mediation with music giants

2005-09-28T22:03:00.000+02:00

China's biggest Internet search engine Baidu and seven global music giants agreed to enter into mediation on the first day of a high-profile copyright trial, state media said.

Media Counter

2005-09-26T20:22:00.000+02:00

Some top entertainment companies are taking a new tack in dealing with knockoffs of movies, music and videogames in China: Instead of fighting to end piracy, they're working around the pirates.

Bronfman Fires Back at Apple

2005-09-26T20:20:00.000+02:00

On Thursday, one of the music industry’s highest-profile executives responded publicly to Mr. Jobs’ charges, made earlier in the week, that they were “greedy” when they requested a price hike for downloaded songs.

Cingular to Launch Music Download Service in 2006

2005-09-26T20:19:00.000+02:00

Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier, plans this year to sell a "walkie-talkie" style phone and launch a service next year that will let users download music on their mobile phone, a senior executive said on Thursday.

Record labels tout program to disable swapping

2005-09-26T20:18:00.000+02:00

The music and movie industries are giving people who have swapped songs and other copyrighted material over the Internet a new way to repent for their illicit ways.

Music sites caving to pressure from labels?

2005-09-26T20:17:00.000+02:00

Popular file-sharing site WinMX.com ceased operating, and similar operations are under increasing pressure, in the continuing legal fallout among underworld peer-to-peer music services, industry sources and users said Wednesday.

First Lawsuits against Israeli file sharing sites

2005-09-26T20:16:00.000+02:00

Lawyers of Israel's Entertainment Industry in a special interview for Nana Net-Life Magazine: “When we finish with the file-trading websites, we'll move on to the users

Rock band shows fans how to crack DRM

2005-09-20T20:11:00.000+02:00

A rock musician has expressed anger at digital rights management (DRM) technology after hearing complaints from fans who are having difficulty importing his group's songs to programs like iTunes.

Hollywood studios unite in piracy battle

2005-09-20T20:09:00.000+02:00

The six major Hollywood studios, hoping to gain more control over their technological destiny, have agreed to jointly finance a multimillion-dollar research laboratory to speed the development of new ways to foil movie pirates.

Napster president slams the ringtone rip-off

2005-09-18T20:38:00.000+02:00

Napster president Brad Duea has criticised mobile operators that use the trend towards mobile music to exploit their customers.

Politicos call for music copyright reform

2005-09-18T20:37:00.000+02:00

Legal music-download services won't be able to compete fully with their free- and illegal-download counterparts until copyright law changes, a Virginia congressman said Tuesday.

Family Entertainment Act yields its first prosecution

2005-09-18T20:35:00.000+02:00

Not long ago, President Bush signed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 into law. One part of that law, known as the Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005, criminalizes the use of recording equipment to copy movies playing in theaters.

Blockbuster Probing Online Video-On-Demand

2005-09-18T20:33:00.000+02:00

Movie-rental giant Blockbuster Inc. continues to take small steps toward a rollout of online video-on-demand in the United Kingdom while rival Netflix Inc. plans a small-scale test in the United States this year.

Baidu sued over music downloads

2005-09-18T20:32:00.000+02:00

The world's biggest music companies are suing Baidu, the mainland search engine that captivated Wall Street investors, for copyright infringement in a move that could force the company to shut down its MP3 search engine, a key to the company's popularity among young Chinese Internet users.

Recording, movie groups join Internet2

2005-09-12T21:06:00.000+02:00

The Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America will join the Internet2 network coalition, Internet2 officials announced Friday.

Day the music died

2005-09-06T19:25:00.000+02:00

SHARMAN Networks chief executive Nikki Hemming wasn't in court to see the music industry deliver its body blow to file sharing, but there's no doubt Justice Wilcox's ruling on the Kazaa peer-to-peer network is a major win for the big record companies.

RIAA sues 754 more file swappers

2005-09-06T19:19:00.000+02:00

The recording industry on Wednesday filed its latest round of copyright infringement lawsuits, targeting 754 people it claims used online file-sharing networks to illegally trade in songs. The lawsuits were filed in federal district courts across the country, including California, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
The world's major record labels, represented by the Recording Industry Association of America, have filed more than 14,000 such lawsuits since September 2003.

HMV and Microsoft unite in challenge to iPod

2005-09-05T18:37:00.000+02:00

HMV has teamed up with Microsoft to combat Apple's dominance of the digital music download market, launching its own service to bring downloads to the mainstream music buyer.

New Music Merchant: BBC

2005-08-31T21:02:00.000+02:00

The BBC wants to be a major player in the digital media world and is considering partnerships with private businesses to sell music downloads.

Mobile porn providers operate outside the law

2005-08-31T15:32:00.000+02:00

Wireless applications service providers (WASPs) supplying adult content for cellphones are technically operating illegally, says the Film and Publications Board (FPB).

Book Publishers' War with Google Heats Up

2005-08-25T09:00:00.000+02:00

A tiff between book publishers and Google concerning the latter's Google Print initiative has been heating up. Google has been scanning and digitizing entire books and making them available in Google search results, along with a few sentences that provide context for the search results and links to purchase the books.

Podcast start-up creates music network

2005-08-24T21:45:00.000+02:00

Podcasting start-up PodShow, the love child of former MTV video jockey Adam Curry, has created a network for musicians and podcasters.

Warner Music readies CD-free 'e-label'

2005-08-24T21:41:00.000+02:00

Warner Music Group is creating a new music-distribution mechanism that will rely on digital downloads instead of compact discs.

Music file sharing to be offered legally

2005-08-24T21:35:00.000+02:00

Online music fans will for the first time be able to legally share tracks by big names such as Oasis, Beyonce, David Bowie and Elvis Presley after the artists' record label signed a ground-breaking deal with a new internet service provider.

Legal music options fail to slow file-sharing on campus

2005-08-23T00:22:00.000+02:00

As a college freshman, Will Mount feasted on the free but mostly illegal music available through online file-sharing software such as Kazaa.

Sun launches open-source digital rights plan

2005-08-23T00:21:00.000+02:00

After years of work, Sun Microsystems has begun trying to rally corporate allies behind a neutral standard for digital rights management, technology that governs how music, video or other information can be used or copied.

Recording industry: CD-burning a bigger problem than file-sharing

2005-08-17T23:03:00.000+02:00

Copying music to CDs is becoming a bigger threat to record stores' and music labels' bottom line than online file-sharing, according to the head of the recording industry's trade group.

People prefer to buy CDs

2005-08-17T23:02:00.000+02:00

MORE than two-thirds of music lovers prefer to own original CDs, despite the availability of pirated copies online, a survey shows.

G'Day Mate. Do You Know What You're Linking?

2005-08-15T08:57:00.000+02:00

A recent decision by the Federal Court of Australia suggests that website owners and Internet service providers (ISPs) should be wary of using hyperlinks to materials that they know may be infringing or illegal. In Universal Music Australia v. Cooper, the court ruled that both a website operator and an ISP had “authorized” copyright infringement by linking to third-party sites where users could download infringing copies of sound recordings.

Defying record companies, musicians try to join Apple's iTunes in Japan

2005-08-11T23:03:00.000+02:00

Japanese musicians under contract with Sony and other labels that haven't joined Apple's iTunes Music Store are starting to defy their recording companies and trying to get their music on the popular download service launched last week in Japan.

Music industry sues download junkies

2005-08-11T10:10:00.000+02:00

The Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday filed a new series of complaints against US-based users of peer-to-peer software distributors Kazaa, Grokster and LimeWire.

Yahoo Hears Call of Audio Search

2005-08-10T07:36:00.000+02:00

Yahoo is testing a new search-engine feature that will pore through millions of songs offered by popular internet music services like iTunes, Rhapsody and Napster.

Remedying 'Grokster'

2005-07-28T22:19:00.000+02:00

Don't you hate it when you ask someone a question and, rather than answering it, they choose to answer a different one? Then you understand the frustration that technology lawyers feel in the wake of the Supreme Court's opinion in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. v. Grokster Ltd.

Studios agree on digital movie standards

2005-07-28T22:12:00.000+02:00

The major Hollywood studios have agreed on technicalstandards for creating and distributing movies digitally,removing a major obstacle to the long-discussed transitionto digital exhibition of movies. The standards represent akey industry strategy for reducing infringing copies ofmovies and cutting the cost of distributing them.

Online file sharers 'buy more music'

2005-07-28T22:11:00.000+02:00

Computer-literate music fans who illegally share tracks over the internet also spend four and a half times as much on digital music as those who do not, according to research published today.

XM, Samsung and Napster Form Download Alliance

2005-07-28T22:05:00.000+02:00

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. said yesterday that they will introduce a satellite radio receiver and digital music player that will let XM subscribers buy and download songs through an exclusive arrangement with online music store Napster.

Internet TV in airplanes next year

2005-07-28T09:01:00.000+02:00

By mid 2006, airlines will be able to offer passengers access to Internet television, provided by Connexion by Boeing, in seat back monitors.

iTunes downloads top 500 million mark

2005-07-25T20:30:00.000+02:00

Music downloads from Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store topped 500 million, the company said Monday.

Couple fined over illegal DVDs

2005-07-25T20:28:00.000+02:00

A couple from the NSW Central Coast has been fined $75,000 over trademark and copyright infringements in Wyong Local Court for selling illegal copies of DVDs in their local community

Online pirates pounce on new Harry Potter book

2005-07-25T20:25:00.000+02:00

The sixth book in the Harry Potter series, the fastest-selling book of all time, has become among the quickest to fall prey to Internet piracy, with illicit copies available online within hours of its release.

Rating change for 'GTA: San Andreas' could signal start of crackdown

2005-07-25T20:23:00.000+02:00

The video game industry's decision to give an adults-only rating to the best-selling ``Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'' because of explicit sexual content could signal the start of a crackdown on raunchy games.

Recording industry says number of legally downloaded tracks triples in first half of 2005

2005-07-25T20:21:00.000+02:00

The number of digital music tracks legally downloaded from the Internet almost tripled in the first half of 2005 as the use of high-speed broadband connections surged around the world, the international recording industry said Thursday.

Calif. university systems offering legal music, movie downloads

2005-07-20T17:59:00.000+02:00

The University of California and California State University systems struck a deal to offer legal music and movie downloading services to curb rampant piracy by students, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Music Labels to Sue 4,000 Internet Users

2005-07-20T17:55:00.000+02:00

Sixty domestic music labels are preparing for a collective suit against 4,000 Internet users who illegally distributed or used music files, the companies said Tuesday.

German Rights Holders Target ISPs, Portals

2005-07-20T07:53:00.000+02:00

Music copyright owners in Germany, confronted with the difficulty in reaching infringing sites abroad, have decided to attack the problem upstream--by demanding the cooperation of Internet service providers and referring Web sites.
Germany's major collection society for composers, lyricists, and music publishers (GEMA) sent cease-and-desist letters July 18 to over 40 Internet service providers demanding that they block access to five peer-to-peer file sharing sites, including eDonkey, and their alternative domains. The access providers have until July 24 to comply with the demand; otherwise, the society will initiate lawsuits, a GEMA spokesman said July 15.
GEMA said it was acting on the basis of article 97 of the German Copyright Law (UrhG) in conjunction with article 8 of the European Union Information Directive 2001/29/EC, and in conjunction with the German Teleservices law (TDG).
Under the directive, member states must ensure that right holders can obtain an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe copyright or related rights. The German Teleservices law states that once a provider is made aware of infringing activity, it must act to block a web site.

EU seeks to regulate television on the net

2005-07-14T09:12:00.000+02:00

EUROPE wants to begin to regulate the internet for the first time by introducing controversial rules to cover television online.

Downloading trouble at the BBC

2005-07-14T09:10:00.000+02:00

The BBC has been lambasted by classical music labels for making all nine of Beethoven's symphonies available for free download over the Internet.

Sony BMG reaches licensing deal with iMesh

2005-07-14T09:08:00.000+02:00

Music giant Sony BMG has reached a licensing agreement with file-swapping service iMesh, one of the first such tie-ups since a U.S. Supreme Court decision clamping down on online copyright infringement.

Warning notices on account of links to AllofMP3

2005-07-14T09:02:00.000+02:00

The music industry has begun to carry out its threat and is sending warning notices to website operators who have set links to the Russian music download platform AllofMP3.

Welcome to the first Entertainment law blog

2005-07-14T08:39:00.000+02:00

We would like to welcome you to the first entertainment law blog in South Africa. Based on an assessment of our client needs we have decided that it will benefit our clients to know what is going on in the 'auditorium' of entertainment law, not just in South Africa, but also around the world.

This blog is not just there for artists, but also for record companies, producers, publishers, agents and managers of artists etc.

We hope that you will enjoy this blog and yes, please feel free to post any suggestions via the comments facility.

On this high note - "time to say goodbye"

van Gaalen Attorneys

EU Commission plans Europe-wide licensing of online music

2005-07-14T08:14:00.000+02:00

The efforts on the part of the EU Commission to simplify the exploitation of copyrights on the Internet have this week been stepped up to a degree that has apparently caused them to come to the public's awareness.