Archived version: https://archive.ph/ZGo6X
Universal Music Group (UMG.AS), Sony Music Entertainment (6758.T) and other record labels on Friday sued the nonprofit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records.
The labels’ lawsuit filed in a federal court in Manhattan said the Archive’s “Great 78 Project” functions as an “illegal record store” for songs by musicians including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.
They named 2,749 sound-recording copyrights that the Archive allegedly infringed. The labels said their damages in the case could be as high as $412 million.
Representatives for the Internet Archive did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint.
The San Francisco-based Internet Archive digitally archives websites, books, audio recordings and other materials. It compares itself to a library and says its mission is to “provide universal access to all knowledge.”
The Internet Archive is already facing another federal lawsuit in Manhattan from leading book publishers who said its digital-book lending program launched in the pandemic violates their copyrights. A judge ruled for the publishers in March, in a decision that the Archive plans to appeal.
The Great 78 Project encourages donations of 78-rpm records – the dominant record format from the early 1900s until the 1950s – for the group to digitize to “ensure the survival of these cultural materials for future generations to study and enjoy.” Its website says the collection includes more than 400,000 recordings.
The labels’ lawsuit said the project includes thousands of their copyright-protected recordings, including Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”.
The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”
Internet Archive is already losing to the book publishing assholes, so they’re probably going to lose this one, sadly.
“Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday”
They’re all dead. Mind as well name the executive assholes who’re still profiting off of their names by making compilation sets and all that shit. It’d be more accurate. They’re never going to see money again so what gives?
The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”
Where the artists aren’t paid as well, most profits go to, not surprisingly, asshats in suits. Spotify has had a history of taking down songs and albums and artists. So that claim about how they’ll never face danger is bullshit.
While we’re at it, there was a report recently about 87% of commercially released games are lost because of the poor preservation efforts by actual video game companies. Book publishing companies are no different. Show and Movie productions are no different. The music industry is no different, they all have a fair bit of lost media because they suck as preservation while pirates have proven to be efficient at it.
This is going to set a bad chain reaction down the road. Soon, Microsoft is going to be like “HAY! GET RID OF ALL OF THOSE OLD OPERATING SYSTEMS OF OURS!” and sue the internet archive. Then, video game companies will be like “HAY! GET RID OF ALL OF THOSE ISOS AND ROMS OF OUR GAMES!” and sue Internet Archive.
And then Internet Archive will not have the finances to combat all lawsuits before folding up suit. Erasing any attempt that there was in archiving history.