Justices won't hear appeal in music copyright dispute

The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from record companies that want to pursue copyright infringement claims against music site Vimeo for hosting unauthorized recordings from the Beatles, Elvis Presley and other classic artists.

The justice on Monday left in place a ruling that said websites are protected from liability even for older music recorded before 1972.

Capital Records and other music companies sued Vimeo for violating copyright laws based on 199 videos uploaded by users. A federal judge ruled a federal "safe harbor" law did not cover pre-1972 recordings that are protected by state law.

But a New York federal appeals court overturned that ruling, saying service providers would incur heavy costs to monitor every posting or risk "crushing liabilities" under state law.

© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Citation: Justices won't hear appeal in music copyright dispute (2017, March 27) retrieved 23 April 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2017-03-justices-wont-appeal-music-copyright.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Explore further

Justices won't hear Google appeal in dispute with Oracle

6 shares

Feedback to editors