The date when the tracks were recorded is important, since songs recorded before February 15, 1972, are covered under New York state law and not federal copyright legislation where safe harbor provisions of the DMCA apply.

“This case arises from Defendant’s massive willful copyright infringement and unfair
competition in violation of New York common law,” Universal writes in its latest submission to the Court.

“[Grooveshark parent company] Escape infringed UMG’s copyrighted works billions of times since it launched the current iteration of Grooveshark without any license from UMG and in flagrant violation of UMG’s exclusive rights.”

Describing Escape’s “pervasive copyright infringement” as part of a “premeditated business strategy” carried out by a “blatantly infringing pirate music service”, Universal Music (UMG) has now moved for summary judgment in the case on copyright infringement and unfair competition grounds.

“Escape has admitted that it competes with UMG in the market for the
dissemination of music over the Internet. Accordingly, it obtained an unfair competitive advantage over authorized streaming services by using UMG’s sound recordings without a license or payment.”

Previously, Escape Media counter-claimed against UMG when the company allegedly that UMG had tried to interfere with its business by influencing third-party companies to curtail relationships with the streaming service. UMG states those were legitimate anti-piracy tactics and dismisses Escape’s claims as an attempt to distract from the case in hand.

“Having no substantive defense to UMG’s infringement claims, Escape filed several baseless counterclaims against UMG for alleged interference with contracts and business relations,” UMG writes.

“The undisputed record confirms that the communications at issue directly related to the efforts by UMG and related companies to curtail the massive infringement of its copyrights by Escape’s Grooveshark service and thus were wholly appropriate and justified.”

UMG says it is entitled to summary judgment on all matters including copyright infringement, unfair competition and Escape’s counter-claims.

“In view of the foregoing, UMG respectfully requests that this Court grant summary
judgment against Escape for common law copyright infringement of UMG’s copyrights in the Works-in-Suit, based on Escape’s invasion of its rights of reproduction, distribution, and performance, as well as for unfair competition, and for UMG on Escape’s counterclaims for tortious interference with contract and business relations,” UMG concludes.

In 2011 it appeared that Grooveshark would be able to claim safe harbor protections on pre-1972 recordings after all when a court ruled in its favor. However, in April 2013 a panel reversed the decision.

“The statutory language at issue involves two equally clear and compelling Congressional priorities: to promote the existence of intellectual property on the Internet, and to insulate pre-1972 sound recordings from federal regulation,” Justice Angela Mazzarrelli wrote.

Whether UMG will obtain their summary judgment and at what financial expense to Escape Media and Grooveshark will be developments for the months to come.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

On Wednesday, Megaupload filed for an ex parte restraining order against UMG, in an effort to restrain the label from:

(1) attempting to bar the distribution, hosting, linking, or display of the MegaUpload Video at issue in this case; (2) submitting or advancing any “takedown notices” under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; or (3) declining any request by MegaUpload to withdraw any takedown notices with respect to the MegaUpload video.

The judge in the case, Claudia Wilken of the US District Court for Northern California, deferred judgment until today (December 16th) to allow UMG a chance to respond.

The company did that last evening and its contents are set to take this controversy to a whole new level. First, a little background.

In an attempt to reduce instances of copyright infringement, YouTube created the Content ID system (further analysis in respect of this case from Ben Jones) which gives copyright owners the opportunity to take a number of actions should their content be uploaded by other users.

Rights owners can choose to ‘monetize’ videos through adverts, restrict access to them on a regional basis, or initiate a worldwide block. In its action against Mega Song, Universal chose the latter.

But while one might naturally expect that UMG made a legitimate DMCA takedown complaint (and one that has legal implications should it be wrongfully made) Universal insists that was never necessary.

“The UMG-YouTube agreement grants UMG rights to effect the removal of user-posted videos through YouTube’s Content Management System (‘CMS’), based on a number of contractually specified criteria that are not limited to the infringements of copyrights owned or controlled by UMG,” the record label states in its filing.

What that means, in case the preceding paragraph wasn’t clear enough, is that UMG has a private outside-the-DMCA agreement with YouTube that it can take down other people’s content from YouTube even when it doesn’t infringe their copyrights.

Indeed, in UMG’s 18-page filing not once does the company give any reason or even a hint why it had Megaupload’s Mega Song taken down from YouTube. At no point does UMG claim that the video infringed its copyrights and the previous claim, that the video featured one of its artists, is completely absent.

Nevertheless, as the legal battle continues in the background, Megaupload is today celebrating a significant interim success.

“Victory,” said Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom in an email to TorrentFreak this morning. “Our video has been restored on Youtube!”

It appears that Google-owned YouTube gave UMG an ultimatum – show us you have the right to stop us displaying Mega Song or it’s going back up. UMG deliberately missed their deadline to respond (UMG say it treated YouTube’s statements as “self-effectuating”) and now the video is back online and showing 286,000+ hits.

Of course, if Universal hadn’t deliberately censored Megaupload’s content the hits would have been substantially higher and the spread even more significant. Nevertheless, for opponents of overreaching and in this instance somewhat arrogant copyright holders abusing their position for their own ends, the Mega Song takedown is a gift that will live on.

“Our legal battle with UMG is ongoing and we are going to reveal the whole truth about this censorship and the illegal take down,” adds Kim. “Lets join together against Internet dictatorship by corporations.”

So once again, courtesy of YouTube, here is the Mega Song in all its glory. Will the viral campaign regain its momentum? Embed the video and let the readers decide.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.