Website Fined $950,000 For Illegally Selling The Beatles Songs
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Written by James Conlon
A California-based company has been fined $950,000 for selling The Beatles’ songs online in a groundbreaking court case this week. The website BlueBeat was shut down in December 2010 by a federal court for selling tracks online for a heavily-marked down price.
According to Rolling Stone, the site was selling tracks by EMI artists including The Beatles, Coldplay and Radiohead for 25 cents each. The company behind the site, Media Rights Technologies has agreed to settle the copyright infringement lawsuit for $950,000 after selling the tracks without valid permission from the legal owners of the rights to the songs.
The company had attempted to validate the sale by claiming that the tracks were not original recordings, but rather “psycho-acoustic simulations”, which featured several re-recorded elements and studio touches that meant their version differed from the copyrighted original. However, this attempted clause was deemed invalid by the court this week, who were unconvinced by the company’s claims and decided to support the prosecution.
EMI refrained from selling The Beatles’ back catalogue online when iTunes and other digital stores became successful in the mid 00s, however the band’s remastered recorded material was eventually made available for download on 16th November 2010.
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