BlueBeat prohibited from streaming Beatles catalog by TRO

In an update to Wednesday’s Roundup: EMI sues bluebeat.com for offering Beatles catalog, a Federal Court Judge on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing bluebeat.com from, “directly or indirectly infringing in any manner [on] copyrighted work.” The order granting the TRO (below) notes,

Defendants claim in their Opposition that they sell “entirely different sound recording[s] than that copyrighted by Plaintiffs” and that they “independently developed their own original sounds,” citing the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 114(b). Section 114(b) provides in relevant part: “The exclusive rights of the owner of copyright in a sound recording under clauses (1) and (2) of section 106 do not extend to the making or duplication of another sound recording that consists entirely of an independent fixation of other sounds, even though such sounds imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording.” 17 U.S. § 114(b). Defendants however do not submit any declarations or reliable evidence in support of their claim that they “independently developed their own original sounds.”

BlueBeat’s TRO opposition, supported by an email exchange with Steven Marks, Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), claimed, “I authored the sound recordings that are being used by psycho-acoustic simulation.”

bluebeat.com offers free membership accounts, the ability to purchase or download any album or individual recording, at the price of $0.25 per track, and free streaming of any recording or album within the BlueBeat library.

Order granting TRO in Capitol v. Bluebeat

More here. Original EMI complaint here.