Boing Boing: Lawyer to RIAA: Sue the First Twins for copyright violations!
Mitchell Silverman, an attorney in Florida, noticed in a recent news-story that GW Bush’s twin daughters presented him with a mix CD of exercise music for Father’s Day. Since the record industry maintains that making and distributing mix CDs is a copyright infringement, Silverman sent their legal offices a letter on letterhead asking them to sue the first twins for “stealing music.”
Silverman is making the point that if the RIAA sues grandmas and children over copyright infringements they should also sue in this case. This will hopefully bring attention to the notion that making a mix CD should not be considered an infringement in the first place. Since we at SSRI are using a CC license you are free to create mix CDs containing our music without worrying about getting sued.
for family even? Ouch! That’s a bit much.
Oh my, maybe I should make a copy of my SSRI exercise mix for the Bushes. Burns calories, tones muscles, AND keeps you out of copyright trouble. Plus the music is out of this world…
I think the point is they passed it on, not the mix itself. And/or maybe the lawyer is assuming the Bush twins downloaded the songs illegally in which case he has no knowledge if they downloaded it legally or illegally unless he was there at the time. I think the whole point is they passed on the music (the mix CD) illegally. If I am correct you ask for a donation when your listeners copy your music, I know this because my mom wants copies of your albums. So would it be illegal for me to take a compilation of your music and pass it on to my mom? I am serious about this because I am about to burn her about 5 CDs and was going to donate on your site.
Glad to see the tour going good.
Will: No, I believe the RIAA states that you may not copy a CD, period! In other words that they passed the CD on is not at all important here.
We ask for a donation when you copy a whole CD for someone else, not when you add a SSRI song to a mix CD. You will agree that there is a big diff between adding one song to a mix CD and copying an entire CD. We also distinguish between someone making a backup copy of an entire CD for themselves (or for their car or for a different stereo in their home) and making a copy of an entire CD for someone else. The former should be free and in case of the latter we would appreciate a donation.
The above statements only go for CDs released by SSRI. Right now that means from “La Semana” onwards and including anything you obtain from the ListeningLounge. Until February of 2008 EMI has a license for “In the Arms of Love” and “The Santa Fe Sessions”. When SSRI decides to re-release those two albums (re-mastered and with additional tracks), they will also be released with a CC license. All CDs released before 2002 are copyrighted by Epic Records, Sony Classical and Higher Octave/EMI.
Will, I have passed on a copy of the mix I referred to in my comment and donated via the SSRI website. The songs in the mix I made are provided under a CC license. It looks like all the songs on the SSRI ListeningLounge are provided under a CC license, and I believe Ottmar’s other works are protected by copyright (licensed by Sony, Higher Octave, maybe others).
Ahhh so I am breaking the law if I legally download music from iTunes and burn it to a CD. I just researched this a bit and see what you mean about copying CDs. You can’t even make a backup.
P.S. you will see a donation soon for the CDs I burn.
Thank you for the clarification and for having the good sense to use a CC license.