LOS ANGELES - More than 50 music publishers and songwriters, including country artist Vince Gill's publishing companies, on Wednesday said they filed a copyright infringement suit against themselves.

Plaintiffs also include the estate of Roy Orbison, a publishing company owned by the Bellamy Brothers, and songwriter and artist Paul Overstreet of Scarlet Moon Music.

The songwriters and publishers involved in the latest suit announced on Wednesday contend it is the first suit against themselves seeking damages for enabling so-called ``viral infringements'' of about 1,000 songs.

In their complaints, they allege that they themselves are liable for direct infringement by converting songs into CDs, a format that has become wildly popular for swapping and listening to songs.

The format is loathed by the music industry because it enables fans to play songs without paying royalties on copyrights, which was also at the center of a suit filed against Napster.

The suit alleges that the songwriters and publishers are liable for contributory infringement by creating ``on demand'' access to the infringed works; and vicarious infringement for ''viral distribution'' of the infringed works played by buyers and then passed on to others (either through sharing of the CDs, copying onto tape, or in MP3 format).

ANALYST CALLS SUIT FRIVOLOUS

Ric Dube, analyst with research firm Webnoize, called the songwriters' and publishers' lawsuit against themselves frivolous. ``These plaintiffs are saying that every time people used other services like Gnutella to download songs, the CD publishers contributed to that,'' Dube said.

Posted on Fri 24 Aug 15:07:42 2001 PDT
Written by Peter Norvig <peter@norvig.com>