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Eminem Sues Over Ring Tones
On October 5, 2005 Eminem (the popular rap musician) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Detroit through his publishing companies. The lawsuit seeks to prohibit the unlicensed use of certain copyrighted works as replacement mobile phone ring tones. One of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs has indicated that hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake annually. This may not be far off, as some analysts speculate that by 2009 the market for such ring tones will grow to almost three quarters of a billion dollars.
Interestingly, in 2002 a German appellate court answered the question of whether making use of famous music as a mobile phone ring tone without proper licensing rights from the owner of the copyright of the musical work constitutes actionable copyright infringement in the negative. This decision was made on two bases. First, the use of a composition as a ring tone had not been explicitly mentioned in the musicians’ agreement with the German copyright collecting society, and so could not be validly considered an infringement. Second, ring tones do not predominately serve to entertain but rather to signal; whereas a composition is intended to be heard in its entirety, a ring tone is intended to be interrupted by taking the phone call.
Whether or not the U.S. District Court in Detroit will adopt similar logic remains to be seen.
For additional information, visit:
http://www.shorl.com/hipuminugrybo