RIAA successfully sues man for singing copyrighted song as he walks down the street

This is funny...

RIAA successfully sues man for singing copyrighted song as he walks down the street

Pittsburgh, PA:

On Wednesday April 9th RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) successfully sued 29 year old Anthony Artmoore for singing a copyrighted song as he walked down the street.

29 year old Anthony Artmoore was walking back to the machine shop he works at from a lunch break on February 6th when a RIAA employee overheard him singing the lyrics to the Metallica song "Enter Sandman."

RIAA argued that this "clearly constituted public performance of copyrighted material without prior appropriate licensing."

Artmoore was ordered to pay more than $30,000 in damages. Artmoore refused to comment on the situation. His lawyers said that they are planning to appeal the ruling.

RIAA stated that there are many public domain songs such as "My Darling Clementine" and "London Bridge is Falling Down" that people are allowed to sing publicly, however the performance of copyrighted material must be done within the constraints of U.S. copyright law."

Traditionally a pubic performance has been defined as an event where a person performs and members of the public gather to observe often paying a fee for access. Artmoore's lawyers argued that because their client was walking down the street singing to himself there was no audience and hence it didn't constitute a public performance. RIAA countered by saying that witnesses on the street constituted an audience.

Found at The Jem Report

Comments

Anonymous said…
This is outright FASCISM!!!

How can this be even allowed???

geez...
Anonymous said…
But it's actually quite funny...

:D
Sassan Sanei said…
It is a satirical piece but it shows how meaningless the "fair use" clause has become under U.S. law. I believe this could happen today! Fortunately, I live in Canada where the laws are a little more rational.

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