On Friday, EMI won an injunction against BlueBeat.com, forcing the web site to stop selling Beatles songs without permission. The London-based record label alleged that the music site was breaching its copyrights.

A Los Angeles federal court moved swiftly to issue a temporary restraining order against BlueBeat. EMI, which represents The Beatles works, filed suit against the BlueBeat site on Tuesday.

BlueBeat.com was selling songs from the British band’s archives for 25 cents each. By contrast, Apple’s iTunes Store sells songs for about $1, but does not have The Beatles’ catalog. BlueBeat had all its Beatles bases covered, offering original recordings and remastered versions of Beatles classics.

“EMI did not authorize its composition to be sold or made available on BlueBeat.com,” the label said earlier that week. BlueBeat insists it was selling different sound recordings that were not EMI copyrighted by using a technique called psycho-acoustic simulation.

BlueBeat’s Blue-Faced Argument

“It appears BlueBeat is arguing

that they are substantially altering The Beatles material, but whether the copyrighted material is the source, you are still in violation of copyright,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

That’s the perspective under U.S. copyright law. But in other parts of the world copyright law is not as strict. Enderle pointed to a case in Eastern Europe involving a Harry Potter book that was rewritten using different characters. In court, the defendant’s case held up considering the book was substantially altered.

“We’re pretty strict in the United States with how we consider copyright. whether by listening to the song you can connect it back to the copyrighted work, that would be suitable to propose that you violated the copyright,” Enderle said. “We’ve seen musicians with pieces that were vastly different in terms of lyrics, but the beats were the same as the copyrighted work — and they…

Original post by dhiram