Supreme Court legalizes downloading music
Published: 04 October, 2011, 21:55
Translation by Autumnson Blog
重型搖滾樂隊 Metallica的歌手和吉他手詹姆斯Hetfield（法新社照片/安德烈Durao）
The United State Supreme Court has refused an appeal that would have made downloading music an infringement of federal copyright law. Take that, Metallica!
美國最高法院已拒絕了一項上訴，那會已是使下載音樂為一項聯邦版權法的侵權。收到沒有，Metallica！
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP, had been attempting to appeal to the Supreme Court an early ruling by an appeals court in New York that said that a downloaded song constituted a public performance of the song under federal copyright law. Attorneys for ASCAP were fighting to reverse that decision in hopes that they’d be able to collect additional royalties off of songs downloaded from the Web.
美國作曲家、作者和出版者協會，或ASCAP，一直試圖向最高法院上訴一早期的紐約上訴法庭裁決，說聯邦版權法下，一首下載的歌曲構成該歌曲的公開演出。 ASCAP的律師曾在嘗試爭取扭轉決定，希望他們能從網上下載的歌曲收集額外的尊利權費用。
ASCAP had insisted that digital downloads were on par with public performances, which would thus allow copyright owners to receive compensation for each download. A federal judge and an appeals court had rejected that argument, however, and now the Supreme Court is also refusing to hear it.
ASCAP已堅持數碼下載是等同公開演出，那會因此允許版權擁有者從每個下載收到賠償。一位聯邦法官和上訴法院已拒絕這樣的說法，但是現在，最高法院也拒絕聆聽。
According to the appeals court, “Music is neither recited, rendered, nor played when a recording (electronic or otherwise) is simply delivered to a potential listener.” US Solicitor General Donald Verrilli agreed with the appeals ruling and that just because a song was transferred over the Internet did not mean that it was being performed, reports Reuters.
Theodore Olson, a Bush administration-appointed solicitor general representing ASCAP in the matter believes otherwise. He argues that the earlier ruling placed the United States in violation of intellectual property treaties and other international agreements, says Reuters, but the Supreme Court said they wouldn’t bother to go over the appeal and issued no comment.
ASCAP, who has nearly 300,000 members, first lost the case back in September of 2010. In the last year, however, they have taken several routes in hopes of getting additional revenues for their clients that they say lose profits through digital downloads.
In the meantime, ASCAP members do indeed still receive revenue from downloads, just not the additional compensation that the group was hoping to get them. A mechanical royalty is offered to copyright owners through a separate body than that that handles performance royalties, which ASCAP was hoping to have applied to digital downloads.
http://rt.com/usa/news/supreme-court-digital-ascap-061/
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