[Slowhand] OT but of interest to all

[Bryan Reid]

JUDGE: LAW COULD NOT STAND BECAUSE IT PLACES NO TIME LIMIT ON THE BAN 

By Erin McClam 

Associated Press 

NEW YORK - A federal judge Friday struck down a 1994 law banning the 
sale of bootleg recordings of live music, ruling the law unfairly 
grants ``seemingly perpetual protection'' to the original performances. 

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. dismissed a federal indictment of 
Jean Martignon, who runs a Manhattan mail-order and Internet business 
that sells bootleg recordings. 

Baer found the bootleg law was written by Congress in the spirit of 
federal copyright law, which protects writing for a fixed period of 
time -- typically for the life of the author and 70 years after the 
author's death. 

But the judge said the bootleg law, which was passed ``primarily to 
cloak artists with copyright protection,'' could not stand because it 
places no time limit on the ban. 

Baer also noted that copyright law protects ``fixed'' works -- such as 
books or recorded music releases -- while bootlegs, by definition, are 
of live performances. 

A federal grand jury indicted Martignon in October 2003 for selling 
``unauthorized recordings of live performances by certain musical 
artists through his business.'' 

The business, Midnight Records, once had a store in Manhattan but now 
operates solely by mail and Internet. It sells hundreds of recordings, 
specializing in rock artists, from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin. 

An e-mail message to Martignon from the Associated Press was not 
immediately returned Friday, and a phone number could not immediately 
be located. 

Megan Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney, said 
federal prosecutors were ``reviewing the decision and will evaluate 
what steps ought to be taken going forward.'' 

The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that 
fights piracy and bootlegging, also disagreed with the ruling. 

The decision ``stands in marked contrast to existing law and prior 
decisions that have determined that Congress was well within its 
constitutional authority to adopt legislation that prevented 
trafficking in copies of unauthorized recordings of live 
performances,'' said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the RIAA. 

The bootleg law calls for prison terms of up to five years for first 
offenders and 10 years for second offenders, plus fines. It requires 
courts to order the destruction of any bootlegs created in violation of 
the law. 

The law did not apply to piracy, which is the unauthorized copying or 
sale of recorded music, such as albums. 

 

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