selling bootlegs is legal?

[spacey raygun]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/te...s_x.htm?csp=36

Judge Strikes Down Anti - Bootleg Law
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Published: September 24, 2004


Filed at 8:45 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- 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.

[chsllama]

victory is mine

[C33]

haha

[C33]

i wish i had the juice pop image