Music labels sue nonprofit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over digitized 78s of Frank Sinatra and other artists::The labels take issue with the nonprofit posting digitized copies, which it solicits from users, of records in the antiquated 78 LP format.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Internet Archive’s “blatant infringement includes hundreds of thousands of works by some of the greatest artists of the Twentieth Century,” lawyers for the record companies said in a lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan federal court.
Among the artists cited: Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk.
They are asking the court to order the archive to remove all copyrighted material and pay damages of as much as $150,000 for each infringed work, which for the listed recordings would amount to $372 million.
The Internet Archive maintains a vast digital collection of text, video and music online.
On its Great 78 Project website, it posts digitized copies, which it solicits from users, of records in the antiquated 78 LP format.
But the record companies says the archive’s altruistic claims are a ”smokescreen” to disguise its theft.
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