More people want to take a bite out of Apple.
Shortly before the Supreme Court of the United States decided to let millions of consumers sue the California-based company over artificially-inflated prices in its App Store, the son and estate of Broadway composer Harold Arlen filed a lawsuit against Apple and other businesses for selling over 6,000 unauthorized recordings of his music. Described as a “massive music piracy operation,” the lawyers claim that “Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Pandora and their distributors have joined with notorious music pirates to sell and stream thousands of pirated recordings.”
According to the lawsuit, the largest digital music stores and streaming services are now flooded with unauthorized copies of Arlen’s songs that are being sold under different record labels for less than the price of the authorized copies of Arlen’s songs. For example, one online retailer is selling a song from the Jamaica cast album under the record label Soundtrack Classics for $0.99 alongside an authorized copy of the song from the RCA Victor record label for $1.29. The cover art of the Soundtracks Classics version has been doctored to remove RCA Victor’s logo.
“It is hard to imagine that a person walking into Tower Records, off the street, with arms full of CD’s and vinyl records and claiming to be the record label for Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald, could succeed in having that store sell their copies directly next to the same albums released by legendary record labels, Capitol, RCA, and Columbia, and at a lower price,” stated Arlen’s attorneys. “Yet, this exact practice occurs every day in the digital music business where there is unlimited digital shelf space … and a complete willingness by the digital music stores and services to seek popular and iconic recordings from any source, legitimate or not, provided they participate in sharing the proceeds,” they argued.
While Arlen wrote the music for thirteen shows on the Great White Way, he is perhaps best known for his work in Hollywood. In addition to penning songs for Blues in the Night, Star Spangled Rhythm, and the 1954 remake of A Star is Born, Arlen composed The Wizard of Oz. Its iconic tune “Over the Rainbow” won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1939, and was later named the “Song of the Century.”
The lawyers for Arlen claim that the online retailers “have had knowledge of their own infringing conduct and that of the many of the pirate label and distributor defendants for several years, and have continued to work with them.” “The more recordings and albums the online defendants make available in their stores and services, the better they are able to attract buyers and subscribers,” they explained.
In addition to putting an end to the alleged copyright infringement, the legal representatives of the late songwriter are seeking damages under the federal copyright statute. The total bill for all of the defendants could top $4.5 million.
“Anything less than maximum statutory damage awards would encourage infringement, amount to a slap on the wrist, and reward multibillion and trillion dollar companies that rule the digital music markets for their willful infringement on a grand scale,” the lawyers insisted.
