On Tuesday, a New York state appellate court made a curious decision in a matter being litigated between Grooveshark parent company Escape Media Group, Inc. and UMG Recordings, Inc. The court ruled that due to an oddity in copyright law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not apply to songs that were licensed under state law before February 15, 1972. As such, for these recordings, Grooveshark is not eligible for what is known as safe harbor—an immunity to liability if users upload copyrighted works without the website’s knowledge.

As a website that allows users to upload their recordings, Grooveshark’s business model depends on the DMCA. Users upload songs on Grooveshark and are warned about uploading copyrighted material. If a rights holder discovers that a user has uploaded a copyrighted song, the rights holder notifies Grooveshark. As long as the website takes the song down quickly enough, Grooveshark avoids being held responsible for the infringement.

But an anomaly in copyright law is throwing a wrench in that system. In 1971, Congress overhauled copyright laws, making most protection a federal matter. However, recordings copyrighted before February 15, 1972 would remain under the purview of the common law and statues of the individual states. The new federal copyright prescriptions noted that “any rights or remedies under the common law or statutes of any State shall not be annulled or limited by this Title until 2067.”

» via ars technica

Reselling copies of MP3s you legally purchased violates copyright, according to a ruling made over the weekend by a New York district court judge. The ruling is a victory for Capitol Records, a subsidiary of Vivendi, and marks a devastating loss to ReDigi, a website that lets users resell copies of their legally purchased MP3s. The decision applies only to the New York jurisdiction for now, but could serve as a model for other states, and it’s highly unlikely they would rule any differently.

» via The Verge

eMusic, the online music service that pioneered the subscription approach before Spotify was a glimmer in Daniel Ek’s eye, quietly merged Monday with an e-book distributor, in an unusual bit of digital-media consolidation.

» via The Wall Street Journal (Subscription may be required for some content)

Less than two weeks after a study showing that Internet movie piracy displaces digital film sales, new research by two European Commission researchers arrived at the opposite conclusion with respect to music sales. In short, they find that “digital music piracy should not be viewed as a growing concern for copyright holders in the digital era. In addition, our results indicate that new music consumption channels such as online streaming positively affect copyrights owners.”

The two authors, Luis Aguiar and Bertin Martens, are from the EU’s Information Society Unit (under the Joint Research Centre) based in Seville, Spain. The duo described their study and conclusions in a new 40-page paper published this month.

“Although there is trespassing of private property rights (copyrights), there is unlikely to be much harm done on digital music revenues,” Aguiar and Martens write.

» via ars technica

The Supreme Court has turned away an appeal from a Minnesota woman who has been ordered to pay record companies $222,000 for the unauthorized downloading of copyrighted music.

The justices did not comment Monday in letting stand the judgment against Jammie Thomas-Rasset of Brainerd, Minn. She claimed in court papers that the ordered payment was excessive.

» via Yahoo! News

A United Kingdom judge ruled Thursday that Virgin Media, BSkyB, BT, and other British telcos must block access to BitTorrent sites Fenopy, Kickass Torrents, and H33T.com.

In a written decision, Judge Richard Arnold said that these sites enable copyright infringement “on an industrial scale.” Last year, another British court ruled that The Pirate Bay must be blocked because it allows for significant copyright infringement.

However, a recent study from a UK-based music industry analysis firm confirms what we’ve long-suspected: its data shows that blocking sites that enable unauthorized downloads does little to impact actual piracy.

» via ars technica

The music industry, the first media business to be consumed by the digital revolution, said on Tuesday that its global sales rose last year for the first time since 1999, raising hopes that a long-sought recovery might have begun.

The increase, of 0.3 percent, was tiny, and the total revenue, $16.5 billion, was a far cry from the $38 billion that the industry took in at its peak more than a decade ago. Still, even if it is not time for the record companies to party like it’s 1999, the figures, reported Tuesday by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, provide significant encouragement.

“It’s clear that 2012 saw the global recording industry moving onto the road to recovery,” said Frances Moore, chief executive of the federation, which is based in London. “There’s a palpable buzz in the air that I haven’t felt for a long time.”

» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)

The most selective college in the country — the hardest school to get into — isn’t in the Ivy League or West Point, NY. It’s not an engineering college or a medical school. It’s the Curtis Institute of Music, a tiny conservatory of classical music in Philadelphia which can boast, according to US News and World Report, an admission rate of 3.2 percent.

And which, starting soon, will offer courses on Coursera.

» via The Atlantic

Spotify apparently hit a wrong note with the House’s Internet overlords, who recently blocked the chamber’s Web users from listening to the famed music-streaming service.

While Spotify isn’t a peer-to-peer program along the lines of Napster, its inner workings appear subject to the longstanding ban on so-called P2P technology — a blockade lawmakers erected to thwart illegal file-sharing and prevent downloads from infecting computers with malware

» via Politico