NEW YORK CITY, MAY 3, 2007 — A New York federal court jury has found for Winston & Strawn client Launch Media, Inc. (a subsidiary of Yahoo!) in a case in which all of the major record labels asserted claims against Launch Media for copyright infringement. After a nine-day trial in the Southern District of New York, a jury found on Friday, April 27 that Launch Media’s LAUNCHcast internet radio service was not interactive under the Copyright Act and, therefore, found that Launch Media was not liable to the plaintiffs.
At trial, the plaintiffs in Arista Records et al v. Launch Media, Inc. claimed that Launch Media operated its LAUNCHcast service without negotiating a license (as required for "interactive" services under the Copyright Act) and sought statutory damages of as much $2 billion (based upon a claim that Launch willfully infringed more than 1,000 albums and more than 10,000 individual songs played by LAUNCHcast). Launch Media claimed that its service was not interactive, and that they were therefore entitled to an automatic, statutory license.
Michael Elkin and Tom Lane, partners in Winston & Strawn’s New York office, led the trial team for Launch Media.
Winston & Strawn LLP is an international commercial law firm with more than 850 attorneys in nine offices including Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Paris, Geneva and Moscow. |
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