The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #15019   Message #133445
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
08-Nov-99 - 08:08 PM
Thread Name: Serious BS: HFA/NMPA Round 2
Subject: RE: Serious BS: HFA/NMPA Round 2
Given that you have agreed to remove from the data base any songs which Harry the Fox and Co can plausibly identify as being copyrighted to anybody whom he represents, and that a complete copy of the data base has been made available to them, I find it hard to believe that any court would give time of day to a bid to use it to harass the MC or the DT at this point.

Of course courts are funny places, and the law is an ass, and America is another country. But I would have thought that this would be the kind of thing that is meant by legal terms such as "abuse of process".

So at this point it sounds like bluff. Where it could get trickier is if they move to a stage of trying to claim that various traditional songs are covered by copyright, or that the people who may have granted permission for them to be included do not own the copyright (for example, where the person who wrote the song doesn't own the copyright.