Who not to get sued by

September 6, 2005

Universal Music Australia, Festival Mushroom Records, EMI Music Australia, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music, BMG Australia, UMG Records, Shady Records, Interscope Records, Aftermath Records, Real Horrorshow, The Living End, Virgin Records America, EMI Records, Capitol Records, Arista Records, Circa Records, Chrysalis Records, Sony Music (Australia), Sony Music Entertainment (Canada), Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Mayer Music, Timothy James Freedman, Warner Bros. Records, Atlantic Recording Corporation, Warner Music UK, J Ruby Productions, DBA Slash Records, Zomba Recording, BMG Music, BMG UK & Ireland, Laface Records.

With a list like this on the other side of the courtroom, you’re stuffed. As Sharman just found out after getting whacked in regard to Kazaa. Australia seems to be a bit of a leader in taking cases like this to court, not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. I also read somewhere that they had to cover 90% of the other team’s legal costs. I don’t know what that covers, but with those guys in the list above, that’s going to be expensive. The interesting full judgement is online here.

All the usual suspects are there, but a couple caught my eye. Timothy James Freedman (Tim Freedman) and The Living End are in there representing individual interests, and there is a strong overseas contingent as well, including Canada, UK, Ireland and the US. Shady Records, Eminem’s outfit, and Aftermath, Dr Dre’s outfit, are also represented. My friends Sony BMG and EMI feature strongly, always nice to see them around.

Incidentally, Sony are looking at doing a deal with Apple in Japan regarding ITMS, claiming ‘We simply want iPod users to listen to our music’. Bullshit. Why are we still waiting on that June release of the Australian ITMS then??

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