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Ellen DeGeneres Sued for Copyright Infringement
By Allie | September 11, 2009
Few pop culture bits have a higher daytime visibility than the so-called “dance over” on The Ellen DeGeneres Show — a segment where the 3-million-viewers-a-day talk show host, accompanied by popular music, shimmies over to her desk following an opening monologue.
However, a group of record labels is looking to cut the music on DeGeneres’ gangly gag.
According to papers filed on Wednesday in Nashville’s District Court, 17 labels have banded together to slap The Ellen DeGeneres Show and its parent companies with a lawsuit alleging the production has used “well over one thousand sound recording owned or controlled by Plaintiffs” without permission.
The coalition — which includes Arista Music, Atlantic Recording Corporation, Big Beat Records, Capitol Records, Motown Record Company, Priority Records, Rhino Entertainment Company, Sire Records Company, Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Virgin Records America, Warner Bros. Recording, and Zomba Recording — says the show’s producers have acted “with complete disregard” for the legal framework of the music business. Contacted by record company representatives inquiring about why they did not obtain licenses, DeGeneres’ people said they “did not roll that way,” according to the filing.
Music soundtracks are part of a number of the show’s sequences in addition to the iconic “dance-over,” and the show often employs “the same sound recordings in multiple episodes and multiple seasons,” according to the suit.
Ellen and John Travolta do the “dance over.”
The suit asks for compensatory, punitive and treble damages. The plaintiffs decided to file the suit in U.S. District Court because the area is “a major music recording and production center, and the recording industry has a sizable impact on the economy in this District.” The lawsuit [see documents] asks for a jury trial and both compensatory and punitive damages.
Funny how it coincides with Ellen DeGeneres being announced as Paula Abdul’s replacement on American Idol, don’t you think?
A New York spokesperson for the show’s parent company Time Warner referred an inquiry about the lawsuit to a Warner Brothers representative in Los Angeles who has not issued any comment. Neither has a publicist for DeGeneres.
source: Coalition of willing record labels sues Ellen over music [nashville post]
Topics: American Idol, Celebrity Crime, Ellen DeGeneres, Wired Gossip, Wired Music |
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12 Responses to “Ellen DeGeneres Sued for Copyright Infringement”
Comments
September 11th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Oh, get over yourself, music industry. You should be thanking your lucky stars that Ellen plays your music. Think of the sales on Itunes!
September 11th, 2009 at 8:32 am
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September 11th, 2009 at 10:55 am
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September 11th, 2009 at 11:24 am
[...] Allie is Wired! says -Ellen DeGeneres Sued for Copyright Infringement [...]
September 11th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Why doesn’t the music business see it the way that I see it? The music being played on Ellen’s show by Tony is free promotional material. I hope that some of the artists that have appeared on her show stand up for her. It seems that the labels and the RIAA are sue happy lately.
September 11th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Anthony Pelicano + wiretapping + plagiarism = American Idol.
September 13th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I think it’s the companies getting revenge on Warner Bros cause on youtube Warner Bros don’t let you use their material even if you say no copyright infringement intended, they get everything removed.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:29 am
Note that one of the record companies is Warner Bros. Recording. Has the age of the parent company really gotten so strange that Warner Brothers is actually suing itself?
September 14th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Ok, that really made me laugh. Warner Bros is suing itself, LOL!
September 17th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Look, we’re running smack into everything covered in Walter Benjamin’s “The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, and how technology is just steam-rollering along over “the way things USED to be”. We’re also shining one last lamplight on some exceedingly desperate record labels who are running out of leak-plugging thumbs — they should be aware that “thousands of hours” starts to equate very well with “uncontrollable release into ‘the wild’” in regards “fair use” doctrines…
September 17th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I looked at that previous post and realized I should instead have used the phrase “limelight” — which is ALSO an example of an obsolete technology lingering almost exclusively in dictionaries and NOT still found lighting stages… This whole lawsuit could conceivably be considered a turning point, looking back ten years from now, establishing a precedent that finally chokes the RIAA and illuminating the ‘global warming’ effect of Mechanical Reproduction on the ‘glacial monolith’ of the INDUSTRIALIZED MARKETING of musical creativity.
We have been starting to encounter “mashups” across multiple contexts — why aren’t THOSE typically being pursued, copyright-wise?? Because they typically don’t have “deep pockets” behind them AND usually entail a certain evolved understanding that increased exposure in WHATEVER format can only help, in a world fast-approaching multi-sensory saturation…
Get viral, and stay tuned, eh?
September 20th, 2009 at 12:19 am
I’m sorry to disagree with all of you. The record labels are only one part of the equation. I make my living as a songwriter and as a songwriter I can only hope that a t.v. show like Ellen’s would use my song and pay for it so that I might be able to feed my family. When I write a song and an artist records it the only way I get paid is if people pay for the right to use it. Believe me, I’m not rich, I just want to work and be paid for my work. I’m sure it is the same for you. Many of you might not be aware of the fact that when a song is played on air the artist receives no payment, only the songwriter and the publisher and record label. Just because you can’t hold something in your hand doesn’t mean it is not stealing when you take something and use it for your gain and it belongs to someone else. THIS TYPE OF THEFT IS KILLING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY. Shame on you Ellen. Shame on you.