http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090910/ap_ ... es_lawsuit

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Some of the world's largest recording companies are suing "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," claiming producers violated their copyrights by playing more than 1,000 songs without permission.

Many of the songs were played during the "dance over" segment of the show, when DeGeneres dances from the stage to the interview area, often through the audience.

According to the suit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Nashville, when representatives of the recording companies asked defendants why they hadn't obtained licenses to use the songs, defendants said they didn't "roll that way."

"As sophisticated consumers of music, Defendants knew full well that, regardless of the way they rolled, under the Copyright Act, and under state law for the pre-1972 recordings, they needed a license to use the sound recordings lawfully," the suit states.

The suit claims the daytime talk show has used copyrighted music without permission since its inception, including "recordings by virtually every major current artist of popular music." It claims the show routinely used some of the most popular songs of the day, which the record labels don't license for daytime television at any price.

Other songs cited in the lawsuit include Michael Jackson's "Thriller"; The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" and Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It."

The suit calls the segment and the music played by the show's own disc jockey "signature elements of the show."

Plaintiffs include Arista Music, Atlantic Recording Corp., Capitol Records, Motown Record Company, Sony Music Entertainment, Virgin Records America and Warner Bros. Records.

The suit does not specify the dollar amount it seeks in damages.

They should be happy she gives shitty music some air time.

i'm pretty surprised a network show would be dumb enough to use songs without going through the proper procedure.

seriously. what the hell, they don't "roll that way". I don't think that is a valid excuse in the court of law.

I am expecting the Indigo Girls to have a John-Denver-opposes-parental-advisory-notices moment.

There should be some sort of 'fair use' for music, like for print. She didn't play entire songs, fer crist's sake, or offer them for free download on ellen.com

Instead of litigating, the RIAA should work out a Time-Life CD set of Ellen's favorite Jams and sell them during her show - I bet they'd make a mint

Have you ever watched that show?

They dance for like, what, five minutes at a time? The show is just dancing.

Sometimes songs start, finish and start again because they just keep dancing. They just don't stop. I've changed channels, watched significant portions of other programs, only to change back and they're still dancing. They love it.

"Look at me honey, I feel so young again! Watch me shuffle my feet and clap my hands and wobble my hips and flop my American hair around! This takes me back to the 1990s! Oh boy! And I get to hang out near a real lesbian too, something that in my everyday life would perhaps frighten me somewhat, but in this context feels natural. I feel so comfortable in my own skin right now!"

There is no way this should be allowed under fair use. It's the blatant broadcast of significant unaltered chunks of copyrighted material, without permission.

ha ha you watch Ellen you fucking douchebag

I've watched a segment or two during lunch a couple of times.

It's like a religious psycho convention.

LOL no, I've never actually watched it. I assumed they used 15 second soundbites of tunes like every other show or sporting event I've ever seen. By claiming they didn't play entire songs, I was talking out of my ass.

So are you saying that fair use WOULD apply, if the songs were used in small samples like I assumed? Because I don't think it would.

No, it still wouldn't.

The whole premise of this show is dancing to other people's music.

Sue her ass off.

It damn well should be.

I find it a little odd that she's been doing this for, what, 5 years now? 6? I have no idea. And NOW suddenly there's a lawsuit. Because if somebody tried to sue too early, they couldn't ask for much money. But once there are 1000's of infractions (because you sat and waited) you can ask for $1 gajillion. And in the meantime, what damages didyou suffer, exactly? Your music got played on a popular daytime show? SHUDDER TO THINK.

I think it has a lot to do with her show skimpy out on some of the daytime talk show formalities when it comes to playing popular music. You normally bring on musical guests or give a shout out to an artists by distributing "free" CD's to your crowd.
She's using Top 40 tracks to make her look young while not doing much leg work for labels, and having a DJ definitely brings you under a different set of standards than most shows.

That doesn't address my point though, which was about the timing. Why did it take so long, and is the correlation to their expected higher profit from the resulting lawsuit coincidence?

I'm trying to edit this to make it more wrong, but short of inserting some child pornography I don't know how.

Giving free CDs to a couple hundred people in the studio audience is a better shout-out to the artist than playing a song for millions of people on national television? They're not suing her because she didn't promote the artists well enough. They're suing her because they have some copyrights, have no capacity for spotting a huge business opportunity, and can get a lot of money from her. The potential statutory damages are mind-boggling.

This thing could have been in the works for sometime. After some "secret" negotiations between the parties involved failed to come up with a deal, it finally went public.
It could also be a ploy to discredit American Idol now that Ellen is involved.

This is just pretty retarded behavior from those responsible at the show. It's also really sketchy if no one stood up and said something the first 3-4 times it happened.

Thank you.

Bill Pullman was actually pretty funny in "Mr. Wrong".

Whoops. I just woke up.

Yeah, I liked that he was really into Toto, driving around with 'Hold the Line' blaring.

I was hoping they'd show her boobies.

i love that video but still have a hard time believing he didn't know what was going to happen.