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Christopher Sabec | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Entertainment Attorney, Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Rightscorp, Inc. |
Christopher Sabec is an entertainment attorney, manager, and entrepreneur who has worked with Dave Matthews Band, [1] Hanson, [2] the Jerry Garcia Estate [3] and Tea Leaf Green. [4] Sabec is also the co-founder and CEO of Rightscorp, Inc., the copyright monetization company. [5]
After graduating from University of Georgia School of Law in Athens, Georgia in 1992, [6] Sabec moved to Richmond, VA and was introduced to Dave Matthews. Later, as music attorney for Dave Mathews, Sabec assisted in negotiating Matthews' first recording contract with RCA Records and in setting up his music publishing company, Colden Grey. [4] In 2009, Pollstar stated that Dave Matthews Band had grossed more than half a billion dollars. [7]
In 1994, Sabec met Zac, Isaac and Taylor Hanson at the South by Southwest music conference barbecue in Austin, Texas. [2] Sabec signed the three boys aged 8, 11 and 13 to a management contract and got them signed to Mercury Records. [2] Their first album, Middle of Nowhere, was a Top 10 album, and the single, "MMMBop" was No. 1 for three weeks in the U.S. and also at the top of the charts in three European countries. [2] Total worldwide sales of Middle of Nowhere have been 10 million copies. [8]
In November 2002, Sabec was hired as chief executive of the Jerry Garcia Estate. [3] [4] [9] In the 2000s, consumers went on to buy more than a million J. Garcia-brand neckties each year, and Cherry Garcia was often the top-selling brand of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Under Sabec's management the first live release in to retail was After Midnight, a multitrack recording from Kean College, 1980. [4] He went on to put out between three and four new releases a year from the vault of more than 500 concerts. [10]
Sabec was a panelist at South by Southwest Music Conference in March, 2000 [11] and has taught music industry continuing education courses at the San Francisco Music Tech Summit. [12]
Christopher Sabec was one of the first managers of major label artists to promote the downloading of MP3s as a promotional and marketing tool. In 1998, Christopher, was interviewed by then CEO of MP3.com, Michael Robertson, where he talked about how MP3s were going to change the music industry. [13]
Sabec was the co-founder and CEO of Rightscorp, Inc. [5] The company acts on behalf of entertainment studios, artists, or copyright holders, sending notices to copyright infringers to offer the downloader several options for financial restitution. [5] The notice sent provides a settlement option through Rightscorp for $20 per infringement. If the user chooses not to pay and has repeatedly violated copyright infringements, the ISP may suspend or terminate the subscriber account until a settlement is reached. [14]
Rightscorp, Inc. went public in October 2013, trading on the OTCQB under the ticker RIHT. [15]
On November 21, 2014 Morgan Pietz of The Pietz Law Firm, together with Drew Pomerance of Roxborough, Pomerance, Nye & Adreani filed a Class action Lawsuit against Christopher Sabec, Robert Steele, and Craig Harmon, and Rightscorp, Inc. as well as various John Does. [16]
The complaint sought class certification against Rightscorp, Inc. for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, California’s Rosenthal Act, and Abuse of process for willfully misuse of subpoena power by issuing special DMCA subpoenas, under 17 U.S.C. § 512(h). [17]
Pietz's original plaintiff withdrew from the case and after locating replacements, half the claims were dropped. The court struck down one of two of the claims and Pietz's client was ordered to pay legal fees. [18] [19]
Napster was an audio streaming service provider. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, as a pioneering peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software service with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. As the software became popular, the company ran into legal difficulties over copyright infringement. It ceased operations in 2001 after losing a wave of lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy in June 2002.
Michael Robertson is the founder and former CEO of MP3.com, an Internet music site. In the years following his departure from MP3.com Robertson has launched several companies, including Linspire, SIPphone, MP3tunes, and Ajax13. He is also founder of OnRad.io, a search engine for radio and DAR.fm, a website for recording audio from internet radio.
Ripping is extracting all or parts of digital contents from a container. Originally, it meant to rip music out of Amiga games. Later, the term was used to extract WAV or MP3 format files from digital audio CDs, but got applied as well to extract the contents of any media, most notably DVD and Blu-ray discs.
isoHunt was an online torrent files index and repository, where visitors could browse, search, download or upload torrents of various digital content of mostly entertainment nature. The website was taken down in October 2013 as a result of a legal action from the MPAA; by the end of October 2013 however, two sites with content presumably mirrored from isohunt.com were reported in media. One of them – isohunt.to – became a de facto replacement of the original site. It is not associated in any way with the old staff or owners of the site, and is to be understood as a separate continuation.
Microsystems Software, Inc. v. Scandinavia Online AB, 226 F.3d 35, was a civil case filed in 2000 in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. It received considerable attention in the online community because it involved reverse engineering and cryptanalysis of content-control software, allegedly in violation of copyright law and a clickwrap license agreement.
Arts and media industry trade groups, such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), strongly oppose and attempt to prevent copyright infringement through file sharing. The organizations particularly target the distribution of files via the Internet using peer-to-peer software. Efforts by trade groups to curb such infringement have been unsuccessful with chronic, widespread and rampant infringement continuing largely unabated.
Jacobsen v. Katzer was a lawsuit between Robert Jacobsen (plaintiff) and Matthew Katzer (defendant), filed March 13, 2006 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The case addressed claims on copyright, patent invalidity, cybersquatting, and Digital Millennium Copyright Act issues arising from Jacobsen under an open source license developing control software for model trains.
The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) is United States federal law that creates a conditional 'safe harbor' for online service providers (OSP) by shielding them for their own acts of direct copyright infringement as well as shielding them from potential secondary liability for the infringing acts of others. OCILLA was passed as a part of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and is sometimes referred to as the "Safe Harbor" provision or as "DMCA 512" because it added Section 512 to Title 17 of the United States Code. By exempting Internet intermediaries from copyright infringement liability provided they follow certain rules, OCILLA attempts to strike a balance between the competing interests of copyright owners and digital users.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legally sold recorded music in the United States". RIAA is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of online services for copyright infringement by their users.
Grooveshark was a web-based music streaming service owned and operated by Escape Media Group in the United States. Users could upload digital audio files, which could then be streamed and organized in playlists. The Grooveshark website had a search engine, music streaming features, and a music recommendation system.
Metallica, et al. v. Napster, Inc. was a 2000 U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California case that focused on copyright infringement, racketeering, and unlawful use of digital audio interface devices. Metallica vs. Napster, Inc. was the first case that involved an artist suing a peer-to-peer file sharing ("P2P") software company.
Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3tunes, LLC is a 2011 case from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York concerning copyright infringement and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In the case, EMI Music Group and fourteen other record companies claimed copyright infringement against MP3tunes, which provides online music storage lockers, and MP3tunes's founder, Michael Robertson. In a decision that has ramifications for the future of online locker services, the court held that MP3tunes qualifies for safe harbor protection under the DMCA. However, the court found MP3tunes to still be liable for contributory copyright infringement in this case due to its failure to remove infringing songs after receiving takedown notices. The court also held that Robertson is liable for songs he personally copied from unauthorized websites.
Prenda Law, also known as Steele | Hansmeier PLLP and Anti-Piracy Law Group, was a Chicago-based law firm that ostensibly operated by undertaking litigation against copyright infringement. However, it was later characterized by the United States District Court for Central California in a May 2013 ruling as a "porno-trolling collective" whose business model "relie[d] on deception", and which resembled most closely a conspiracy and racketeering enterprise, referring in the judgment to RICO, the U.S. Federal anti-racketeering law. The firm ostensibly dissolved itself in July 2013 shortly after the adverse ruling although onlookers described Alpha Law Firm LLC as its apparent replacement. In 2014, the ABA Journal described the "Prenda Law saga" as having entered "legal folklore".
UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Shelter Capital Partners LLC, 667 F.3d 1022 No. 09-55902, was a United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit case in which UMG sued video-sharing website Veoh, alleging that Veoh committed copyright infringement by hosting user-uploaded videos copyrighted by UMG. The Ninth Circuit upheld the decision of the United States District Court for the Central District of California that Veoh is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provisions. It was established that service providers are "entitled to broad protection against copyright infringement liability so long as they diligently remove infringing material upon notice of infringement".
Rightscorp. Inc is a Los-Angeles based copyright enforcement company, which locates alleged copyright violators and collects money from legal damages as well as out of court settlements on behalf of the copyright holder(s). Rightscorp manages copyrights of videos, music, and video games.
CEG TEK International was a Los Angeles-based copyright monetization firm. The company also conducted and released studies about unauthorized distribution of motion pictures, music, and other forms of digital media.
Mp3skull was a website that provided direct download links to MP3 files located on third-party sites. It was founded in 2010 and the site has been the subject of controversy for helping users to find unauthorized copies of copyrighted music.
Star Control: Origins is an action-adventure game developed and published by Stardock Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, released September 20, 2018.
Stardock Systems, Inc. v. Paul Reiche III and Robert Frederick Ford, 2018 WL 7348858, is a case where the United States District Court for the Northern District of California applied American intellectual property law to the contents and sale of computer games. Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford are the makers of the critically acclaimed 1990 Star Control game series, and Stardock is the maker of the 2018 release Star Control: Origins. The lawsuit stems from a dispute over the ownership, licensing, and infringement of the Star Control intellectual property, including both trademarks and copyrights.
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