Georgia Court Rules in Fovor of iHM in Streaming Case

RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled that iHeartMedia's streaming over the Internet are exempt from a Georgia statute that makes it illegal to transfer sound recordings without the owner's consent, reports the The Telegraph's Amy Leigh Womack. The statute allows broadcasts or similar uses to be exempt, and in an unanimous opinion on Monday, the state Supreme Court ruled, at the least, that iHeartMedia's services qualify as a related use to a radio broadcast because the user's experience is nearly identical to AM/FM broadcast radio.

For example, Womack wrote, when a simulcast of programing on an AM/FM broadcast outlet is offered on the Internet -- with the only difference being that the listener accesses the music through an Internet-connected device instead of a traditional radio receiver -- the stream is legal. The court went on to say that iHM digitally broadcasts a track to a listener for a single use. Afterward, the track disappears from the listener's device, just as the recording on a radio isn't stored for replay.

The suit against iHM was brought by Arthur and Barbara Sherida, who own several master sound recordings of doo-wop, jazz and rhythm and blues music from before 1972, and they contended that they own the intellectual property and contract rights associated with the recordings. They had alleged that iHM repeatedly violated Georgia law by continuing to play the songs without the owners' consent.