Bluebeat Aims To Win Battle Over Beatles With EMI

When we first heard about Bluebeat.com streaming the entire Beatles catalog as well as selling each song for only 25 cents, we were definitely shocked. We were surprised further yet when Bluebeat continued to sell the music after major British label, EMI, filed a copyright lawsuit.

Now, we’re just amazed to find out that Bluebeat is confident they can win this battle. Does anyone else agree with them? Talk about being an underdog!

Even after both Bluebeat and their sister site, Basebeat.com were shuttered on Friday after a judge sided with EMI, the company’s chief executive, Hank Risan boldly states, “We are going to come back and fight another day. We think we are going to win in court.”

Let’s see… EMI owns the rights to all Beatles songs and they even work in conjunction with Apple Corp for distribution. The judge in LA says there is not enough evidence in Risan’s defense to prove he and his company aren’t infringing on EMI’s rights.

Rizan still bizarrely sees it completely different. His main point in the argument? According to ABS-CBN news, he declares:

“They need to understand that we’ve done everything lawfully. The works are independent creations done using new psycho-acoustic modeling or simulation [...] Those works do embody the melody very much. But if you compare them against the original CD they sound quite different [...] We are not re-recording the songs,” Risan said. “The law allows you to mimic, copy and imitate. Instead of having a cover band that looks and acts like the Beatles we do it all in a virtual 3D environment.”

His reasoning of “simulation” seems like a tricky loop hole, but is it tricky enough?

For those who still desire the Beatles catalog in digital format, you still have two options: The Beatles Rock Band, and the new limited and apple-shaped USB drive which EMI will be distributing in December.

Do you think Bluebeat has chance in this case?