ellen degenres is a music pirate!

[Rich]

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/article/tv-...eneres_lawsuit

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.

Scott Rowe, spokesman for the show's Telepictures Productions, wrote in an e-mailed statement that the company has been working with the record labels for months to resolve the issue and remains willing to resolve it on "amicable and reasonable terms."

Rowe said the issue does not involve DeGeneres, who on Wednesday was named as the fourth judge on TV's "American Idol," and whom Rowe calls "a tremendous music enthusiast and advocate."

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.

[SirGuy]

I never liked her anyway.

Should be interesting to see where this lawsuit leads to.

[Squirt]

It was the producers, not Ellen, that allegedly did all this.

I admire Ellen for being so generous and rising up after such a public smack down after coming out, then losing her loony "now straight" girlfriend to a camera man.

I tried watching her show for a while but couldn't relate. All the straight women fawning over their lesbian leader was just to creepy for me.

I have to say that when they do play a song at the beginning of every show, they name the artist, label, and song title throughout her dancing to the music, just like you would see on MTV. They don't even play the full song. Will be interesting to see how this ends up. Just to be clear: taking something without permission is wrong. Piracy is wrong , and illegal.

[deanb]

She will probably pull a Perez Hilton and stop mentioning, booking, or playing any songs from those record labels. When Perez sued, he did a pretty big boycott on his site, and the record labels eventually came around and dropped the suit and he resumed promotions of their artists.

[rickbuddyprofit]

Oh, this is silly. After her show used 1,000 songs, then, finally, the record companies clued in? That's pretty lame and it just seems like a way to cash in. They should just be happy that the music is being promoted.

Rick Wood
rick@buddyprofits.com
ICQ# 419316049

[rawTOP]

It's like book publishers going after Oprah. Laws, no matter how well intentioned, often end in absurd results. This is one of them. They're suing 'cause she gave them free publicity.

[Oogleman]

I love the woman. Kick their asses ellen!

(even Obama shook his booty on her show)