Glenn Morris sends word that a lawsuit filed by Universal Music
Australia against Sharman License Holdings (Kazaa file sharing
software) will be defended by citing an 1899 ruling about
pianola rolls:

"Boosey vs Whight (1899) involved copyright charges arising over
the production of pianola rolls, in which the court found that the
reproduction of the perforated pianola rolls did not infringe the
English copyright act protecting sheets of music.

"Lawyers in the 1899 case forged their defence on the argument that
'to play an instrument from a sheet of music which appears to the
eye is one thing; to play an instrument with a perforated sheet
which itself forms part of the mechanism which produces the music
is quite another thing.'

"However you describe it on a computer hard drive, it is not a copy
of a sound recording, and it also has the implication that even if
you take from a CD and put it on a computer what is on the computer
it not a copy," said Sharman lawyers.

More at
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/networks/0,39020345,39155161,00.htm

Robbie Rhodes