FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMPASS is prosecuting two content providers (CPs) for their unauthorized commercial usage of ring tones and MP3 downloads of musical works, of which COMPASS is the exclusive licensee in Singapore.
The two companies, in the course of their businesses, offer, provide, transmit and distribute for sales, ringtones, true tones and MP3 downloads. Without obtaining the necessary copyright music licence from COMPASS, their actions are deemed to be infringing the copyright of the musical compositions as described below:-
Reproduction rights when they downloaded the copyright musical digital tones belonging to COMPASS into the servers of CPs for the purpose of distributing them for their trade.
Communication rights when they in the further process of making sales by way of communications or transmitting musical digital downloads to the public users, and Reproduction rights when the said musical digital downloads were reproduced and downloaded into the users?mobile phones.
COMPASS is prosecuting the two CPs for all the communications and reproduction rights of the musical compositions at the point when they were made available for sales, and the process when they were reproduced and downloaded.
COMPASS, through agreements signed with songwriters, music publishers, and our overseas affiliated societies, is vested with the rights to administer public communication rights, as well as the reproduction rights of musical works in the online and mobile environment.
COMPASS has already licensed a number of major CPs including SoundBuzz, Samsung, CherryPicks and Apic (IguanaMobile). Many more are expected to do so. The local telecommunication companies (SingTel, M1, Starhub) have agreed to a system whereby only CPs who have obtained the relevant licences with COMPASS can be allowed to use their telecommunication networks to provide sales of ringtones and MP3 downloads of musical works belonging to COMPASS.
The two cases against the companies will be mentioned on 8 December 2006, 2pm at the Subordinate Court 23.
Meanwhile COMPASS is investigating other CPs for possible copyright infringement and may consider taking similar legal action.
EDIT: 09 Dec 2006: The prosecution of the two internet providers has been postponed to 3 January 2007 and 10 January 2007 respectively.
EDIT: 03 Jan 2007: Suit against one of the content providers has been postponed for another month at the request of the third party whom the CP has contractual agreement with.
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