August 2007

Confronting the 'Public Performance' Issue

By Stephen M. Kramarsky

If a music file is downloaded to a computer and no one is there to play it, does it constitute a performance? This is not some question from a digital-age freshman philosophy seminar — it was the legal issue recently facing Judge William C. Connor in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in United States v. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), 485 F.Supp.2d 438 (S.D.N.Y. 2007).

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