WyBlog

The short version of Judge Denise Cote's ruling is that there is no public performance under US copyright law so there can be no infringement of that right.

The first claim Judge Cote addressed was the transmission of a digital file from mobile provider to the customer's phone. She pointed out "ASCAP does not contend... that a Verizon customer can actually listen to a ringtone while she is downloading it; it acknowledges that the ringtone cannot be played before the transmission is concluded."

In other words a data download isn't a performance. She also concluded that because the transmission is sent to a single individual it's not public by definition.

But what about when the phone rings? That was an even easier question to answer.

She wrote "customers do not play ringtones with any expectation of profit. The playing of a ringtone by any Verizon customers in public is thus exempt under 17 U.S.C. § 110(4) and does not require them to obtain a public performance license."

Finally she ruled on what may be ASCAP's most ridiculous assertion, that Verizon controls when a downloaded ringtone plays.

"Once the customer has downloaded the ringtone onto her telephone," Judge Cote wrote," she controls the telephone and makes the decisions that determine whether that ringtone will be triggered by an incoming call signal. And, of course, it is someone else entirely -- the caller -- who has initiated this entire process."