A federal judge has temporarily blocked two music-sharing websites from selling songs by The Beatles and other artists for 25 cents apiece. US District Judge John F. Walter Thursday blocked the sites BlueBeat.com and Basebeat.com and owner Hank Risan from selling copyrighted songs by The Beatles and others. Music company EMI Group filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking an injunction against the sites, claiming they were engaging in music piracy. EMI claims the Web sites have infringed on its copyrights to numerous artists' songs, including The Beach Boys, Coldplay and Lily Allen. Its complaint states BlueBeat.com and Basebeat.com were offering the recently released digitally remasters of The Beatles catalog for 25 cents per song; the box set of 13 albums retails for $250. The Beatles songs have never been legally offered for sale online through sites such as iTunes or other music sharing services. The website's attorney opposed EMI's injunction request, saying the sites are selling an altered version of the songs. In an e-mail earlier this month to the Recording Industry Association of America's general counsel, Risan described the songs as a “psycho-acoustic simulation” rather than the original, copyrighted works. Asked to explain the concept, Risan replied, “Psychoacoustic simulations are my synthetic creation of that series of sounds which best expresses the way I believe a particular melody should be heard as a live performance.”
