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Apple Inc. Logo hangs over the entrance to an Apple store on 5th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA Reuters/Mike Segar
(Reuters) – Apple Inc has settled a copyright dispute with the heirs of singers from the early 20th century Tin Pan Alley era of music from “Find Happiness,” “Hurricane,” “This Love” and others. The pleas were filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court.
The settlement marks the end of a series of lawsuits against Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft for selling “bootleg” digital versions of those and other songs written by Harold Arlen, Harry Warren and Ray Henderson.
Attorneys for the heirs did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday, and neither Apple nor One had attorneys.
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Arlen is known for writing “Over the Rainbow” and other hits from the early 1900s, including “I’ve Got the World on a String” and “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” Henderson wrote standards including “Bye Bye Blackbird,” and Warren’s best-known songs include “At Last” and “I Only Have Eyes For You.”
As of 2019, the heirs have sued tech companies for selling pirated copies of dozens of songs. According to the suit, the companies were “simply duplicating previously released copies and selling them as if they were the rightful owners” of song downloads from legal entities at a lower price than the authorized versions.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled in March that Apple did not willfully infringe the heirs’ copyright, but was responsible for making the recordings available on iTunes.
The parties reached a settlement on Wednesday, according to a statement in court documents. The heirs settled their disputes with Amazon, Microsoft and Google last year.
The cases are SA Music LLC v. Apple Inc., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Nos. 3:20-cv-02146, 3:20-cv-02794 and 3:20-cv-02965.
For the heirs: Matthew Schwartz and Brian Levenson of Schwartz Ponterio & Levenson, Oren Giskan of Giskan Solotaroff & Anderson.
For Apple: Gabriel Levin and Scott Edelman of Gibson Forest & Crutcher
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