Copyright issues have clearly ruled the roost during the current week - while the week's top news pertains to the sale of The Pirate Bay; another ruling was related to the copyright infringement verdict against Usenet.com for its newsgroup-access service; and yet another was the Supreme Court's turning down of the Hollywood's appeal of the Cablevision network DVR ruling.

In addition, there were two more lawsuits this week, which would be seemingly more significant for the ardent music fans, as they would likely lead to the disruption of digital services!

While one lawsuit was filed by MCS Music America of Nashville and other music publishers against the operators of two existing and one now-discontinued subscription-music services; the other case filed by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) urges a federal court to proclaim that mobile phone ringtones are not downloads, but public performances that are entitled royalties.

MCS and other publishers are seeking a substantial monetary fine from the companies that include the publishers' songs in their services, despite the fact that federal law coerces the grant of the requisite licenses by the publishers.

Meanwhile, in its lawsuit against AT&T, the ASCAP - which has 350,000 members, and collects royalties and licenses public performances of copyrighted works - has asserted that cellphone ringtones make the grade as a public performance as per the Copyright Act.