With all of the copyright-rights suits going around, it seems as though it was inevitable that someone eventually target household names, but it’s happened in a way that’s both a bit grander and a bit stranger than expected. The companies being taken to task are Microsoft, Yahoo and Real Networks, all of which sold music, apparently legally, through online services.

How long before they just decide the whole affair is pointless and we go back to cassettes?

This particular suit is brought by MCS Music America against the various services the three companies run, yahoomusic.com, rhapsody.com and zune.com. The issue stems from the ability to listen to “on demand streams” of particular songs. The argument is that these services sell not only the content of the tracks in question, but also the “underlying composition”. If all of this seems a little confusing, that’s probably because it is… The problem seems to stem from the fact that there are two separate acts copyrighted in music, the first is the song itself, the composition, and the second is the performance of that composition. Apparently you have to license both now.

TechDirt, the site that first brought the news to light, is reporting that this is an indication that we’re starting to see copyright law become so dense and convoluted that even people trying to run a legitimate business are being fenced into strange situations because of it.

You can read about the whole mess in a lot more detail at TechDirt, here.