Beatles remasters pulled from BlueBeat after 'psycho-acoustic' defense fails

Facing a contempt of court charge, BlueBeat.com, an obscure music website, has yanked Beatles remasters off its site after EMI, the band's record label, sued for copyright infringement, though some non-remastered Beatles albums and songs are apparently still available on the site. EMI had charged that BlueBeat "engaged in music piracy of the most blatant and harmful kind," naming Hank Risan, of Santa Cruz, Calif., as the head of the operation. As the songs came down, more details emerged about BlueBeat's "psycho-acoustic simulation" defense, which U.S. District Judge John F. Walter practically laughed out of court.

"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," Risan argued in a letter to the Recording Association Industry of America. Say what?