Partial victory for EMI in MP3tunes battle

US

Catherine White-staff reporter

EMI Group has won a partial victory against online music storage site MP3tunes after the site was found liable for contributory copyright infringement.

US District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan ruled today that MP3tunes contributed to infringement when it failed to remove unauthorised songs from its website after being informed about them.

Pauley also ruled that MP3tunes's founder and CEO Michael Robertson, was liable for direct infringement for personally transferring songs digitally from websites that were not authorised to provide them.

In the court document, Pauley states, "Users of MP3tunes unlawfully copied songs from unauthorised third-party websites."

However, Pauley did side with MP3tunes in regards to the safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), thus ruling against some of EMI claims.

The safe harbor protection does not apply to instances in which MP3tunes users got songs from unauthorised sites and stored them on the website. He also dismissed claims that MP3tunes employees were liable for infringement by downloading 171 songs.

He wrote, "While a reasonable person might conclude after some investigation that the websites used by MP3tunes executives were not authorised to distribute EMI's copyrighted works, the DMCA does not place the burden of investigation on the internet service provider."

Copyright infringement is a thorn in the music industry's side due to profit losses. On 12 May, the now defunct file sharing site LimeWire agreed to pay record companies $105 million to end a federal trial over infringement damages.