MP3.com Files Countersuit Against RIAA
MP3.com (http://www.mp3.com) announced today that it sued the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) (
http://www.riaa.org) and its president and CEO, Hilary Rosen. The complaint, filed in San Diego Superior Court alleges several causes of action for unfair business practices.
This comes just over two weeks after the RIAA filed suit against MP3.com saying the company violates copyrights.
At issue is MP3.com's new My.MP3.com service called Beam-it which allows users to play their CDs anywhere. Users simply insert the CD into the computer and the Beam-it software sends a code to MP3.com that essentially allows it to be accessible through the web site. Once it has been "beamed", the user can listen to the song via streaming MP3 with any MP3 player.
The main problem, the RIAA says, is that MP3.com has encoded all the CDs ahead of time and need to be simply unlocked when a user "beams" the CD to the site. MP3.com has encoded about 40,000 CDs for use in its Beam-it service. Those CDs, says the RIAA, constitute unauthorized copying. MP3 counters by saying that its encoding falls under the fair use provision that allows users to make personal copies of CDs.
In an open letter to MP3.com just before filing the original suit Rosen said, "Simply put, it is not legal to compile a vast database of our member's sound recordings with no permission and no license."
In a statement concerning the countersuit, Michael Robertson, chairman and CEO of MP3.com had words for Rosen. "Since inception, MP3.com has faced the increasingly aggressive tactics of the RIAA and its leadership," he said. "We have recently learned that Hilary Rosen was speaking to equity analysts about the RIAA's New York lawsuit three days before it was filed. While she was doing this, her lawyers were at MP3.com learning about our My.MP3.com technology. The next day I met with her in Washington to engage in an open discussion about business models for bridging our respective interests. Little did I know that she was more concerned about talking to equity analysts about our stock price."
"We can no longer tolerate the bullying tactics of this not-for-profit trade association. After we get to the bottom of all of their actions toward MP3.com, we will vigorously pursue all of our legal remedies," said Robertson.
In a statement released by the RIAA, Rosen lashed back at MP3.com: "The claims in the lawsuit are ridiculous. This is a transparent attempt on the part of MP3.com to silence criticism of its infringing tactics. It won't work. Our record is clear in distinguishing legitimate uses of MP3 technology from piracy. The lawsuit against MP3.com has nothing to do with MP3 technology. It has to do with MP3.com, the company, taking music they don't own and haven't licensed to offer new services to make money for themselves. And there is nothing illegal in my saying so."