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No Bright Future For MP3.Com

by Maarten Goldstein, Sep 06, 2000 10:57am PDT
Related Topics – Sony

Been kinda quiet on the Napster front these past days, but we still have MP3.com. Back in April, mp3.com was found liable for their my.mp3.com site feature, where people can listen to songs where ever they go, as long as they verify with their original CD first. Since then, MP3.com has settled the case with four of the five big labels (EMI, BMG, Warner and Sony) for about $20 million per label. The Universal Music Group wasn't interested in the $20 million though, instead they want $450 million in damages from the website. That is euh, a lot of money. Since the judge is already agreeing on the fact that mp3.com is breaking the copyright law so it doesn't look too good for mp3.com. It will mainly depend on the amount of Universal titles in the my.mp3.com database now, MP3.com says 4,700 , Universal thinks there are about 10,000.

Calling UMG's request for $450 million in damages "draconian" and "a death sentence," MP3.com defense attorney Michael Rhodes told Rakoff on Tuesday that the dot-com would be put out of business if damages in the case exceeded $750 per CD, the minimum amount set by copyright laws.
update: Not really $450 million, but the judge did rule against mp3.com - they have to pay up $118 million to Universal now. Ouch.




Comments

45 Threads | 77 Comments

















  • Am I missing something here... but seriously...
    WTF is up with the $751 per CD. Does that mean that every CD that is pirated is $751, or for every copy of a CD? It would be fucked up if it were every copy, because a normal copy of any given CD costs $13 at the store.

    What's wrong with my.mp3.com? If you own the CD, you can make a legal backup copy. It's like those freedrive places. If I have a copy of an old game (like Commander Keen), I can make a backup copy of it.

    That's the really lame part of the DVD trials. They basically said that you can't make backup copies of your DVD's, and if you want to have a backup of it, you should go out and buy the VHS. What a fucking crock.

    FrO