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MP3.com Pays Damages to Sony

Posted by Hemos on from the the-music-juggernaut-keeps-rolling dept.

Spudley writes "According to this story on the BBC MP3.com have agreed an out-of-court settlement to pay Sony music $20 million in damages for their past copyright infrigements. The deal also covers the future - MP3.com will from now on pay royalties to Sony. However, the judge has ruled that the trial must still take place, in order to make a ruling on other copyright cases against them."

2 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sad by Lucretius · · Score: 5
    Well it's a sad day. Now we're going to have to pay royalties for music that has already been purchased and is being used within fair use guidelines. Shit.

    This is not what this means. The reason that mp3.com got in trouble was that they were giving you their copy of the music without paying royalties to the record companies.

    Here is the rational. Any two rips of a track on a CD will produce different mp3's due to changes in variables beyond our control (unless somehow you find a way to control everything). In this way, the court is able to see an mp3 much like a copy of an old LP onto tape, each copy is a bit different.

    Thus, when mp3.com makes a rip, they have in effect converted the music into another format (this is legal). However, they then give this legal copy away to people who have "proof" that they own the CD already (this is illegal as it is not in fair use to give away a fair use copy to someone else).

    The best analogy I can give to this is that of a radio station. They convert the music they have purchased and convert it to another form, then pass it out over the radio waves. However, they can't do this for free, they must pay a fee to the record companies for the music they play, because they have given their "fair use" copies out for free (even to some people who own copies of the music).

    This is why other places which offer to store mp3's which you rip aren't getting in trouble, because they are offering you a way to store and play your own fair use copies. So mp3.com was not letting you play music within your fair use guidelines and that is why they got in trouble. This is a case that I personally think was decided correctly, in a legal sense. I think its kinda screwed up that this doesn't work, but hey, the law hasn't had time to catch up with the new ideas yet.

  2. How much will MP3.com cost now? by rkent · · Score: 5
    Okay, let me get this straight. If I buy a Bruce Springsteen CD, and then want to listen to it on MP3.com, they have to pay Sony again to allow me that priviledge? Oh, sorry, I didn't mean "buy" a CD, I meant "obtain a licence to listen to the music on that CD in whatever way Sony deems appropriate." Give me a break.

    So much for MP3.com being free... how much do you think they'll charge now? Of course, there's already plenty of reasons to boycott Sony anyway...