EMI Says Online File Storage Is Illegal

WiglyWorm writes "MP3tunes CEO Michael Robertson sent out an email to all users of the online music backup and place-shifting service MP3tunes.com, asking them to help publicize EMI's ridiculous and ignorant lawsuit against the company. EMI believes that consumers aren't allowed to store their music files online, and that MP3tunes is violating copyright law by providing a backup service."

Comments

Re:Unfortunately

[Kjella]

I'd hazard a guess, insofar as I'd want to try and infer reason in the minds of music executives, that online storage is probably perceived as being equal to distribution via p2p Ah, but there's a vital difference because with P2P you transfer the copy to a different legal entity. If I rent a bank deposit box, the bank may be handling the copy but it remains my copy. Is MP3tunes allowed to offer a "mp3 vault" for my music? Apart from being a much more specialized service, it is any different than any other online backup solution? I haven't bothered to read the specifics but I hardly think it'll be the same case as P2P.

Rippling Ramifications

[frkbros44]

I submit that the most siginficant aspect of this story is that it demonstrates now the artificial market interference of the "anti-piracy" enforcers is already being used to arbitrarily restrict user freedoms in areas that are only incidentally related to the purpose of copyrights.

This kind of rippling ramification will become ever more common as the legacy duplication and distribution industries get ever more desperate in protecting their obsolote business model from technological progress.

Re:Unfortunately

[will_die]

There is no fair use about this.
EMI is saying when you upload a file to an on-line site you are lossing posestion of the file and it is entering the possestion of the site you uploaded the file too. It the uploader is still claiming rights to the file then a copy was made. Making an additional copy of the music is a right that only EMI can give. Never mind that all the music upload was not from EMI.
mp3tunes case was that they were not sharing the files, only available to the uploader, and they did nothing with the files except provide backup protection and allow the uploader purchaser access to them.
The lower court has already decided on this in favor of mp3tunes. This was back in March, the item released today was more in the area of a press release.

Then as you say this will boil down to laws not keeping up with the way technology is going. Chances are in most states in the US and most other countries EMI is probably right in the law.

Re:Well, piracy hurts real people.

[ozmanjusri]

It lacks an adequate production arm.

Live music and self publishers.

The cost of releasing a track has dropped to almost nothing. With an $800 Boss solid-state recording deck and a laptop, we have tools that are an order of magnitude better than whole recording studios from a decade ago.

If the majors had reduced their prices to match the drop in costs, they might have kept a place in the market. As it is, their greed and stupidity means they deserve to die.

Oddly enough though, our band still produces CDs for local fans to buy at gigs, and they sell well despite the tracks being freely available on the web. A little goodwill goes a long way, I suspect.