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Capitol Records Flooded Internet With MP3s, Says MP3Tunes CEO
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In court papers filed in New York in Capitol Records v. MP3Tunes, the CEO of MP3Tunes, Michael Robertson, has accused the plaintiffs EMI, Capitol Records, and other EMI record labels of flooding the internet with free MP3s of their songs for promotional purposes, 'free to everyone (except, apparently, MP3tunes).' His 10-page declaration (PDF) provides exact details of specific song files, including the URLs from which they are being distributed free of charge, both by paid content distributors, and by EMI itself from its own web sites."
Nope, you've got it right.
If Capitol Records holds the Copyright, then they can do whatever they want and still control the distribution channel.
Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry -- Mark Twain
I'm an ex-MP3tunes employee. Michael Robertson is a scumbag. He's repeatedly fucked partners (we had a deal with Warner Music to sell physical CDs and provide the customer with MP3s instantly -- he decided to sell just the MP3s, so they got pissed off and shut us down the next day; driving away partners and shutting off legitimate business channels is a great way to fail), abused employees, etc. MP3tunes is down to 4 people from its height of 14, due to his complete and utter incompetence. Linspire is dead due to him stealing money (read Kevin Carmony's blog for all the dirty details, and there's far more that isn't there). SIPPhone is dying due to him not spending money on his companies and pocketing it instead.
As much as I support many of his efforts, he's a snake in the grass and everyone knows it now. There's not a single respectable company that's willing to come within a mile of him due to his previous actions, and this is his dying breath.
I can only hope this bankrupts him so he'll stop hurting people
P.S. When this lawsuit began, he posted on his blog about them trying to "take his minivan". He doesn't mention his massive ranch in San Diego, his Lexus (which cost about two of his (extremely underpaid) programmers' yearly salaries), or his $20M beach house in Del Mar. Fuck MR.
MP3Tunes wasn't even distributing the music.
All they were doing was providing links to where other entities (including, as it turns out, EMI) were distributing them.
They're saying "EMI told us to remove these links and said that they hadn't authorized any of this music to be downloaded, and look, here's where EMI was authorizing it..."
Just because someone gives you a copy of their copyrighted work doesn't mean you get to copy and redistribute it.
The owner of the copyrighted work explicitly grants any and all rights regardless of how much they are charging for a copy of the work (even when they are giving it away for free).
- Roach
I used these URL's (from the PDF) and they appear to be functional:
http://capi001.edgeboss.net/download/capi001/lilru/dontilookgood/lil_ru_dont_i_look_good_cl.mp3
http://capi001.edgeboss.net/download/capi001/beastieboys/misc/acapella/Car_Thief_A_Cappella.mp3?ewk13=1
http://capi001.edgeboss.net/download/capi001/doves/skystartsfalling/audio/skystartsfalling.mp3
http://angel.edgeboss.net/download/angel/seth_lakeman_audio/digitalep/king_and_country_128k.mp3
http://mute.edgeboss.net/download/mute/xx_teens/darlin_original.mp3
http://mute.edgeboss.net/download/mute/moby/mobylastnight_sampler.mp3
http://www.emichrysalis.co.uk/vincentvincentandthevillains/music/track0.mp3
http://emichrysalis.co.uk/herculesandloveaffair/downloads/16_11_07/Hercules_Theme.mp3
http://www.definitivejux.net/store/catalog-product/US-A4T-04-173-00.html
http://goldenhorse.co.nz/mp3s/Dont%20Wake%20Me%20Up.mp3
http://goldenhorse.co.nz/mp3s/Fish.mp3
http://www.parlophone.co.uk/sparklehorse/download.php?FILENAME=shadeandhoney.mp3&DOWNLOAD=1
http://www.parlophone.co.uk/mailers/morningrunner/Cant_Get_It_Right.mp3
http://www.parlophone.co.uk/babyshambles/timesdownload/download.php?DOWNLOAD=1&FILENAME=babyshambles-lost_art_of_murder.mp3
http://www.becrecordings.com/christaylor/1.mp3
http://www.becrecordings.com/christaylor/2.mp3
http://www.radiomute.com/rmmusic/fieldrecordings-mad%20world.mp3
(slashcode is attempting to auto-link in a <code> block... a pity for those who understand xargs)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I think what you're missing is spelled out fairly effectively in the linked declaration. EMI sued MP3Tunes not for redistributing their IP, but for linking to locations that did. More specifically, they required not only that they remove specific links to specific songs as they had done initially, but that they remove links to every EMI song in existence claiming that they had not authorized ANY of their songs to be distributed online. MP3Tunes declined to do this and was sued. This, however, gives examples of several places where EMI HAD authorized their songs to be distributed as MP3s and thus not every link to every song they own is an infringing link.
Didn't you read this?
There is no implicit right to re-distribute even if you are given a copy of something for free.
You're 100% correct, but I think it'd be darn difficult to show damages. A certain famous case comes to mind where BellSouth claimed Craig Neidorf stole documents worth $79,449. As it turns out, they offered the documents for sale (from their catalog, no less) for $13. When this came out at trial, BellSouth wisely dropped the case.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I think what you're missing is spelled out fairly effectively in the linked declaration. EMI sued MP3Tunes not for redistributing their IP, but for linking to locations that did. More specifically, they required not only that they remove specific links to specific songs as they had done initially, but that they remove links to every EMI song in existence claiming that they had not authorized ANY of their songs to be distributed online. MP3Tunes declined to do this and was sued. This, however, gives examples of several places where EMI HAD authorized their songs to be distributed as MP3s and thus not every link to every song they own is an infringing link.
And the accompanying memorandum of law gives you the context in which the declaration was being submitted.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
There was a lawsuit about this and the eBay seller who was selling promotional CDs won the right to continue selling them.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
When copyright applies, the Right of First Sale still trumps it. Thus, you can download an MP3 from an authorised free site, then sell it. You can download it 100,000 times and sell those 100,000 copies. So, if you want to be a distributor, just download the file as many times as you want for free, then sell or give away those copies. As long as you delete them when you transfer ownership, then you have violated no law.
There is no implicit right to re-distribute even if you are given a copy of something for free.
Sure there is. Plenty of people got the Cue-Cat for free and sold it. They had the implicit right to re-distribute it after having gotten it for free. That's law, and it trumps copyright. Yes, they don't have the law to get one free Cue-Cat and make 10,000 copies they then distribute, but if they found a way to get 10,000 of them for free, then distributing them is perfectly legal.
Learn to love Alaska
The First-sale doctrine applies only to tangible property. It does not apply to an mp3 you downloaded.
"Hacker Crackdown" by Bruce Sterling, available from Gutenberg. I think he pasted parts of it to Phrack, which he published at the time.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Adding to this, I think the crux of that case was that the promoter sent the CDs unsolicited through the postal service. The law, more or less, is that if you receive something in the mail unsolicited, it's yours to do want you want with, regardless of any sort of license or contract that comes with it. In order for terms to be enforceable, they have to be agreed upon before delivery.
In the eBay case, this was essential; as far as the court was concerned, the seller had auctioned up a regular CD, and the promotional no-resell terms were unenforceable because the CD was unsolicited.
Fnord.