Wednesday, September 22, 2010

MP3tunes Asks for Summary Judgement In EMI Battle

San Diego-based MP3Tunes, the online music locker service headed by Michael Robertson, is hoping to avoid a jury trial and end its three year long battle with record label EMI, and has asked the U.S. District Court for a summary judgement. According to Robertsons, the move is similar to those taken by Napster, Grokster, Youtube, Veoh, and others, and centers around its compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Robertson said that MP3tunes "promptly disabled access" to 350 alleged infringements of copyrights held by EMI, in compliance with the DMCA, and offered to remove any other allegedly infringing links if EMI would identify them. However, in a letter released to the court from MP3tunes, EMI apparently refused to identify other infringing links so that the firm could comply with the DMCA, instead suing the firm. MP3tunes is citing the Viacom Int'l v. Youtube case, where Youtube won in a lawsuit against Viacom using a similar argument.

---