RIAA Wins Round One in Court Battle with mp3.com
In a Stunning Defeat, Consumers Lose Rights to Copy their Own Music to mp3.com's web vault
May 2, 2000
It's the title bout! Here's the tale of the tape:
The Scorecard:
- RIAA scores a Knockout
- mp3.com is on the canvas (the ref is still counting)
- Consumers lose big time!!
On April 28, 2000, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff issued a one page order holding MP3.com liable for copyright infringement, giving the recording industry an early win in its battle to stop the company from allowing consumers to stream music from a virtual database. The RIAA also is expected to file an injunction to have the albums from the major labels removed from the service.
Although the company disputes it, this may very well be a death blow to upstart mp3.com. But it will take a while for the corpse to decay. Under attack from it's first day of operation, mp3.com tried in vain to find format that allowed it to peacefully coexist with the RIAA. They thought having consumers actually pay for the music would do the trick. However, the paranoid RIAA found the highly visible public company an easy target.
the WIZARD believes this is a very serious attack on your rights. You can no longer purchase a compact disc (CD), then store a copy (even a relatively poor copy that you cannot recopy) of that CD in mp3.com's vault for streaming later to a computer near you. With this victory in their hip pocket, nothing stands in the way of the RIAA from making the act of copying totally illegal. True MP3's are next with Napster being the next sacrificial lamb going to the slaughter.
mp3.com's CEO, Michael Robertson stated, "We think this is a loss for the labels. When a responsible system like my.mp3.com, which requires people to buy the CDs before they can listen to the music is potentially halted, that leaves a vacuum for other services like Napster and Gnutella -- which don't protect artists -- to flourish."
Sadly, it is a bigger loss for consumers. mp3.com were the good guys. Why would the RIAA go after a company that was actually forcing consumers to purchase a CD with real money? For more information please also see Hollywood vs. the Internet below.
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