Songwriters pursue three more firms

21-11-2001

by Andrew McLindon

A group representing music publishers and songwriters has sued MusicCity.com for copyright infringement in the latest battle over Internet music distribution.

The suit was filed by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the duo who wrote "Jailhouse Rock" and "Stand by Me." The lawsuit, which alleges copyright infringement by MusicCity, Consumer Empowerment BV and Grokster, was filed by the two men on behalf of the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) in a US Federal Court in Los Angeles.

"This lawsuit seeks to protect the rights of music creators from flagrant piracy," said Edward P. Murphy, NMPA's president, in a statement. "As the legitimate market for on-line music develops, however, it is also about fundamental fairness to the music services that wish to comply with the law by taking licenses." The suit filed by the music publishers seeks a permanent injunction against the three companies and damages of USD150,000 for each infringed work.

All three companies are involved in peer-to-peer file swapping. MusicCity distributes a software program called Morpheus, which taps into an on-line network of hundreds of thousands of users trading music, movies and software files.

Amsterdam-based Consumer Empowerment BV, also known as FastTrack, developed the file-sharing software licensed to MusicCity and similar technology distributed by Grokster.

MusicCity and Grokster were also sued in October by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America in a move to prevent their users from trading movies and music over the Internet.

NMPA recently signed a preliminary agreement with Napster, which pioneered the distribution of music over the Internet by individuals, albeit through a central server, by which Napster has agreed to take licenses and pay USD26 million to settle the dispute.

"Our legitimate licensees should not be competitively disadvantaged simply because they have chosen to comply with the law. This lawsuit seeks to level the playing field," commented Murphy.

MusicCity said that it would "vigorously" defend all legal actions against it.

The lawsuit against the three firms marks a unique chapter in the battle against on-line music swapping. Unlike Napster and similar sites which provide a cyber-location for users to download songs, Morpheus-based Web sites are simply providing the software that let individuals swap computer files themselves.

Eamonn Shackleton, head of media at the Irish Music Rights Organisation, told ElectricNews.net that he was not surprised by the lawsuit. "The distribution of music in this manner is a ticking time bomb," he commented.

"Up until now publishers and songwriters associations have taken a softly, softly approach to this issue because we have been sensitive to the on-line culture that seeks to operate as freely as possible. However, we have seen many cases where people's rights have been totally disregarded and somebody had to call a halt at some stage," added Shackleton.

According to Shackleton, the issue of copyright infringement will become even more important as the music industry begins to sell more of its material over the Internet. "Sooner or later people won't be buying a piece of plastic, they will be buying bytes of information and in that environment the industry has to take steps to protect itself."

He said that although there had been some cases of alleged copyright infringement in Ireland, the sites involved had been "very small players" and had caused "irritation" rather than being a serious problem.