EMI Loses Case Against Digital Music Pioneer Michael Robertson

SAN DIEGO, CA. (Top 40 Charts/ MP3tunes) - New York District Judge William H. Pauley III has ordered the copyright infringement lawsuit against Michael Robertson dismissed and the case against MP3tunes and its personal music lockers to proceed in his New York court.
In November 2007, fourteen record labels and publishers affiliated with major record label EMI filed a lawsuit against MP3tunes and Michael Robertson alleging copyright infringement. The complaint focused on MP3tunes' internet locker service where individual music libraries can be stored and accessed.

"Suing CEOs personally is a nasty tactic media companies are engaging in to intimidate individuals, forcing them to either enter into a settlement or face the possibility of losing their homes, cars, and all their personal belongings," said MP3tunes CEO, Michael Robertson. "I chose to fight instead of run, because I believe consumers should be able to listen to their music everywhere. We look forward to explaining to the court what we do, and how we do it in a responsible and legal manner."

MP3tunes has 150,000 customers with personal music accounts known as lockers. All music stored in these password protected accounts is available on their PCs, game consoles, DVRs, internet radios and mobile phones for listening. Free and premium accounts are available to a worldwide audience at https://mp3tunes.com. The proceeding copyright infringement case against MP3tunes will determine if it is permissible for consumers to store their music in online commercial services for everywhere access, directly analogous to the way they currently store documents, photos and other personal data in cloud services, such as those offered by Google, Apple and others.

"Many large companies, such as AOL (Xdrive), Microsoft (Skydrive) and BT (The Vault) offer online music storage, but EMI intentionally targeted my small company thinking they would have a tactical legal advantage," said MP3tunes CEO, Michael Robertson. "Much is at stake because if we lose this case it will shut down every online storage company and cripple consumers' rights."