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A New York District judge has dismissed EMI’s copyright infringement lawsuit against MP3Tunes CEO Michael Robertson.  In November, 2007 14 record labels affiliated with the EMI filed the suit, claiming MP3Tunes’s internet locker service encourages copyright infringement.  The service, which has 150,000 customers, provides personal, password protected accounts known as lockers that allow all music stored in them to be shared between PCs, game consoles, DVRs and cell phones.
The judge has allowed the suit against the company itself to proceed.  It will eventually determine if it is permissible for music to be stored in cloud services the way documents and photos are.  Interestingly enough, EMI has not sued the similar services offered by Microsoft, AOL or BT.  Robertson believes that the reason behind that is that EMI decided it would be easier to make an example out of his small company.

“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.“

One thing is for sure, the results of this case will have a definite affect on the blossoming new Web 2.0 field of cloud services. The ongoing war against DRM will also be affected. Digital music lovers are making themselves heard and won’t be silenced anytime soon.

Read[PRNewsWire]

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