Major music labels sue MP3Board on copyrights

Major recording labels, including BMG Music, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Warner Bros. Records sued MP3Board Inc., seeking to prevent its Web site from linking users to “pirated” music on the Internet. The copyright infringement suit, filed in Manhattan federal court, comes three weeks after Warner and BMG settled a copyright suit with online music company MP3.com Inc., which uses the MP3 technology to store and transmit music over the Internet. The two companies are not connected.

According to the lawsuit, the MP3Board site (http://www.mp3board.com) links users to “pirated” copies of the plaintiffs’ copyright-protected music. The music can then be downloaded onto computers free of charge. The site encourages piracy and has become a “centralised and leading resource for pirates seeking illegal copies of virtually any recording,” the suit against Bakersfield, Calif.-based MP3Board alleged, adding that it is one of the Internet’s most-visited music-based MP3 sites.

An attorney for privately held MP3Board said that the site does not actually have MP3 files on it. It provides search engines which locate and index MP3 and music-related content on the Internet, and establishes pathways to third-party sites. “When we post a hyperlink, that’s not a copy,” said the attorney, “What’s at stake is, are we going to tell the HotBots and AltaVistas that merely linking alone, arising out of search engine results, represents copyright infringement?”

MP3Board filed a suit on June 5 in federal court in San Jose, Calif., seeking to prevent the Recording Industry of America (RIAA), which includes the major labels, from shutting its Web site. The RIAA also sued San Mateo, Calif.-based software maker Napster Inc. last December on similar MP3 music piracy charges. A trial is set to begin July 26 in San Francisco.

The MP3 format, a standard in the online music business, allows music to be converted into computer files in small packets of data. The compression makes it easy to store and copy music onto personal computers. Proponents of MP3 have argued that the system is the functional equivalent of storing CDs that have already been purchased.