Two years ago, a bunch of labels affiliated to music giant EMI Group sued both MP3tunes and its infamous founder Michael Robertson – former founder and CEO of MP3.com and currently running VoIP startup Gizmo5 – over alleged copyright infringement. A year ago, a judge did the sensible thing and tossed out the part of the case that could personally bankrupt the man.
Fast forward to about two weeks ago, when a new ruling gave EMI again a way to go after Robertson’s personal assets in court.
According to Chilean tech blog FayerWayer, music startup Grooveshark is about to announce that it has reached an agreement with recording industry giant The EMI Group. The news comes nearly three months after EMI sued the fledgling company behind the service, Escape Media Group, for infringement on its copyright.
Grooveshark is a web-based music application where you can go to listen to music on-demand, at no charge.
Music search and streaming service Project Playlist may finally be turning the tide in its ongoing battle with the music industry. EMI Music, one of the three major labels which was suing Project Playlist for copyright infringement, dropped out of the litigation and is announcing today that it has licensed its entire catalog to the service instead. EMI joins Sony BMG, which was never part of the lawsuit, in licensing its digital catalog of music to Project Playlist.
That is two down, two to go. Warner Music and Universal Music Group are still party to the suit. If Project Playlist CEO Owen Van Natta can get them to license their catalogs as well, maybe the vultures circling the company will go away. The service is currently banned on both Facebook and MySpace. Getting the other two labels on board would be necessary for lifting those bans.
Warner and Universal don’t seem to be in any rush to settle, however.
EMI, which is looking less like a music label and more like a lawsuit label, is at it again. This afternoon they filed a lawsuit alleging “massive and blatant” copyright infringement by Hi5, VideoEgg and ten John Doe defendants to be named later. The core of the suit is over copyrighted EMI content that appears on Hi5, particularly music videos.
EMI is a particularly litigious company. In the recent past, they’vd sued or threatened to sue AllofMP3, YouTube, Apple, MP3Tunes, XM Radio, Infospace (can’t really blame them there) and even The Beatles.
One person close to the litigation says that the parties have been negotiating with EMI for well over a year to avoid litigation, but that they were unable to reach agreement. The shakedown attempt before litigation is standard practice these days. But what is a little different here is that EMI is going deep into the supply chain to find other deep pockets.
VideoEgg, for example, provided video functionality to Hi5 in the past, but the deal ended in April 2008, and they no longer work together. The ten John Doe defendants are presumably other service providers, and/or executives of Hi5, VideoEgg and those other companies. The fact that EMI included VideoEgg in the lawsuit shows that they care little about current infringement – they just want a payoff for stuff that happened in the past.
VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez says that they comply with all DMCA takedown demands, but never received one from EMI. VideoEgg also used AudibleMagic , he says, to identify and proactively removed copyrighted material.
The lawsuit complaint, which was filed in New York, is below.
EMI Music v. VideoEgg, Hi5 and others – Get more Legal Forms
Add another one to the list of Google employee departures: Google VP Engineering Douglas Merrill has resigned, a source says (and confirmed here), and will be joining UK and NY-based big music label EMI Group as President.
Merrill joined Google in 2003 as Senior Director of Information Systems. In the position he just left, he held direct line responsibility for all internal engineering and support worldwide. He was previously an SVP at Charles Schwab and Co.
Why would someone would jump ship from the do no evil company into one of the most despised industries in the world? I don’t have the details yet, but I look forward to reading the official press release when it comes out in the next few days.
One thing’s for certain – he finally found a place for that rock star haircut he’s sporting in the video below. Congratulations on the move, Doug, and Just Say No to a music tax.
