On Friday, November 9, 2007 EMI sued MP3tunes. For those who don't know,
MP3tunes is a service provider that offers a personal Music Locker and runs
a search engine called Sideload.com. I thought I would share some background
as this will be a very important battle for all search engines and
jeopardizes the rights of music owners to store their music online and play
it on all the devices they own.
The legal scuffle between EMI and MP3tunes began in September 2007 when, in
a letter that accused MP3tunes of a wide range of illicit actions, EMI sent
MP3tunes a specific list of songs it wanted taken down from Sideload.com. I
promptly called EMI's attorney and said we would remove the songs, but I
reminded him that Sideload was simply a Google-like search engine, and had
no actual files -- just links to song files hosted other places. I added
that I admired EMI's progressiveness in selling MP3 files. (I use the new
nifty AmazonMP3 store and my latest buys include Nickel Creek, Telepopmusik,
Robin Thicke, and I'm filling in my missing 80's collection with Loose
Ends.) I also offered to work to make sure that Sideload helped meet EMI's
business goals. The attorney didn't want to discuss that, and instead
quickly demanded a "substantial sum for past infringement" be paid to EMI,
insisting our company had violated copyright law. We definitely didn't see
things that way and felt we were forced to file a lawsuit in San Diego
asking the courts to declare our service legal. We sent a courtesy copy to
EMI's legal representation.
On November 9th, 2007 EMI filed a lawsuit against MP3tunes in New York. I
learned about it from calls I received late Friday afternoon from Dow Jones,
Reuters, and Bloomberg. (Filing late on Friday is a common tactic to make
sure the other side has little/no time to comment.) I indicated I couldn't
really comment on the lawsuit against MP3tunes since I hadn't even read it.
Several reporters observed that MP3.com, a company I founded in the late
90's, had also been sued by a major record label. MP3tunes and MP3.com are
very different, as are these cases. I added that I hoped the press would
keep an open mind and look at the underlying issues.
EMI's lawsuit complains both about Sideload.com and the personal Music
Lockers offered by MP3tunes. Sideload is an audio search engine. It has
links to audio files and shows you where those files are on the net.
Sideload does not host any files. There are many, many such search engines.
Here are just a few, with the same starting letter "S" as Sideload: Songza,
Seeqpod, and Skreemr - all of which are probably much bigger than Sideload.
Many people simply use Google, which is likely the biggest audio search
engine in the world. Any complaint against Sideload could be leveled against
Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask since they all have links to song files.
EMI also complained about MP3tunes' personal Music Lockers. We provide
individual Music Lockers designed to store a user's own music collection
securely online so you can listen to your music collection anywhere you want
to. As an example, when I buy songs at work from AmazonMP3, they are
automatically loaded to my personal Locker so I can listen when I get home
or even on my net radios. My vision is that in the near future people will
have music players built into every piece of electronics they own, and they
will all be connected to the Internet (at least some of the time). Our goal
at MP3tunes is to provide a system that will let you access your personal
music on any device you own. Our implementation is responsible, with
password protection required for each Music Locker. You can't listen to or
download any songs from my Locker or anyone else's -- it's password
protected and utilizes the same security provisions used by most online
services such as online banking. If it's good enough for your money, I think
it's good enough for your music. Of course, there are services online that
people use to swap music -- they typically allow anyone to copy anything
they like with no user names or password requirements. These are very
different from MP3tunes.
While the lawsuit says "EMI" I think the RIAA is advocating this legal fight
as much as any individual label or entity. The RIAA is the music industry's
association with a focus honed on suing seemingly every new technology that
comes along (this last decade at least) . This is what happens when you have
a staff of attorneys -- they want big, long legal fights so they can bill
their clients. The problem with suing every new technology and/or company is
the opportunity to use that new technology in a positive manner is lost. For
example the RIAA sued the first portable MP3 players. The RIAA lost -- not
just the lawsuits, but the chance to leverage an exciting new technology
(MP3 players). It also lost the ability to partner with innovative companies
for increased sales and revenues. By suing every new technology, the music
industry is missing the opportunity to use innovation to dramatically grow
its business in exciting new ways.
Early articles covering the dispute have referenced my previous company,
MP3.com. MP3tunes has no relation to MP3.com and this is a very different
situation, but you might find it interesting to know more about that
incident. At MP3.com I invented Beam-It and Instant Listening as part of a
system called my.mp3 (MP3.com had an incredible engineering staff that took
my rough ideas and made brilliant technology). The concept was to modernize
the audio CD and move it into the digital age. Many people at the time, such
as those at LiquidAudio, were talking about doing $1 song sales (no, Apple
didn't invent that idea). If people stopped buying CDs and instead bought $1
songs, it was easy to predict industry revenues would crater -- I created
Beam-It as a digital solution. You could take an audio CD, insert it into
your computer and in seconds have the songs in your personal my.mp3 account
for listening. With Instant Listening, you could buy a CD online and
immediately have all the songs in your my.mp3 account for your personal
listening pleasure while you waited for the CD to be shipped to you. For the
two months Instant Listening was activated, retailers that used it
experienced sales boosts of 40-60 percent. The only way to get music into
your password protected my.mp3 account was to own the actual CD making the
CD intrinsically more valuable. If the music industry would have adopted
this technology, it could have extended the life of the CD another 10 years.
But, it chose to sue MP3.com and missed a golden opportunity -- CD sales are
down a staggering 60 percent since that time. While MP3.com may be an
interesting footnote in digital music history, MP3tunes is an entirely
different company with different technology.
By attacking the Music Locker, EMI is attacking the right to personal
ownership of digital property. I believe people should be able to listen to
their music anywhere they want, and on any device that suits them -- this is
why we buy it. Most people are not going to have the time or technological
know-how to move the music they own from their PC at work to their PC at
home, or from their PC to their devices (mobile phone,Internet radio and
more). In this Digital Age it will be necessary for people to direct a
service provider like MP3tunes to store their music for them, and to provide
simple yet secure ways to access it on every device they own. I want people
to legally acquire their music, and once they do I think they should be able
to listen to it everywhere.
If you can't store digital music you own in a personal online account, then
your rights to all other digital property like movies, photos, e-books,
medical records, etc can be challenged. Nobody wants to be involved in a
lawsuit, but you have to be willing to stand up for what you think is right
in this world. Digital ownership is an important consumer right, and I am
committed to doing everything I can to defend it. I'll try and keep you
apprised of future developments. Thanks for your support.
