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Music industry attorneys may not enjoy much of a summer vacation. The season got off to a litigious start with a flurry of lawsuits by and against record labels and music-based websites.

On June 3, a group of web-based music companies filed suit against major record labels in US District Court in San Francisco in an attempt to obtain legal sanction for business models that allow subscribers to create their own playlists. Plaintiffs include an online entertainment trade group, the Digital Media Association (DiMA), Viacom Inc.'s MTVi, Launch Media, Inc., MusicMatch, Inc., and Listen.com. (Launch Media had been been on the receiving end of related legal action only a few days earlier, when four record labels filed suit against the company May 24 in a Santa Monica court.)

The websites initiated their suit after Launch Media had been sued for copyright violation by several big labels. The sites, which claim to be "web broadcasters" similar to radio stations, are not seeking monetary damages, but judicial validation that their operations are legal.

Plaintiffs in the San Francisco suit claim that their services meet the definition of "non-interactive web radio" because they allow users "limited input" regarding playlists, and have agreed to pay record labels royalty fees, or "compulsory licenses," to be determined by a Federal board of arbitrators, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP), that will convene July 30. The Recording Industry Association of America, one of the defendants, argues that the sites do not qualify as "non-interactive" because they allow users to compile customized playlists, in part by letting them rate songs in order to hear them more often. The case is "about a handful of Internet music companies who are attempting to gain a market advantage over their competitors," according to an official RIAA statement.

On June 8, the record labels went on the offensive with a suit filed in New York against MTVi Group, MusicMatch, Inc., and Xact Radio, accusing them of offering personalized music services. The filings are the "latest shots in an escalating legal battle over how much record companies should collect in royalties from Webcasters," wrote Jon Healy of the Los Angeles Times.

On the previous day, embattled Napster announced that it had selected Seattle-based Loudeye Technologies to screen copyrighted songs from its service, in compliance with settlements reached after extended litigation against the company by the music industry. Loudeye and Relatable LLC have "digital fingerprint" technologies that allow digital files to be tracked on the Internet. Napster uses both. Several companies have techniques for generating fingerprints, said Loudeye CEO John T. Baker, but only his company has the ability "to derive them." The announcement caused Loudeye shares to rise 45% in a single day, from $1.21 to $1.76 per share on Thursday June 7. Napster's new general counsel is Jonathan Schwartz, formerly a principal associate deputy attorney general in the US Justice Department. Schwartz will insure Napster's compliance with court rulings, and will handle all litigation against the company.

Not an Internet-based lawsuit, but fascinating nonetheless: Funk superstar George Clinton's recording and publishing company Bridgeport Music Group has sued more than 800 defendants for illegally sampling music of Funkadelic and Parliament, two of Clinton's performing troupes. On May 4, Bridgeport, the parent of Bridgeport Music, Southfield Music, Nine Records, and Westbound Records, launched the massive suit in a US District Court in Tennessee, accusing various record labels, music publishers, copyright administrators, and performing rights organizations of participating in the illegal use of Clinton's music. Bridgeport claims that it was never compensated.

Sampling has long been a standard technique among hip-hop artists, whose records are distributed by majors like BMG Entertainment, EMI Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, all of which are named as defendants in the suit. Bridgeport is seeking damages on the order of $150,000 per violation from each use of the copyrighted material.

Executives of Bridgeport Music Group and their investors and attorneys could stand to collect millions as a result of the case. Clinton himself may not see a penny, however. Early this year, he lost his own suit against Bridgeport, filed in 1999, in which he attempted to regain the rights to music he wrote between 1976 and 1983. In January, a judge in a US District Court in Tallahassee, FL ruled against him. In the land of litigation, once you've signed your rights away, they are almost always gone for good.