News

The owners of Spanish website Puretunes.com are the latest to feel the wrath of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its campaign to rid the world of unauthorized music. The site's parent company, Sakfield Holding, will defend itself against a lawsuit filed July 3 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The accusation: providing illegal downloads.

The site went live in May, offering what the RIAA claims are "unlimited" downloads of copyrighted recordings. A loophole in Spanish intellectual property law allowed it to do so, according to reports in early and mid-July. Only a month of activity transpired before the site went dark—and with it went users' subscription fees. Puretunes had promoted itself as a legitimate, licensed music site, but had never obtained the rights to offer downloads to its users, the RIAA contends.

The site was ripping off both consumers and the recording industry, according to RIAA attorneys. "They tried to perpetrate a fraud on the public," read a statement from the association. The RIAA is seeking an injunction to prevent further use of copyrighted material, plus damages and attorneys' fees. The lawsuit is part of a wide effort by the music industry to contain what it perceives as an epidemic of piracy. Lawsuits are in progress against other Internet music ventures, as well as against retailers accused of selling pirated discs.

The guy who got the download avalanche started may be back in business, this time on the side of the recording industry. Shawn Fanning, who as a college student developed a peer-to-peer file-sharing scheme that in 1999 made Napster an overnight success, claims he has developed a system that can distinguish copyrighted recordings from those free for public use. Fanning's "audio fingerprinting" technology would recognize copyrighted songs on a network and "let the copyright owners set a price for downloading them," reported LA Times writers Joseph Menn and Jon Healey on July 7. Fanning is said to be seeking financial partners for his next venture. His original company will likely be reborn as a commercial effort under new owner Roxio, Inc.

In other downloading news, German music labels are banding together to develop an Internet format for legal downloads, according to a July 12 report from Cologne. The partners—BMG, EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music—would offer titles from their catalogs to group-sponsored sites where German music fans could download on a fee basis. Probable sites to offer the service include Amazon.de and RTL.de, according to the report. German music industry officials estimate that illegal CD copying rose 14% in their homeland last year.