With Nothing Better to Do, EMI Sues MP3Tunes.com

Nowadays, you need to have a strong stomach when creating a new online music service, of any type, because you have no idea how the record industries are going to react. When Michael Robertson launched MP3Tunes.com, he thought he had a bullet-proof idea, and from the looks of things, I would have agreed. The service is essentially a robust music syncing application, allowing you to share music between any computer. It’s like a GoToMyPC, but for music exclusively.

The service was made secure by the fact that the user would have to password protect their collection, making it so that only they could access it. Apparently, this isn’t enough for EMI, who’ve decided to sue the small company. Take a moment to realize how ridiculous this case is. It essentially equates to uploading your own music to a personal server so that you can grab it at home… and being sued for it.

EMI must truly have nothing better to do than to pick on a small service supported by legal music buyers, rather than going to take on the bad guys who are actually distributing their music illegally. In a surprising move, MP3Tunes.com has encouraged users to upgrade to their premium packages in order for them to help pay legal fees. It’s hard to predict how this one will end, but hopefully it end in MP3Tunes favor. If EMI wins… it will be bad news for owners of any digital content, not only music.

Robertson went on to run MP3tunes.com, a similar service that allows you to synchronize all of your music tracks up to the MP3tunes.com servers and then re-synch them down to your computer and/or stream them via iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAMP and a bunch of other software players.

Source: CrunchGear