No Real Clear Cut Winners or Losers In Landmark “Cloud Piracy” Copyright Infringement Suit!

Both sides in this lengthy battle have taken away some victories and have been saddled with some legal admonishments.

The music storage locker service MP3tunes has scored a big win in its lengthy battle against EMI. U.S. District Judge William Pauley ruled that MP3tunes did not promote copyright infringement and that the service qualifies for “safe harbor” protection under the DMCA. The landmark verdict is good news for other cloud storage services offered by Dropbox, Grooveshark and Amazon.

A major battle over cloud-music services has been resolved, and on balance, it looks like a pretty solid win for the small music-locker service run by MP3tunes.
However, the service and its founder Michael Robertson were found liable for infringing copyright on hundreds of songs, because it didn’t go far enough in responding to takedown letters sent by the music label EMI.

U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan ruled that MP3tunes contributed to infringement when it failed to remove unauthorized songs from its website after being informed about them.


This a high-impact case with ramifications that go way beyond Robertson’s relatively small music-locker service. Three tech giants—Apple, Google and Amazon—have all launched cloud-music services recently, and Amazon and Google both did so without the recorded-music industry’s consent. The fact that MP3tunes was found to have mostly been protected by a legal “safe harbor” in this case bodes well for those other music services in any future legal battles.

The mp3tunes ruling is the third federal court ruling finding that an online service that followed the “rules of the road” couldn’t be shut down with copyright lawsuits. Other recent DMCA “safe harbor” wins were a 2009 ruling in favor of video-sharing service Veoh and, earlier this year, YouTube’s win against Viacom.  Both the Veoh and YouTube rulings are now being argued to appeals courts (and we can expect the mp3tunes case to take the same route.)

Robertson, who is named as a defendant, personally,sent out a statement yesterday calling the ruling “definitely a victory for cloud music and MP3tunes’ business model after a multi-year litigation battle.” He added: “Those in the industry that are building or contemplating personal music service like Amazon, Google, Grooveshark and Dropbox will surely have renewed confidence in offering similar unlicensed services.”

As to the part of the case that mp3tunes lost, Robertson writes “even in those areas we would suggest that the facts are inconsistent with the court’s ruling and are exploring appeal options.”
An unnamed spokesperson for EMI issued a statement that strongly implies the label will be appealing what it lost:

“We are pleased that MP3tunes and Michael Robertson have been held liable for infringing hundreds of sound recordings and musical compositions through their Sideload and MP3tunes websites… At the same time, we’re disappointed that the Court found that MP3tunes was entitled to a safe harbor for some of its conduct under the DMCA.  EMI believes that companies like MP3tunes, which knowingly build a business based on stolen music, should not be entitled to any DMCA safe harbor defense, and we’re evaluating our options to seek review of those portions of the decision. We will continue to fight - in this case and in the future - for the rights of our artists and writers, and to ensure that they are always properly compensated every time their music is used in a commercial setting.”

For a more in-depth report, read FULL ARTICLE AT PAIDCONTENT.ORG