Petteri Pyyny
28 Aug 2000 16:19
MP3.com and Universal Music Group, part of Seagram, headed to court today. The case is still the same old My.MP3.com case, but all the other record labels have already settled with MP3.com -- only Seagram is left.
MP3.com was already found guilty in April when judge ruled that the My.MP3.com service violated five major labels' copyrights. In this time, it's about the money -- court should decide by November what kind of fine MP3.com should get. This can be everything between $200 per CD and $150,000 per CD.
The amount of penalties depends how the court find MP3.com's actions -- did they violate copyrights in "willful" sense, when the they are going to face the worst-case-scenario, the 150k. But if court finds that MP3.com did "innocent infrigiment" meaning that they didn't really know that they're breaking the law, then the total sum drops.
Today's hearings included MP3.com's CEO, Michael Robertson who was questioned about the planning of My.MP3.com service and did the company consider all the legal responsibilities of the service.
Case goes on and is expected to be over in November if UMG and MP3.com don't find a way to settle before that.