Petteri Pyyny
6 Sep 2000 12:04
Judge Rikoff ruled today that MP3.com willfully violated Universal Music Group's copyrights when they created their 80,000 album digital database to support their My.MP3.com.
Universal asked in yesterday's closings penalties of $450M, $45,000 per CD -- Universal claims that 10,000 of MP3.com's CDs are copyrighted material of Universal. MP3.com asked judge to rule that MP3.com didn't willfully violate Universal's copyrights and asked the penalties to be set in $500 per CD. MP3.com also claimed that only 4,700 of their albums are from Universal.
Now judge ruled the damages to be $25,000 per CD -- a clear victory for Seagram's UMG. But of course MP3.com will appeal.