This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Legal
MP3tunes request summary judgment in EMI litigation
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 23 September 2010
Michael Robertson’s digital music locker service MP3tunes is pushing for a summary judgment in its legal squabble with EMI using the previously reported ruling in Viacom v YouTube as part justification.
As previously reported, EMI is suing both MP3tunes and its creator Michael Robertson, the man best known for founding the original MP3.com, alleging that the locker service infringes its copyrights. In a new submission to the court, MP3tunes’ lawyers request a summary judgment be made in their favour on the basis the service is protected by safe harbour clauses in the US’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act, provisions which protected YouTube from liability when unlicensed Viacom-owned content was uploaded to their video sharing website.
According to Digital Media Wire, the motion also claims that EMI has failed to prove it own the copyrights in many of the works cited in their original litigation, or that those rights were infringed under any definition of infringement set out in American copyright law. It adds that MP3tunes adheres to the take-down system set out in the DMCA (that was also crucial in the YouTube case), and that EMI has issued relatively few take-down notices anyway. And with regards to EMI’s suit that directly targets Robertson, it argues the New York court has no jurisdiction over the entrepreneur in a personal capacity.
EMI is yet to respond to the motion. It’s not clear either how quickly a judge will rule on the application.
