Hasta La Vista Puretunes?

Date: 12 Jul 2003 00:53:15 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.music.mp3
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Hasta La Vista Puretunes?
RIAA accuses Spanish music site of violating copyrights.
Scarlet Pruitt, IDG News Service
Thursday, July 10, 2003
The Recording Industry Association of America has put another online music
company in its legal crosshairs, this time aiming to bid adios to Spanish site
Puretunes.
The group filed a suit on July 3 against Puretunes parent company Sakfield
Holding Company in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,
accusing it of offering illegal music downloads.
Puretunes.com debuted in May, hoping to take advantage of the ability of
Spanish artist and performance rights' societies to sign deals offering
unlimited music downloads.
The site went offline last month, however, amid complaints from users who
feared the owners had run off with their subscription fees.
Puretunes representatives could not be located Thursday to comment on the suit.
Purely Illegal?
In its compliant, the RIAA claimed that despite Puretunes' claims, the site's
owners had not sought or obtained licenses for the music they were selling.
"It's bad enough that Puretunes was selling music illegally--it's even worse
that they tried to perpetrate a fraud on the public by claiming that they were
a legitimate business," the RIAA said in a statement released Thursday.
The group is seeking an injunction against the site in addition to damages and
attorneys' fees.
Newest Target
The lawsuit is just the latest in a series of legal actions the music industry
has taken against those accused of offering illegal music downloads.
Since suing notorious peer-to-peer file-trading company Napster, which was
finally forced offline last year, the music industry has targeted the new breed
of P-to-P players such as Kazaa, Grokster, and Morpheus. Furthermore, the
industry has recently said that it would be going after individuals who have
downloaded copyright music illegally.
And given that the RIAA said in its complaint against Puretunes that "the theft
of copyrighted music on the Internet has reached epidemic proportions," this
latest suit is unlikely to be the last.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111524,tk,dn071003X,00.asp
-- "Surgically enhanced boobilage" -- Jun, referring to Erika on Big Brother 4 "If my grandmother were her, she would be scooping up the chum so that she could cook for our dinner." -- Jun, after having had fish chum dumped on
her.