MP3.com vows to fight court order

The chief executive of music download resource MP3.com vowed that the company would fight last week's court order for it to pay $118m in damages to Universal Music Group.

In a statement issued yesterday, Michael Robertson said MP3.com is working to reconnect users to its controversial My.MP3.com service.

A US federal judge ruled that MP3.com wilfully violated Universal Music Group's copyrighted works and ordered the company to pay $25,000 per CD.

At question is My.MP3.com, which enabled consumers to listen to the CDs they already own from MP3.com's database of music. Users were required to prove they owned a copy of the music by inserting a CD into their CDRoms.

The service was suspended after MP3.com received lawsuits from the US's five largest record companies. Robertson said he was pleased to have settled with four of the companies - Sony, BMG, EMI and Warner. However, reaching a resolution with Universal continues to be a long-term legal process.

"It's important to note that at this point no final judgment is entered in the case and we intend to pursue an appeal of all appropriate issues related to this lawsuit," said Robertson.

He pointed out that Universal has produced about 4740 copyright registrations in the litigation and that the company expects this phase of the case to end by the middle of November.

Each day some 200 digital artists post more than 1500 songs and audio files to MP3.com, according to Robertson. He said the company is working with several legislators in Washington to review current copyright laws and possibly revise them to clarify consumers' right to listen to the music they buy.

"There continues to be confusion about what a consumer can and cannot do with a CD once purchased. We feel that clarification of this aspect of the various copyright provisions should be addressed at the legislative level," he said.

Separately, independent labels Zomba Recording Company and Zomba Music Publishing yesterday sued MP3.com for copyright infringement.