More Legal Woes for MP3.com

Just one month after MP3.com brought to a close its costly legal contest with industry giant Universal Music Group, the online music service has been hit by a copyright infringement lawsuit by Internet subscription site EMusic.

The action charges MP3.com and its streaming service MyMP3.com with illegally offering an indeterminate number of albums to which EMusic holds the exclusive digital rights. In a statement issued Tuesday, EMusic said that it has secured the online rights to roughly 13,000 albums from over 600 record labels but was unable to determine at this time how many albums are affected by the suit.

MP3.com has not publicly responded to the charges.

"Although MP3.com has entered into settlement agreements with the five major record labels, they have chosen to ignore their infringing actions with respect to independent record labels," said EMusic president and CEO Gene Hoffman.

"EMusic strongly supports the rights of music fans to have access to convenient, inexpensive digital music -- as well as the rights of all labels and artists to choose how and where their music is used," Hoffman added.

Labels Join Complaint

EMusic's complaint has been filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The company said six of its independent partner labels -- Fearless Records, Fuel 2000 Records, Gig Records, Invisible Records, SpinART Records and Victory Records -- have joined the suit has well.

Based in Redwood City, California, EMusic pays out royalties to its artists and label partners, splitting after-cost revenue from user subscription fees on a quarterly basis. The funds are distributed in relation to the number of downloads registered during the time period.

Vigilant Measures

In recent weeks, EMusic has worked aggressively to curb the use of files in its catalog.

Last month, the company launched an initiative to prevent what it called the "illegal distribution" of its songs on controversial file-swapping service Napster. As part of its plan, EMusic began utilizing "acoustic fingerprinting" technology that will detect songs on Napster that originated from EMusic and identify the Napster user who is distributing the infringing songs.

If the user does not stop distributing the track, EMusic will contact Napster and ask that the account be blocked.

Never Ending Story

For its part, MP3.com has worked to move beyond its legal woes, settling copyright infringement lawsuits with the recording industry's largest labels. Earlier this month, the company launched its own fee-based music sharing service after brokering licensing agreements with Sony, BMG, Warner and EMI.

Although MP3.com thought the subscription-based service put it on the path to industry-recognized legitimacy, in November the company was hit with another class-action suit.

Brought by Unity Entertainment and others, the action charges MP3.com with copyright infringement.