AfterDawn: News

Illegal MP3 site to pay $10 million in damages

Spanish company Puretunes.com, which briefly offered music in MP3 format for a very low price, has reached a legal settlement with RIAA. The company will pay $500,00 in damages, while the holding company that was responsible for the operations will pay $10 million.

Puretunes.com offered what it thought were legal MP3 downloads at just pennies. The company acquired the rights for the songs from an overseas licensing authorities, but according to RIAA the licences were not legal, and sued Puretunes.



"Puretunes.com duped consumers by claiming it was a legitimate online music retailer when, in fact, it was no such thing," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement. "It's essential for the integrity and security of the legitimate online music marketplace that imposters like Puretunes.com are held accountable."

Several similar MP3 sites are still in operation, One of the best known is Russian ALLOFMP3.com.

Source: News.com

Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 26 Oct 2004 15:15

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• 7 comments

• MXGzX

  How about we say screw the RIAA and don't buy any CD's any only listen to Indy bands. We don't need people to be extremely famous in the music industry. When you find a genere you like, you listen to it even if it's not the same few bands that you know. I'm not part of any indy band but I feel that having artists making this much money (with the RIAA profiting) is not needed and there are plenty of good bands out there that could just help spread their music by selling it over the net independently. People would buy their stuff and the RIAA would get FUCKED over. :)

  26.10.2004 16:19 #1

• Pop_Smith

  umm, the RIAA is stupid, all they try to do is kill filesharing, over and over, they do NOTHING good for the general public :(.
  
  But, think about it; we pay artists big $$$ to go to there concerts and buy there expensive $hit at there concerts (I am going to The Used concert, tickets cost me $20 a pop, plus probably another $15-20 per shirt or what ever i get.) The artists are ok with what they earn from concerts, and the people that buy there CDs (after all, very FEW people that d/l CDs or MP3s don't own/ eventually buy the CD or song that they downloaded.

  26.10.2004 17:28 #2

• S2K

  "Puretunes.com offered what it thought were legal MP3 downloads at just pennies."
  
  This is FALSE. I am sorry, I am familiar with this case. Customers who were screwed. the above statement is NOT true, nor is it from the news.com article or any of many articles covering this.
  
  Puretunes', and more importantly Sakfield's (its owner) "claimed" it thought it had legal license, but that was LAUGHABLE. If Afterdawn wants to print they "claimed" it, that is your right, even though it is spurious. to write they "thought were legal" is just bad journalism.

  26.10.2004 19:19 #3

• askyew

  MXGzXthere is such a site it is called cdbaby and my kids and myself use it often. I also love their disclaimer "no microsft products were used in their site". They have the best customer service I have seen internet or otherwise. Check em out you wont be disappointed.
  

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  26.10.2004 21:59 #4

• WarForOil

  Heavy that fine, ironic really im sure they didnt make that kind of money from the sales, perhaps they should have set up shop in the uk where to download an album it costs 15 pounds thats just the straight album no costing for i.s.p charge etc, same cd i could have purchased in local store for 8.99, says alot really. Back to the fine, for what wasnt a major site how can these people pay that sort of cash, you couldnt make that up, shame we didnt have prosecutors and judges like that when it comes to dishing out fines to the large corporates oil comps when they polute our rivers and seas or the big waste companys who contaminate our land with poisonous chemicals when they there caught illegal dumping. Of course that doesnt matter because theres no profit when we put these guys out of buisness. Is it just me who thinks the worlds gone mad...

  27.10.2004 06:56 #5

• Toiletman

  I would like to make a correction: it's either $50,000 or $500,000.
  

  Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't.

  27.10.2004 12:13 #6

• S2K

  warforoil,
  did you read the story? what are you talking about with "fines" and "prosecuters"? It is a settlement in a civil case.
  
  You are "sure" thwey didn't make ten million in sales? they probably made exactly that selling somting they had no right to sell!
  
  rights to backup and use on various devices are one thing, making money selling stuff you know you don't own is another. if you sell something stolen which you own all the money and punative damages.

  28.10.2004 03:30 #7