The sites, which mainly charge $20 to $35 USD for unlimited subscriptions claim they offer music from artists signed to the major labels, which they do, none of which is actually licensed however.
Some of these sites simply provide P2P software that would otherwise be free. Customers using the software could possibly face a lawsuit from the RIAA even though they wouldn't know they had done anything wrong.
"People might get the false impression of what they paid for was legal," a CDT rep said. "If you pay $25, you might think that $25 goes to compensate the rights holder."
The CDT attempted to contact the operators of each site but were ignored. Many of the sites were registered outside of the US and seem to be run by the same people.
CDT uses the example of AllCoolMusic.com which claims all its dealings are legal. "Today, there are 240 million users trading MP3s on legal file-sharing networks. Sharing is not illegal as long as you obey all relevant copyright laws. Sharing copyrighted material, without permission to do so, is illegal. Purchasing a membership in AllCoolMusic.com does not give you license to download or upload copyrighted material. AllCoolMusic.com implores you to respect all copyright laws."
The group has said complaints filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission against the sites was a possibility, and rightfully so.
Source:
Infoworld
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 27 Dec 2007 18:13
