The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed a lawsuit against the Spanish company Puretunes.com, claiming the service defrauded customers into believing it was a licensed by record labels.

According to a The Register story here, Puretunes disappeared last month without any explanation, "leaving behind many seething customers, some of whom had paid a full year in advance".

The company said it operated under legal licensing agreements from various Spanish trade associations representing performers and recording artists, including Sociedad Gerneral de Autores y Editores (SGAE) and the Asociacion de Artistas, Interpretes y Ejecutantes (AIE) and:

"It also stated that under Spanish law it didn't need to acquire the permission of labels, artists or song publishers," sys the report. "A similar Spanish company, Weblisten.com, has been sued multiple times, but is still operating.

"Puretunes billed its all-you-can-eat business model as a cheaper, less restrictive alternative to record-industry backed services. It even struck a deal for distribution and advertising with popular P2P service Grokster.

"However, some customers began to notice odd things. Many of the files downloaded from the site had ID tags from the Russian legal music service www.allofmp3.com. The German site Heise Online counted at least 16 of those files, suggesting they may have been copied. Mediaservices, the Russian company behind Allofmp3.com, today confirmed in an e-mail that 'we do not contribute to Puretunes and do not allow for content redistribution'."

The RIAA is seeking damages for copyright infringements, adds The Register.

cool

i meant cool i got on front page. bad for puretunes but i never heard of them, maybe they shoulda named themselves pretunes.

Puretunes site does not come up. Weblisten.com seems like a good idea. The weekend plan for example, $14 and I can leech as many files as my broadband can handle from Friday midnight til Monday 9AM GMT+1 Ok, so ya got to adjust for time zones, still doesn't seem like a bad idea. You can pick and choose the songs you want, you are paing for them. This type of thing could take the wind out of the RIAA sails.

All of these servies are going to bring the RIAA to its knees. I'll be here waiting patiently for that day.

The RIAA is an obsolete sinking ship with a foolish battle plan.

Yeah right...the music industry and the RIAA will just role over and die because a bunch of extremist idiots say so. How do you destroy and kill an industry with billions of dollars behind it? You don't. You can only piss it off and iritate it before it crushes you.

Don't fool yourself Doug77. The "extremist idiots" you refer to are in the millions throughout the country - "idiots" that are tired of being treated like crooks by the useless RIAA and will fight back. The RIAA's days are indeed numbered.

Most of these "millions" are willing to pay for music online and do not have a thing against the music industry. However, the owner of this site is an example of an extremist. Comon Justice....you're an extremist and a thief. Hell man...at least most self-respecting hippies and thiefs can admit what they are.

All it is going to do is send these users to decentralized P2P with Anyonmity. As Edward Felten pointed out, he mentioned that P2P will not go down, instead RIAA will be forced to adapt.

Hey, Doug 77...do you drive? Ever go over the speed limit? With that definition of legal, a cop should be on every corner just to nail your...donkey. And don't you even try to say that you have NEVER broken a law or rule. Don't call 260 million who excersize their artistic rights "criminals"...not very smart, Doug.

all i can do is shake my head in shame

Doug77.. who do you think you are? Apparently you haven't been to boycott-riaa ever before, because if you have been, you would have noted that this is a political interest group. We have had senators talk and meet with Bill (the "extremist idiot", as you so put it, who runs this site). There are millions of people who are sick of the RIAA and none I know are idiots. Plus the people you refer to who are willing to pay for music, are not neccessarily the same millions we were talking about. There are lots of (uneducated) people who don't believe in downloading illegally for moral reasons or whatever, who could be voting on those polls. And to add another thing, the more the RIAA sues individual people, the more "extremist idiots" you will be finding.

OK I was called an extremeist...interesting labeling...especially being that I am actually quite moderate. I was forced to fight because my rights as a consumer were being trampled. The RIAA members forced me into this fight. I watched the July 2000 Senate hearings in which Napster was bashed by Lars and others, but what intrigued me was the outright lies, and misleading statements. Tha is why I got involved. In fact at 53 years old, this is the first thing I've ever stood up for in my life. In the 60's when my college friends were demonstrating, I attended my classes, worked a job. When I was drafted in 1969 I went. I disagreed with the Vietnam war, but felt it was my duty as an American to go into the Army. I got lucky I ended up in communications. Many I knew didn't. Their names an be found on a black wall in DC. At the time I entered the army, copyright was 56 years, today it life plus 70 for indiviual authors, and 95 for works for hire. There have been 11 extensions of copyright in the past 40 years. Fines for infringemnt went from $750 to $150,000. The "music industry" is broken. The copyright laws are broken. Both need a complete overhaul, not just another attachment, but a complete rebuild.

I have attended two Future of Music Conferences, and South By Southwest (SXSW). I've had numerous contacts with people on both sides of the issue. I've met Hilary Rosen, Rick Boucher, Kevin Murray, to name a few. I've met major label artists, I've met with technologists, I've spoken with Jonathan Adelstein, ( even the pictures of him speaking at FMC and playing with Lester Chambers on his FCC page, I was the photographer.) I've spoken with people on both sides of the issue. I'm actively working to find a solution, and more and more it looks like the only way is a compulsory license. That will not sit well with some artists or most major labels.

Online one must obtain a license from ASCAP, BMI and the RIAA. For terrestial radio only a license from ASCAP and BMI is required. Performing artists do not get paid for radio airplay, they do for online streaming. In addition the license fees in terrestial radio are per song. On the internet its per listener.

I want artists to get paid, and I want the same rights I have in real world, online. I want all artists to have a level playing field, so that who gets played on the radio is a function of the quality, not the $$$ that some indie promoter paid on behalf of the record label. I was a DJ in the late 60's I made my own playlists, and played what I wanted, and what my listeners wanted. It was the number 1 show in my market.

I want the ultimate "celestial jukebox", every song ever recorded available at the click of a mouse. I'm willing to pay a reasonable amount for that access. But no one wants my money, because they want to force feed me the music they want me to hear, not the music I want to hear. I am a music lover. I am not a musician. Never have claimed to be. I admire people that can take a wooden box with wires attached and turn out sound that is beautiful, or stirring or moving. Music is not just a product, it is part of our culture.

There is something desperately wrong the industry when an album that sells 2 million copies is considered a failure. There is something desperately wrong the industry when one major label artist is allowed to spend $30 Million to produce one CD. There is something wrong when the majors feel they have to pay to get airplay, can't the work cant stand on it's own? Copyright extension time and time again to the point that it lasts longer than the creator is totally wrong. Should a creator be allowed to benefit from their creation? Absolutely.