Spain's Weblisten portal is apparently trying to make up its mind whether or not to jump all over Puretunes, another Spanish site which since it went online in May has attracted the wrath of the RIAA which says Puretunes isn't so pure.

Founded in December 1997, Weblisten was the first Spanish online music company to sign agreements with the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (Spanish Association of Authors and Editors - SGAE) in October 1998 and with the Asociacion de Artistas, Interpretes y Ejecutantes (Association of Artists, Performers and Players - AIE), "hence complying with the Law of Intellectual Property".

Chaired by Pilar Abuin, it offers subscriptions which allow users to access a catalogue in mp3 and WMA formats.

But, it says, "When Puretunes set up in business, Weblisten proceeded to examine the files used by the new company in its newly created service and found that most of the files sampled shared the same features as Weblisten’s own files and were being used for a cable broadcasting operation without the consent of Weblisten.

"Even if Weblisten.com allows other portals access to its services under a 'private label' - in a so-called 'access point' - through links to the contents hosted in its own servers, it is always subject to a prior agreement between both portals and under certain agreed conditions.

"Puretunes did not even contact Weblisten, which considers these circumstances as detrimental to it and is trying to establish which is the most appropriate compensation for the damages caused to it."

See, the Spanish folks were smart! They got in the online business at the start of p2p, and they decided to go with technology, rather than turn their backs on it for a very long time.

puretunes?.....where is my spanish dictionary?