Two software developers who have attracted lawsuits from media organisations are behind an online music service launching on Wednesday that seems certain to be scrutinised for copyright violations.
Michael Robertson, once the founder of MP3.com, a music site sued for copyright infringements, will launch a “digital locker” on his MP3tunes.com website where users can store their record collections online.
Mr Robertson last month recruited Jon Lech Johansen, a 22-year-old Norwegian programmer, to help with the project. Mr Johansen is known as DVD Jon for his hacking of DVDs, removing digital restrictions and allowing users to copy DVDs to their computer hard drive. He was tried and acquitted twice when no conclusive proof was found that his program caused illegal distribution of movies over the internet.
DVD Jon has also reverse-engineered Apple’s iTunes software to remove copyright restrictions and his “So Sue Me” blog offers software that allows Apple’s Airport Express device to stream music in non-proprietary formats.
MP3tunes.com will charge $39.95 a year for users to upload songs to a personal locker and access them through a web browser from any computer with an internet connection.
Mr Robertson says he is offering storage in the same way Google offers e-mail storage with Gmail, but concedes record companies may suspect users will share password keys to their lockers and enable illegal music-sharing online.
“There may be controversy about this,” he told the FT, “But we really don’t know what content is going in, we are a service provider and not a whole lot different from Gmail.”
Five years ago, a similar service, my.mp3.com, was closed down by legal action by the record industry. Mr Robertson said users would typically be able to upload 200-300 songs an hour.
