The ruling handed down by Judge William Pauley yesterday confirms that MP3tunes “did not promote infringement” by allowing its users to store music online. According to the judge, MP3tunes also correctly terminated accounts of repeat infringers and complied with DMCA takedown requests that were sent to their music search engine Sideload.com.

Through Sideload.com users can search for music hosted on third-party sites and add those to their MP3tunes lockers. Among other sites it searches external file-hosting services such as RapidShare.

EMI characterized these sites as known “piracy havens” and argued that MP3tunes should not therefore be eligible for safe harbor protection under the DMCA. Judge William Pauley disagreed with this assessment and ruled that the file-hosting services linked to by Sideload.com are not “illegal” by definition.

MP3tunes founder Michael Robertson is pleased with the verdict, which he says is a clear victory for cloud hosting services.

“We’ve always operated our music service in a responsible manner and because of that the Judge determined that MP3tunes has protection under the DMCA as a service provider for both MP3tunes and Sideload.com,” he told TorrentFreak.

“Few companies have been able to stand up to the record labels’ attacks and get rulings from the court on key issues relevant to the future of the internet music and this 29 page ruling will set new precedent if it remains standing,” Robertson added.

While the ruling was mostly in favor of MP3tunes, EMI did also score a small win.

The judge concluded that in addition to removing links from the Sideload.com search engine, MP3tunes should have also removed the associated files from the lockers of its users. In addition, several MP3tunes employees were found guilty of copyright infringement as they stored EMI songs in their own accounts.

“We are pleased that MP3tunes and Michael Robertson have been held liable for infringing hundreds of sound recordings and musical compositions through their Sideload and MP3tunes website,” EMI said in a response. “At the same time, we’re disappointed that the Court found that MP3tunes was entitled to a safe harbor for some of its conduct under the DMCA.”

Although yesterday’s decision is an important one, it has to be noted that both sides still have an option to appeal. EMI has already hinted it will, and MP3tunes says it may also do the same to score a win against EMI on all fronts.

“EMI initially alleged that MP3tunes infringed 33,000 of their works and this ruling cuts that list down 99% to about 350 works and even then only in two narrow aspects. Even in those areas we would suggest that the facts are inconsistent with the court’s ruling and are exploring appeal options,” Robertson said.

To be continued.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

TV-industry insiders have admitted to uploading shows to BitTorrent in advance to generate buzz, and bands do the same even though they have a hard time admitting it.

Aside from using file-sharing sites to bring attention to new material, they are also used by the music industry to make critical business decisions. As we’ve shown in the past from leaked information, record labels use ‘illicit’ download statistics to determine what singles to put out next.

Although file-sharing networks are clearly seen as a valuable marketing tool, the entertainment industry prefers not to admit this in public and especially not in courts, where they have to convince judges how evil these sites are and that piracy is in fact killing their industry. This can sometimes lead to embarrassing situations of which we have a brand new example today.

In the ongoing battle of RIAA record label EMI against music search engine MP3tunes, a recent court filing reveals that EMI was actively marketing their music on RapidShare. Interesting, yes, but also quite embarrassing since EMI was labelling RapidShare as a known ‘Piracy Haven’ in the same case.

“In defense of the Sideload.com music search engine, MP3tunes told the court that EMI promoted bands by distributing free MP3s online. EMI told the Judge our position was ‘pure fantasy’ claiming that EMI never distributes free MP3 songs online,” Michael Robertson of MP3tunes told TorrentFreak.

“Thanks to our users we quickly amassed a list of more than 1400 such fantasy EMI songs that were available online and in depositions they finally admitted they put free songs online so they would spread ‘virally’,” Robertson added.

Faced with this new evidence EMI decided to change its position and argue that MP3tunes’ website Sideload was linking to ‘suspect’ places such as RapidShare. However, this was not a particularly strong argument as the defending party had evidence that EMI was using the file-hosting service to market tracks from their own artists, including their best selling act Coldplay.

“They say we link to RapidShare which they called a known haven of piracy. However we uncovered internal emails where EMI themselves put songs on RapidShare and sent emails to others instructing them to download them from RapidShare. With EMI spreading files far and wide, their experts grudgingly admit that it’s impossible to tell which links are authorized and which are not,” Robertson said.

The text above is taken from page 9 of a recent court filing. Unfortunately all the juicy details about EMI’s use of RapidShare are “filed under seal” since the record label claims they are corporate secrets and as such can’t be made available to the public.

In the sealed document, MP3tunes’ lawyer refers to an EMI employee placing music on RapidShare and sending emails to bloggers and marketers telling them to get the song from the file-hoster, TorrentFreak was told. This is of course a painful revelation for EMI as they themselves claim that RapidShare is a piracy haven, blaming MP3tunes for linking to it.

EMI is maintaining a double standard when it comes to file-sharing sites, to say the least. It seems that they themselves can use the service to promote their artists, but as soon as others make this information accessible they try to shut them down in court – a repeat of the same file-sharing hypocrisy we’ve seen in the past.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.