Musicians Sue Web and Record Companies

MP3.com Inc. and several prominent record labels were sued in federal court by musicians who seek royalty payments for the distribution of their songs over the Internet. The suit, filed by musicians who perform as the Chambers Brothers, the Coasters and the Original Drifters, seeks a ruling that neither MP3.com nor the record companies--Time Warner Inc., Sony Corp. of America and two others--have the right to transmit their songs over the Internet. The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of other artists who made recordings before 1995, when Congress passed a new digital copyright law. Spokesmen for MP3.com, Time Warner and Sony, a unit of Sony Corp., could not be reached for comment. In a separate lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the music group Metallica sued Internet music search site Napster Inc., USC, Yale University and Indiana University for illegally allowing the heavy-metal band’s music to be distributed free over the Web.