Record Labels Sue MP3Board Over Piracy Issue

Major recording labels, including BMG Music, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Warner Bros. Records, sued MP3Board Inc. Friday to prevent its Web site from linking users to pirated music on the Internet.

The copyright infringement suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, comes three weeks after Warner and BMG settled a copyright suit with online music company MP3.com Inc., which uses the MP3 technology to store and transmit music over the Internet. The two companies are not connected.

According to the lawsuit, the MP3Board site (https://www.mp3board.com) links users to pirated copies of the plaintiffs’ copyright-protected music. The music can then be downloaded onto computers free of charge.

The site encourages piracy and has become a “centralized and leading resource for pirates seeking illegal copies of virtually any recording,” the suit against Bakersfield-based MP3Board alleged, adding that it is one of the Internet’s most visited music-based MP3 sites.

Ira Rothken, an attorney for privately held MP3Board, said the site does not actually contain MP3 files. It provides search engines that locate and index MP3 and on the Internet and establishes pathways to third-party sites.

MP3Board filed a suit June 5 in federal court in San Jose seeking to prevent the Recording Industry Assn. of America, which includes the major labels, from shutting its Web site.

The RIAA also sued San Mateo, Calif.-based software maker Napster Inc. last December on similar MP3 music piracy charges. A trial is set to begin July 26 in San Francisco.

The MP3 format, a standard in the online music business, allows music to be converted to computer files in small packets of data. The compression makes it easy to store and copy music onto personal computers.

Other plaintiffs in the suit are Arista Records Inc., Atlantic Recording Corp., Capitol Records Inc., Elektra Entertainment Group Inc., Motown Record Co. and Virgin Records America Inc.

Arista and BMG Music are units of Bertelsmann. Capitol and Virgin are owned by EMI Group. Warner Bros. Records, Atlantic and Elektra are units of Time Warner Inc. Motown is owned by Seagram Co. Sony Music Entertainment is part of Sony Corp.