Petteri Pyyny
10 Jul 2003 14:19
RIAA has sued a company that owns the Spanish website, Puretunes. According to RIAA, the site that launched in May this year, sold unauthorized copies of music but claimed it had acquired licenses for the music it sold.
Puretunes sold unrestricted music downloads with various kinds of pricing arrangements -- most popular ones were 8 hours worth of downloading for $3.99 and 48 hours of downloading for $9.99. Site disappeared in June and hasn't been heard of since. At the time of it's was launched, the company claimed that it had acquired full licensing rights to all of the tracks it offered on its website through various Spanish licensing houses.
Now, according to RIAA, this simply wasn't the case. RIAA spokesperson said: "It's bad enough that Puretunes was selling music illegally--it's even worse that they tried to perpetrate a fraud on the public by claiming that they were a legitimate business."
RIAA is seeking damages for copyright infringements made during Puretunes' short window of operation. Also, some customers who paid the downloading fees in advance were left without refunds or any replies from the company whatsoever.
Source: News.com