"Big Four" music label EMI and fourteen affiliate labels sued MP3Tunes as a company and its CEO Michael Robertson personally last year for alleged copyright infringement. A judge has tossed the personal lawsuit.

On Thursday, New York Southern District Court judge William Pauley III dismissed EMI's personal suit against Robertson, who is most frequently remembered as co-founder of MP3.com.

The suit alleges that MP3tunes violates federal copyright law by enabling users to listen to infringing music through sideload.com, or make copies of infringing music to store it into a "locker" that would allow it to be transferred to multiple locations. It targeted Robertson directly, saying "The company is Michael Robertson...he has personally made decisions regarding, participated in, directed, exercised control over, and benefited from MP3Tunes' infringing activities."

MP3Tunes, like many other online storage services, offers a password-protected location for users to put their music so it could be accessed by any Internet-connected device. However, it is EMI's belief that the site is simply used by many as a site to upload music files to which they openly publish their passwords, making the content available to all.

"MP3Tunes thus serves as a virtual drop-box for this illegal distribution," the suit says.

On his blog today, Robertson said, "Increasingly, media companies are suing CEOs of companies as individuals. This intimidation tactic has permeated cases involving Limewire, Multiply, isoHunt, Usenet.com, and others. Faced with the possibility of losing their homes and seeing their lives destroyed, CEOs often relent to the pressure and agree to settle."

With the personal suit out of the way, the case against MP3Tunes the company is set to move on. In his statement today, Robertson said, "Our position maintains that consumers should have the right to listen to their personal music collections anywhere, just like they can view their photos, e-mail, videos and other digital property from multiple places...EMI doesn't want 'your music everywhere' to happen but, as the world moves to the cloud, it's a technological inevitability."

The full text of the suit can be found on Justia.com