San Diego – A Cloud-based
music-storage feature available on many CE devices might be going dark now that
MP3tunes, a Cloud-based music-locker service, has filed for Chapter 7
liquidation.
MP3tunes enabled users to upload
songs to its music-locker service, then stream the stored songs to
broadband-connected devices, such as select Onkyo A/V receivers, the Wii and
PlayStation3 game consoles, Tivo DVRs, the Roku set-top box, and tabletop
Internet radios from Grace Digital, Acoustic Research, Tangent, and Oxx. Users
could also stream to any PC and to iPhones and Android phones equipped with an
MP3tunes app.
A custom-installed music server
available from Autonomic Controls is also available with MP3tunes compatibility.
The server lets users back up their music collections to MP3tunes, but the
company says not to worry. “MP3tunes is one of three available Cloud services
that can be used with the Mirage Media Server,” said Michael de Nigris,
Autonomic CEO and co-founder. “Amazon Cloud Drive and Apple iCloud with the
Mirage Media Sync are two other options that allow customers to synchronize
content between locations, playback media from the Cloud, and back up their
files.
de Nigris called MP3Tunes “a
pioneer of Cloud-based music lockers, and we would be sad to see them go away,”
he said. “However, should they fail to emerge from bankruptcy, customers can
shift over to one or both of the other available services very easily and with
no loss of functionality.”
MP3 tunes filed Chapter 7 last
week because of a copyright suit launched in 2007 by 15 record companies and
music publishers, Reuters reported. Last year as a result of the suit, a
federal judge in New York City ruled that MP3 tunes and founder Michael
Robertson were liable for “contributory” copyright infringement for
allowing storage and sharing of pirated songs and not taking down the pirated
songs when notified of alleged infringement by the music industry. The judge
also found that Robertson personally transferred songs from unauthorized
websites to MP3tunes. Another hearing is scheduled later this month.
In a statement, EMI Music and EMI
Music Publishing vowed that although MP3tunes might escape liability through a Chapter
7 liquidation, Robertson won’t. “While Robertson may believe that MP3tunes will
be able to escape liability in the upcoming trial through this bankruptcy,
Robertson himself is still a named defendant in the case, and the court has
already determined that both he and MP3tunes have infringed EMI’s copyrights,”
the companies said. “As such, he is facing personal liability both for
infringements that the court has already determined have occurred and for the
further alleged infringements that will be addressed at trial.”
