Letter from RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen to MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson.
Re: MP3.com compliance with copyright law.
Date: January 21, 2000.
Source: MP3.com.

January 21, 2000

Mr. Michael Robertson
Chief Executive Officer
MP3.com, Inc.
4790 Eastgate Mall
San Diego, CA 92121

Dear Michael:

Yesterday, on behalf of your company, you rejected the opportunity offered to you to engage in meaningful business and licensing discussions aimed at bringing MP3.com into compliance with the U.S. Copyright law.

As you know, RIAA and its members would have preferred to settle this matter in the marketplace, without litigation.  But your position leaves us no alternative than to seek redress in the courts.  This letter is to inform you that our member companies have today filed suit against MP3.com for copyright infringement in Federal District Court in New York.

As we have discussed, your company’s violation of the copyright law is brazen on its face.  Simply put, it is not legal to compile a vast database of our member’s sound recordings with no permission and no license.  And whatever the individual’s right to use their own music, you cannot exploit that for your company’s commercial gain.  MP3.com’s actions not only violate the rights of our member companies but also are an affront to artists, music publishers and writers, producers and other retailers.  We regard MP3.com’s business choices to be in reckless disregard of the law with serious consequences to the company and its shareholders.

The motivation for MP3.com’s conduct seems clear from a recent article in The Industry Standard, which quoted you as saying:  “One of the complaints with MP3.com and it’s a warranted complaint, is that people say, ‘You’re doing all these great things with music, but it’s not the music I like.’  We need to have all the music …..”

Obviously, you are not free to take protected works simply because you want them.

Nor can you credibly claim that there was no point in asking for a license.  Our member companies are very interested in and have participated in many creative deals that create new uses of music on-line and on a regular basis they are engaged in business discussions with scores of technology partners.  The difference, of course, is those partners realize intellectual property must be licensed.  Innovation based on blatant misappropriation is hardly innovation.  Your company’s actions are unfair to every Internet company that takes the sound business step of obtaining a license before making use of another's creative work.

Michael, the copyright law was not invented just to protect the interests of companies, it exists to protect the creative talent of the many artists this culture has fostered and the investment in their work.  It is disappointing you chose not to take the opportunity to resolve this matter in a more productive fashion.  Obviously, I am available should you and MP3.com wish to engage in meaningful discussion aimed at resolution of this case.

Sincerely,

Hilary Rosen
President and CEO
Recording Industry Association of America