It's no secret that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is not a fan of the MP3 movement. The trade group has slapped lawsuits on digital music-promoting companies such as Napster and Diamond Multimedia and MP3.com; it has instituted a "Soundbyting" campaign to inform college students that MP3 trading is illegal. In short, the RIAA has been nothing less than ear-piercingly vocal as it fights the burgeoning technology that it blames for widespread music piracy on the Net.
But on Tuesday, the MP3 movement bit back: less than a month after the RIAA slapped MP3.com with a lawsuit for its new My.MP3.com service, Michael Robertson, CEO of MP3.com, is alleging that Hillary Rosen, CEO of the RIAA, has spent two years trying to sabotage his business. Why else, Robertson asks would Rosen call analysts to discuss the impact of a lawsuit on MP3.com's stock price, just days before the RIAA filed suit against the company. "What goal was she trying to achieve?" he muses.
Phone calls to analysts are a rather cryptic example of unfair business practices; but Robertson says that the RIAA also pressured member companies such as Columbia House to pull advertising from his site, told artists and their agents that MP3.com was engaging in theft, and generally spread propaganda that MP3s were illegal. "I'm hoping to stop their interference with our course of business. It's not just analysts, but a course of behavior that we believe has affected advertisers, managers of artists and analysts," says Robertson.
Rosen contends that MP3.com is making allegations just to try to silence her. In a statement, she called the lawsuit "ridiculous." "This is a transparent attempt on the part of MP3.com to silence criticism of its infringing tactics. It won't work."
It may prove a silly game of tit-for-tat, but the new lawsuit does pose some interesting questions. Has the RIAA achieved its apparent goal of tainting the very word MP3 with a stench of illegality? Has its public distaste for the MP3 movement, and Robertson's business practices in particular, actually hurt MP3.com's bottom line?
To date, the RIAA has settled every suit it has filed. Of course, the verdict is still out on the cases against Napster and MP3.com's Beam-It, but Robertson is no longer content to sit back and wait for potential vindication. "There's been enough bullying on the playground: Eventually you want to call the teacher on the bully and make it stop."
