Online music retailer EMusic.com Inc. said Tuesday it has filed a suit against rival MP3.com Inc., charging that MP3.com's system fosters the infringement of copyrights held by several independent record labels.The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, targets My.MP3.com, which allows users to store music digitally and later access it via any computer.
 

MP3.com recently settled a costly lawsuit with the world's major recording companies, and relaunched My.MP3.com, which has been shut for months. But EMusic, which sells downloadable music in the MP3 format, charges that the service still features songs for which MP3.com has not secured proper rights.

"Although MP3.com has entered into settlement agreements with the five major record labels, they have chosen to ignore their infringing actions with respect to independent record labels," said Gene Hoffman, EMusic president and chief executive.

The complaint was filed by EMusic and partner-labels including Fearless Records, home to acts such as Dynamite Boy and Bigwig, and Chicago-based punk music label Victory Records, and anticipates that more of its partner-labels will join in the action or settlement discussions.

EMusic has the exclusive digital rights to some 13,000 albums from over 600 record labels. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company said that it was so far unable to determine how many of these albums have been infringed upon in the MP3.com service.

A representative for San Diego-based MP3.com declined to comment.

Shares of MP3.com fell 50 cents to $3.53 Tuesday morning. EMusic shares were unchanged at 34 cents a share. 
 

By Star Boy
(Source: CNN.Com)