MP3.COM-FRIENDLY BILL
LOOKS TO SAVE COMPANY

In a strange turn of events, several U.S. congressmen have introduced new legislation that would legalize the services for which MP3.com faces potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in copyright damages.

Titled the Music Owners' Listening Rights Act of 2000, the bill would give companies the right to copy CDs, store them online and stream the songs individually to listeners who could prove they already owned a copy of the CD, online news agency CNET reports.

Followers of the ever-changing online music world may very well think this model sounds awfully familiar.

The proposed act mirrors MP3.com's troubled My.MP3.com service, which was the basis of a lawsuit by the Recording Industry Association of America on behalf of the "Big Five" record labels.

While MP3.com settled with Sony, EMI, BMG and WMG, Universal Music Group successfully took the case, whereby MP3.com may be accountable to Universal for as much as $250 million in damages.

Rich Boucher, D-VA, and at least three colleagues think that's not a good precedent for the online music business. "We believe that the technology, which gives rise to this new convenience, should be encouraged," Boucher said in a floor statement introducing the bill Monday (9/25). "Our legislation will remove legacy copyright restrictions, which were written for a different era and that threaten to strangle the technology in its infancy."

The legislation comes partly at the behest of MP3.com, which has been circulating proposed legislation for some time.

In a joint letter to Congress, the RIAA, the Motion Picture Association of America, the National Music Publishers' Association, the Songwriters Guild of America and royalty distribution groups ASCAP and BMI warned of the effects of the proposed legislation.

"This legislation is misguided as a matter of public policy and grossly unfair to creators," the groups wrote in a letter. "If MP3.com's proposal were enacted, it would set a precedent for other commercial enterprises to refuse to pay for the transmission and copying of any copyrighted material over the Internet including books, software, movies or video games."