Record labels close Spanish song site

One of the oldest Web sites offering inexpensive music downloads has closed, after years of legal battles with record labels.

Weblisten.com, which has operated in Spain since 1997, offered subscribers the ability to download an unlimited number of songs for about $40 a month. It also offered shorter, cheaper windows of time that lasted a week or a weekend.

The company had long contended it had permission to offer major-label songs, without any kind of copy protection, after negotiating with Spanish licensing agencies. Record labels around the world disagreed and spent years in court suing the company.

This week, the legal battle ended. The site now contains a terse note in four languages saying it has been shut down, and the trade group representing international record companies says the company finally admitted to criminal copyright infringement in court.

"Despite the long delay in the Spanish court system, this result makes it clear that you cannot offer music online without permission from all of the people that created the music," Allen Dixon, executive director of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, said in a statement.

The record industry has had mixed success against companies that have pointed to local licensing authorities as legal shields for unconventional business models.

Another Spanish site similar to Weblisten, called Puretunes, shut its doors not long after being sued by the record labels. However, a Russian site called AllofMP3.com, which offers downloads for just pennies per song, remains open despite pressure from the music industry.

[Philips]

people that created the music?

""" "Despite the long delay in the Spanish court system, this result makes it clear that you cannot offer music online without permission from all of the people that created the music," Allen Dixon, executive director of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, said in a statement. """

Well, I'm sorry, but what relation has Recording Ass. of America to "the people that created the music"? Most would agree with me that none.

This guys still didn't understood that it is technological progress is the their true enemy. They shall lobby White Hous to out-law un-authorized researchers around the world and put them all in jail.

[skeptik]

"If it weren't for us..."

Well the industry feels that they are the ones who created the music. The musicians are simply tools and marketing brand names to be used to generate interest in their (the record label's) product. Incidently they have no qualms about cheating these tools out of contractually agreed to payment whenever possible, not to mention offering ridiculously small % in the contracts they do sign... which they can get away with since they have a near monopoly on distribution.

We (consumers and musicians) must break their hold if we ever want to see fair compensation for those who truly create the music and fair prices for those who buy the music.