Big 4 record labels escalate Blubster lawsuit
p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- You could say Blubster is the sole survivor of the original companies which foresaw the future of P2P and tried to build independent businesses around it.
The others are (or, I should say, were) BearShare, eDonkey, Grokster and Morpheus, the members of the now defunct P2P United, and LimeWire.
With Bluster’s exception, they’ve all been either destroyed, absorbed by the Big 4 Music Borg, or reconfigured to the extent they’re no longer recognizable.
But Blubster is the exception. Its creator, Pablo Soto, has kept on keeping on and now, even in the face of a renewed attack by the Borg 4, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG, he’s developing a service that’s a natural progression of P2P sharing.
‘I’m concerned, but not scared’
Warner Music Spain, Universal Music Spain, EMI Music Spain, Sony BMG Music Entertainment SA, and Productores de Musica en Espana (PROMUSICAE), the Spanish IFPI IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) recently announced they were going after Blubster, setting the summer of next year for the trial.
Now, out of the blue and with no explanation, they’ve had the trial advanced to the week after next, to be heard by a 72-year-old judge who’ll decide whether or not the music industry demand for $20 million should be met.
Soto, 28, who runs MP2P Technology from Madrid, is uncowed, however. He’s represented by Spanish IP specialist David Bravo, co-founder of Spain’s CopyLeft organisation of which Soto is also a director.
He says Bravo is a long-time friend whom he met in Barcelona when the two of them were on a panel together with Laurence Lessig, John Perry Barlow and Jimmy Wales.
“I’m so sure we’re going to make it, that we’re going to win,” he declares, saying he has no idea why the labels have taken this step.
“I’m concerned, but not scared,” he states.
“But we’re going to win.
“We’re going to win.”
SoundShare
How’s the trial move affecting Blubster?
Soto recently launched V3 and MP2P Technology’s other applications including Piolet, Omemo, are alive and well.
“We’re geeks,” Soto says. “Most of our time is on research and development, but the pace we’d set for absorbing the work and costs have totally changed.”
Having to meet the major lawsuit has not only put a serious dent in company finances, it’s also meant staff have been cut back from nine to four and, “We had to say goodbye to five very talented, very fine people,” says Soto with regret. “They’re friends. And that’s a shame.”
But, “My family support me. This is not life or death.”
80 hours a week
Soto suffers from a form of muscular dystrophy, a disease which causes progressive muscle weakness. Undue pressure can exacerbate the symptoms and I asked Soto how he was feeling.
“When I can’t sleep and I have to work 80 hours a week, my health goes downhill,” he answered. “Just like anyone else in the same situation.”
These realities haven’t, though, taken Soto’s attention away from SoundShare and he’s pouring as much energy into that as in trying to put together in days a defence he thought he had months to prepare.
“We’re going to do for music sharing what Google did for the web,” Soto said.
“Users could do even a Madonna page, for example. That’s legal in Spain because we can index all that content. We’re not uploading it.”
“And,” he reiterates with force, “we’re going to win our lawsuit.”
Stay tuned.
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October 20th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
this is what hollywood is famous for SUEING CRIPPLED AND OLD PEOPLE.
greedy bastards….