The US National Music Publishers' Association and its licensing
subsidiary, The Harry Fox Agency, and MP3.com announced their
agreement yesterday.
Under the terms of the deal, MP3.com will have use of numerous
music tracks on its My.MP3.com service which allows consumers to
listen to music from CDs that they already own or which they
purchase from MP3.com's retail partners.
A US court recently ruled that the company wilfully infringed
publishers' copyrights when it launched the service. MP3.com
settled its case with four out of five major record labels, but did
not reach a settlement with Universal Music Group. It has been
ordered to pay damages to Universal of between $118 and $250
million. MP3.com has said it will appeal this ruling.
The proposed, 3-year licensing arrangement announced yesterday
provides that MP3.com will pay up to $30 million for the benefit of
up to 25,000 music publishers and their songwriter partners as part
of two equal funds. One fund will be used to pay for past uses of
music on the My.MP3.com service. The other will provide advance
payments toward royalties earned under the prospective license. The
number of potential songs licensed to MP3.com by the music
publishers could exceed one million.
