A US judge has ruled that free cloud service ReDigi infringed Vivendi’s subsidiary Capitol Records music rights.
Capitol Records filed a lawsuit against ReDigi service in 2012 and claimed that the company has violated copyrights by allowing unauthorised copying of digital music files.
US District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan ruled that ReDigi was liable for copyright infringement.
"The novel question presented in this action is whether a digital music file, lawfully made and purchased, may be resold by its owner through ReDigi under the first sale doctrine. The Court determines that it cannot," Sullivan said.
The ruling states that "Capitol did not approve the reproduction or distribution of its copyrighted recordings on ReDigi’s website. Thus, if digital music files are ‘reproduce[d]’ and ‘distribute[d]; on ReDigi’s website, within the meaning of the Copyright Act, Capitol’s copyrights have been infringed."
ReDigi said it was disappointed by the judge’s ruling and will appeal it but added that the decision applied to its original technology, ReDigi 1.0, not to its updated version, ReDigi 2.0, which will continue to run.
Last year, EMI sued ReDigi over reselling of digital MP3 songs after they have been legally purchased.
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EMI is demanding ReDigi to pay a penalty of about $150,000 for each song in EMI’s list that was sold through the service since its launch in October 2011.
