14 DAY TRIAL // A group of 14 music labels has filed a lawsuit in a California court against the companies and persons behind the YouTube-MP3 service, a music ripping website that allows users to convert YouTube videos into downloadable MP3 files.
YouTube-MP3, which is managed by German firm PMD Technologies, represented by Philip Matesanz, is one of today's most popular online websites, ranked #358 at the time of writing based on traffic recorded by Alexa and averaging around 60 million unique visitors per month.
The service is extremely easy to use and self-explanatory. Users access the site, enter a YouTube link, and after three-four minutes during which the service processes the video, they are provided with a download link to the video's audio track.
YouTube-MP3 is the face of today's stream ripping trend
Most users today use it to obtain HD quality music from YouTube, known as "stream ripping," or in this case as "YouTube ripping."
According to a recent study by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, 49 percent of today's teens aged 16-24 engage in stream ripping and avoid buying the songs they listen to every day.
The threat of stream ripping is one of the main reasons why even the mighty Google has taken to issuing legal threats against another YouTube-to-MP3 service called TubeNinja back in May.
14 music labels are suing YouTube-MP3
In the lawsuit filed yesterday, several music labels have united against the Internet's leading stream pirating service. The plaintiff list includes Warner Music, the Universal Music Group, Arista Records, Atlantic Records, Sony, Elektra, and others.
Accusers say YouTube-MP3 is involved in direct copyright infringement, which is different from the usual allegations made against torrent portals, accused only of indirect copyright infringement since those sites never store any copyrighted material on their servers.
On the other hand, YouTube-MP3 needs to store songs on their servers in order for users to download them. As such, there is a pretty big chance the site's operators might lose this legal battle.
RIAA and others are behind the lawsuit
Behind this concentrated legal effort is, as usual, a coalition of music copyright groups such as the aforementioned International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and Britain's BPI (British Recorded Music Industry).
"It’s time to stop illegal sites like this building huge fortunes by ripping off artists and labels," said Geoff Taylor, BPI Chief Executive. "Fans have access now to a fantastic range of legal music streaming services, but they can only exist if we take action to tackle the online black market. We hope that responsible advertisers, search engines and hosting providers will also reflect on the ethics of supporting sites that enrich themselves by defrauding creators."
Plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial. You can read the court-filed documents below.