L.A. Times: MIT Music Service Asked to Remove Universal's Songs

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 31, 2003 - 8:58am.

Los Angeles -- A new MIT campus music service, which looked to sidestep added royalty payments by distributing music over the school's analog cable TV network, has had to remove one major label's music, The Los Angeles Times reported. MIT's Library Access to Music Project (LAMP), invented by two students at the university, lets users trade-off playing DJ by choosing songs from 3,500 CDs, provided in digital form by Seattle-based Loudeye Technologies. It was Loudeye which did not have permission to distribute the tracks to MIT, said Universal Music Group, when it asked the school to remove UMG songs from the LAMP service. While MIT said it thought Loudeye had the appropriate licenses, Loudeye said it simply provided MIT with files and the school was then responsible for securing necessary licenses. "It is unfortunate that MIT launched a service in an attempt to avoid paying recording artists, union musicians and record labels. Loudeye recognized that they had no right to deliver Universal's music to the MIT service, and MIT acted responsibly by removing the music," Kelly Mullens, a spokeswoman for Universal Music, told The Times.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mit31oct31.story
http://lamp.mit.edu