New York - Divisions of three of the four major record labels on Monday filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Project Playlist, a site that lets users create playlists from streaming songs served from all over the Internet, Reuters reported. For its part, Project Playlist maintains that it does not host any music files, but instead merely links to files on many third-party sites, including many on record label websites.

The playlists users create on the site can then be embedded in a software player on social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

The lawsuit against Project Playlist, filed in federal court in New York by labels owned by Warner Music (NYSE: WMG), EMI and Universal Music, is similar to a suit filed in January by Warner Music against Seeqpod, which offers a similar service.

"Project Playlist performs and reproduces plaintiffs' valuable works (and induces and enables others to do so) without any authorization whatsoever," the labels say in their complaint.

"Defendant is well aware that the overwhelming majority of the sound recordings in its index are infringing...The overwhelming majority of the third-party Web sites that host these recordings do so illegally."

The record labels said that Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Project Playlist counts 600,000 daily users and an average of 9.5 million daily page views.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/26d8o (Reuters)

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9930419-7.html

http://www.projectplaylist.com

http://snipurl.com/26dbu (DMW on Warner v. Seeqpod)