Maker of WinAMP MP3 Player Sued for Copyright Theft

Computergram International, March 16, 1999

Nullsoft Inc, maker of the popular WinAMP MP3 player, faces a $20m lawsuit for intellectual property theft. PlayMedia Systems Inc has filed a federal copyright lawsuit against Nullsoft in the US District Court of Los Angeles. Ironically, while many in the recorded music industry fear that MP3 compression technology may contribute to music piracy, PlayMedia alleges that WinAMP itself pirates from PlayMedia's AMP Audio MPEG player.

The code for AMP was written by PlayMedia principal Tomislav Uzelac. WinAMP was copied from it as a derivative work. In 1998, Nullsoft tried to get a license to use AMP, but no agreement was reached. Nullsoft now claims that WinAMP no longer uses any portion of the AMP code that may be proprietary to Uzelac. PlayMedia says this is not true, and claims that Nullsoft continues to use the AMP code in WinAMP and other derivative works. Now PlayMedia wants $20m for copyright infringement, fraud and other claims, as well as a permanent injunction barring Nullsoft from using AMP code. "We regret that we had no choice but to file his action," said Brian Litman,PlayMedia's CEO. "Copyright law requires us to be vigilant in protecting our intellectual property, and efforts to remedy the situation directly with Nullsoft were to no avail." Litman says he wants to make it clear that the case has nothing to do with MP3's legitimacy as a format for internet audio playback. "The copyright we allege being infringed is that of our computer code, not anyone's music," he said. But this is believed to be the first case in which legal action related to MP3 has been undertaken by one advocate of the format against another. In spite of Litman's protests, the suit is likely to damage relations in a community already under fire from the recording industry and from its competitors in streaming media (see separate story).