Defend Your Digital Rights - Support MP3tunes

I am the President of MP3tunes -- home of the online Music Locker. The concept of digital ownership is very important to me as a music fan, a musician, and now as a business owner in the digital age. EMI got my hopes up for a while -- making progressive moves like selling their catalog in MP3 with iTunes Plus tracks. And there was a time when I thought we were going to actually arrive at a business deal with them that would have been great for artists, labels and internet companies like ours. I am naive. I believe people will see beyond this American short-sightedness that has our economy in a tailspin, and make intelligent decisions. It would be intelligent for the record companies to embrace the digital age -- and innovate instead of litigate! It seems putting up cheap tollgates along the Mexican/American border would be a much better use of resources than building an expensive fence that can be dug under, climbed over or circumvented in some other way. If I can't store my music collection (that I've purchased numerous times -- with each format shift!) on some hard drives in a server room owned and operated by someone else, with the same protection I have for my financial accounts, well, Houston, we have a problem. Here is an email that Michael Robertson sent to the MP3tunes user base recently... "Let me start by saying that as the CEO of MP3tunes I appreciate all your support over the last few years. Our customer's suggestions and patience have helped us build the Locker system we have today. We just launched AutoSync -- making the management of your music collection easier than ever. As you may be aware, the major record label EMI has sued MP3tunes, claiming our service is illegal. You can read about the case here. Much is at stake -- if you don't have the right to store your own music online then you won't have the right to store ebooks, videos and other digital products as well. The notion of ownership in the 21st century will evaporate. The idea of ownership is important to me and I want to make sure I have that right and my kids do too. I would like to ask for your assistance in our battle for personal music ownership. We need your help because we are a small, 15-person company battling an international giant. They would like to make us spend all of our money paying legal bills. Here's what you can do to help: 1) Please upgrade to a Premium account. This week MP3tunes is launching 3 service levels. I hope you will consider signing up for one of the paid levels. This will not only help us pay for the costs of our service (machines, storage and bandwidth) but a portion will go to cover our legal costs in our case with EMI. 2) If you have a chance to talk publicly about our cause on your blog, with friends, reporters or even EMI personnel please do so. MP3tunes is working hard to design a secure personal music service. We don't promote sharing of music in any manner. We want people to legally acquire their music. But once they do, we think it's important that you be able to use it how you want for your personal use. The AmazonMP3 store says: "You may copy, store, transfer and burn the Digital Content only for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use." and this is what MP3tunes allows you to do. You have my commitment that I'll continually battle for your right to store your music online and listen to it anywhere on any device. I hope you'll consider helping MP3tunes in our battle. Thanks. -- MR" So I've decided to give away all of the songs from my latest 7 albums on this website for FREE for the next 2 weeks and hope they all end up on Sideload.com! Enjoy my creations -- mash them up, share them with friends and if you decide, buy a CD from CDBaby or a download from iTunes -- or make a donation to my nonprofit -- awakecommunity.com. Thanks for your support! ~Emily

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