By Kim Tong-hyung
The last-minute talks to resolve the prolonged dispute over free music on mobile phones broke down yesterday, paving the way for a possible legal battle between record producers and a telecom service provider.Representatives of the music industry, mobile service providers and electronics makers held the fifth and last round of negotiations at the Ministry of Information and Communication.
Industry officials said the talks ended without progress as LG Telecom, Korea’s smallest wireless carrier, rejected a compromise proposal to limit the playing of music files on mobile phones to 72 hours after downloading. Immediately after the meeting, a recording industry group threatened to take legal action and stage a boycott campaign against the telecom provider, accusing it of copyright infringement.
“LG Telecom is wholly responsible for the failure of the negotiations. It refused to budge from its position,” said an official from the Korean Association of Phonogram Producers. “We are going to file a provisional injunction against the LG Telecom’s MP3-equipped handsets,” he added. LG Telecom has sold about 80,000 mobile phones capable of replaying MP3 files this month.
The carrier has insisted that it would be a violation of consumers’ rights to limit the use of individually obtained music files. No such limitations are being imposed on conventional MP3 players and personal computers, it said. The company played down the possible impact of any legal action, saying chances were very slim that a court would approve an injunction against sales of the phones. LG’s action is expected to prompt its rivals to follow suit. “LG Telecom’s decision to release its MP3 handsets without the time limit has given the company a clear advantage in marketing. It wouldn’t be logical for us to just stand and watch,” said a public relations official from SK Telecom.
The dispute erupted in February when the country’s three mobile carriers – SK Telecom Co., KTF Co. and LG Telecom – and cell phone manufacturers announced their plans to launch MP3 player-equipped handsets within the first half of the year. The plan faced strong opposition from the recording industry, which has already seen its sales hurt significantly by free music on the Internet and MP3 players.
The conflict appeared to be nearing a settlement in early April, when SK Telecom, KTF and cell phone makers Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Teletech reached an agreement to limit the playing of free MP3 copies to 72 hours after downloading. LG Telecom, however, refused to accept that condition and went on to release its LG-LP3000 model, produced by handset manufacturer LG Electronics Inc.
LG Telecom is Korea’s smallest mobile service provider, serving 5.5 million of the country’s 35 million cellular phone users. As more than 11 million households in Korea — 73 percent — have Internet access, the free distribution of digital music raised a heated dispute over copyright infringement.
The online music site Bugs Music, which provides free music streaming services, has more than 14 million subscribers, while the peer-to-peer file-sharing network Soribada has more than 4.5 million members.
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