[Infowarrior] - Judge orders record labels to turn over documents

[Richard Forno]

Judge orders record labels to turn over documents

By Reuters
http://news.com.com/Judge+orders+record+labels+to+turn+over+documents/2100-1
027_3-6064055.html

Story last modified Sun Apr 23 18:57:17 PDT 2006

A U.S. federal judge has ordered major record labels to turn over privileged
documents after finding they may have used misleading information to
convince the government to abandon a major antitrust probe.

The ruling late on Friday from U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in San
Francisco came out of a dispute over which documents Vivendi Universal Music
Group and EMI Group should be forced to release in a lengthy copyright
battle over Bertelsmann's investment in music-swapping service Napster.

Prosecutors in 2001 began investigating whether music labels secretly worked
together to use two joint ventures, MusicNet and Pressplay, to discourage
digital downloading and protect CD sales by fixing digital music
distribution terms.

During the investigation, the joint ventures and their record label parents
each submitted a "white paper" to the Justice Department summarizing their
arguments. They also provided documents that included redacted, or blacked
out, sections to remove privileged material.

The U.S. Justice Department abandoned the probe in December 2003, citing no
evidence of wrongdoing.

Napster investor Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Bertelsmann's co-defendant
in the lawsuit, charged that the arguments offered in the white papers were
known to be false or misleading.

In the ruling, Patel said Hummer Winblad provided reasonable cause to
believe that information in the white papers was "deliberately misleading."

Patel ordered UMG and EMI to turn over all previously held communications
related to the antitrust investigation within 30 days of the order.

The parties could not immediately be reached for contact.

Story Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.