The Recording Industry Association of American said Wednesday that it had sued the parent company of Puretunes, a Spanish site that briefly offered inexpensive music downloads.
Puretunes emerged in May, claiming that it had won rights from several Spanish licensing agencies that gave it the ability to distribute major label music legally online. Label representatives said the site was operating illegally because Puretunes had not acquired the permission of labels, artists or song publishers.
However, the service went offline last month. The RIAA suit comes after several weeks of complaints from angry Puretunes customers.
"Contrary to everything that Puretunes told the public--both on its Web site and in news reports--they never obtained nor sought licenses for the music that they were selling to the public," an RIAA representative said in a statement. "It"s bad enough that Puretunes was selling music illegally--it"s even worse that they tried to perpetrate a fraud on the public by claiming that they were a legitimate business."