On Tuesday, January 6, Universal Music Group turned its eye back toward the fight against music piracy by filing a copyright infringement lawsuit in the Central District of California against companies compiling mix tapes for prisoners.
Centric Group and its subsidiary Keefe Group, the named defendants in the suit, are companies that put together “care packages” for prison inmates. The companies have set up a website through which customers can pay the companies to put together packages for delivery to relatives in jail. One popular item in those packages is mix tapes containing music from a wide variety of musicians. Universal’s lawsuit targets those mix tapes that contain recordings by Universal artists.
The record producer claims in its lawsuit that the companies are unlawfully distributing music recordings and compositions to which they have no rights and that the companies are unlawfully turning a profit. Universal criticizes the companies, whose websites claim their intent is to eliminate contraband from prisons, calling their allegedly infringing mixtapes “contraband personified.” Universal seeks the statutory maximum $150,000 in damages for the alleged infringement of songs by Eminem, LL Cool J, James Brown, and Marvin Gaye, among others.