Latest Decision from U.K. High Court Involving TuneIn and Sony Music / Warner Music

In the dispute between Sony Music / Warner Music and TuneIn, the U.K. High Court has decided today to allow both parties to appeal the decision it handed down, previous press statement here. Although Sony and Warner sought to portray last month’s decision as a decisive win for them, the fact that both parties have sought to appeal the decision tells a different story.

As things stand, we can continue to operate the most important part of our U.K. directory service, which is providing our U.K. users with links to U.K. stations, but cannot provide access to links to foreign music stations. We hope to overturn this latter point on appeal as we believe that it is fundamentally bad for freedom of expression on the Internet and cultural diversity. Many have also expressed concern about the broader implications of this decision for search engines and other Internet operators, as well as the risk that it will lead to a territorially segmented Internet. The Court of Appeal will now have to grapple with this complex case, which looks at whether we should be allowed to provide our U.K. users with access to hyperlinks to music radio stations that are freely available on the Internet.