Michael Robertson

In March 2014, a New York jury ordered Robertson to pay roughly $41 million in damages for massive copyright infringement by MP3tunes for the works of Capitol Records, EMI and other record labels and music publishers. MP3tunes had filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012, but the jury found Robertson personally liable for the copyright infringement. The plaintiffs brought the copyright case in 2007.

MP3tunes filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on April 27, 2012. Included among the creditors were his lawyers ($1.4 million), several employees ($10,775), and even the coffee vendor ($96). The only secured creditor listed in the filing was Robertson himself, through his SKL Trust.

In October 2012, Robertson filed a petition to legally change his name to Michael Lee Hammer, alleging he was abused during childhood by his stepfather. In Judge William Pauley's ruling in the MP3tunes/EMI copyright trial, Pauley singled out the story Robertson told on the witness stand about this alleged abuse, stating that Roberton's "seemingly rehearsed, five-minute fable-like narrative left the jury nonplussed and Plaintiffs' counsel shell-shocked. It was a dramatic presentation. Even if true, Robertson's decision to spin this yarn backfired on him. The jury saw it for what it was—a transparent attempt to tug at their heartstrings." The judge further observed, "Jurors see through performances, and the Oscars are over for this year."

In 2010, Robertson and his wife Leslie Burcham legally separated.

In 2003 Robertson founded SIPphone, which utilized the SIP telecommunication standard. In addition to selling phone adapters and routers, SIPphone developed free VOIP software to compete with Skype based on the SIP standard called Gizmo5, which is available on a variety of platforms. On November 12, 2009, Google announced that it had acquired the company and relocated the team to Mountain View to join the Google Voice team.

In 2008, Robertson attempted to sue Linspire's bank, Comerica, in an attempt to get Comerica to refund severance payments which had been made to laid-off Linspire employees. Robertson alleged the severance payments were actually funds which had been embezzled by the laid-off employees. The San Diego Police Department investigated and quickly came to the conclusion that this was a simple dispute between Robertson and Linspire's CEO at the time, Kevin Carmony, and no embezzlement or other crime had been committed. Robertson lost the lawsuit without it getting past summary judgment. Robertson then filed a civil suit against the six former employees directly, for which he was counter sued. The jury sided largely with the employees, awarding a $238,000 judgement against Robertson. A smaller judgement of $80,000 was awarded to Robertson, however, this judgement was vacated and set aside by Judge Taylor. Judge Taylor stated in his ruling, “It is plain to the court that Linspire [Robertson] was not required to act in the protection of its interests as it did. Rather, Linspire [Robertson] approached this case as a vehicle for a test of will as between Robertson and Carmony.”

In an effort to defend the names of the former employees being sued by Robertson, a website critical of Robertson called Freespire.com was launched in February 2008. The Freespire.com site states that it is "dedicated to shedding light on the REAL Michael Robertson," and discloses information and facts about Robertson. In an attempt to have the Freespire.com site taken down, Robertson had Linspire (renamed as Digital Cornerstone) file a lawsuit, claiming the site violated trademark law. In 2010, Robertson lost the lawsuit with the court saying the site did not infringe on any trademarks and was protected as free speech. Judge Judith F. Hayes stated in her ruling, "...the Court finds the general purpose of the website to be a free speech forum wherein Defendant criticized the management of Plaintiff."

In April 2008, Robertson pleaded with the MP3tunes user group to help fund the legal defense regarding the EMI lawsuit.

Founded in early 2006 by Michael Robertson (CEO) and Hisham El-Emam (CTO), Ajax 13 Inc. is a software development company that provides web-based applications written using XUL. It was started to pursue the software-as-a-service vision that is gaining momentum in both the enterprise and small business / home office marketplaces. Among the Ajax 13 products is ajaxWrite, a web-based word processor.

In February 2005, Robertson launched MP3tunes.com, which sold downloadable music. Robertson boasted that, unlike Apple's iTunes Music Store and most other competitors at the time, MP3tunes did not use digital rights management (DRM) technology to limit the use of songs its customers purchased. MP3tunes also provided Oboe, a digital music back-up service (later referred to by the company as a 'music locker'). MP3tunes stopped selling digital music in 2008.

Robertson lives in San Diego, California. His reported wealth has varied widely, but he has been on the Forbes 400 list once and twice on the Fortune 40 under 40, most recently in 2004. In 1999, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

In 2002, Robertson and his wife founded the Robertson Education Empowerment Foundation (REEF) to provide University of California, San Diego students with financial aid, under the agreement that they would contribute a percentage of their later earnings to the foundation's funds.

MP3.com was acquired for $385 million by Vivendi Universal during a buying spree by Vivendi's CEO Jean-Marie Messier. The acquisition was completed on August 28, 2001. After the purchase by Vivendi, Michael Robertson cashed in with an estimated $103 million. In hindsight, after Messier departed Vivendi, the new Vivendi management determined the corporate acquisitions spree to be reckless and later sold MP3.com to CNET which now manages the site. Messier's buying spree accumulated billions of dollars in debt for his company and resulted in company shares falling to 20% of their previous value. Vivendi was compelled to sell off many other companies to scale down its debt.

Michael Robertson (born 1967) is the founder and former CEO of MP3.com, an Internet music site. In the years following his departure from MP3.com Robertson has launched several companies, including Linspire, SIPphone, MP3tunes, and Ajax13. He is also founder of OnRad.io, a search engine for radio and DAR.fm, a website for recording audio from internet radio.

Virtually every major record label sued MP3.com, and Robertson's company settled the majority of the lawsuits for tens of millions of dollars. Universal Music, however, held out and took the issue to court. After the trial started, in the case of UMG v. MP3.com, MP3.com was found to have violated copyright laws and ordered to pay as much as $250 million to Universal Music Group. MP3.com paid $53.4 million to settle Universal Music's claim. This legal outcome triggered a class action complaint charging MP3.com and certain officers, including Robertson and company directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.