Universal Music Group and MP3.com entered the courtroom on Monday (8/28) to begin the trial of Universal's copyright-infringement lawsuit against the online music company.

The U.S. District Court judge in this case must determine if MP3.com willfully infringed on Universal's copyrights when the site placed CDs on its My.MP3.com service, a service which allows subscribers to store CDs in MP3 format and listen to them from personal computers. (To store the CDs on the hard drive of one's own computer is to use a considerable amount of disk space.) Bloomberg News reported that MP3.com's CEO Michael Robertson has admitted that subscribers could download files from the site and distribute them.

According to Inside, if Universal proves willful infringement--which is to say, if it proves that MP3.com ignored a clear probability that it was violating copyright law--the damages could be as high as $150,000 per CD. If the judge rules that any infringements were not willful, the damages would be in the range between $750 and $30,000 per CD. The number of Universal CDs on My.MP3.com can only be estimated as several thousand. Any damages would be determined at a separate trial.

The Record Industry Association of America had filed the lawsuit on behalf of five major record labels, including Universal. The other four labels have reached out-of-court settlements with MP3.com. Bloomberg News reported that each settlement cost MP3.com about $20 million.