So we all know that the music labels will sue anyone and everyone that trys to listen to their music – but I think they’ve finally been outdone in the old lawsuit game.  There is now a company trying to sue both the companies that are routinely accused of helping people “steal” music, and fight the Recording Industry of America that represents the people routinely accusing people of stealing music, at the same time on the same issue, in order to force them both to use the same technology that apparently niether of them want.

The story appears to go like this – back in 1998 that Clinton fellow signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, making it illegal (among other things) to inhale. I mean, making it illegal to manufacture any product or technology that is designed to circumvent a technological measure that controls access to a copyrighted work. Apparently, the mere avoidance of a workable technology/ protection solution is a violation of the act.

So some company called Media Relations Technology and their subsidiary Blue Beat created some sort of technology that they say has proven effective against Stream Ripping – which has something to do with ripping songs that are being streamed on Internet radio. They seem to think this is a bigger problem than, say, P2P file sharing networks that continue to be far, far easier ways to ship around DRM free music.

In turn, these innovative thinkers have issued cease and desist orders to Microsoft, Adobe, Real Networks, and Apple with respect to little products like Vista, Adobe Flash Player, Real Player, iTunes, and the iPod. Thankfully they were reasonable enough to draw the line at demanding the Internet to be turned off – and prehaps knocking out the electricity grid for good measure – before all these companies pay them for whatever it is they created here.

Failure to comply with this ransom demand, according to MRT, might just result in a federal court injunction of at least $200 to $2,500 per product sold. As far as I can tell, that could make the company worth several trillion dollars quite soon.

This comes mere months after they were getting mad at the Recording Industry of America and record labels for knowing that their technology works, not wanting it, while trying to “take advantage of the middleman. It’s business as usual for them.”

Wait – aren’t the labels always trying to screw over artists and consumers? Nope, apparently what they’ve been doing is trying to screw over this technology company, which happens to run a Internet radio station upset about an increase in “tax” being applied to streaming music on the Internet.

I’m not sure what the lesson here is, other than I never expected the music labels to be on the good side of a lawsuit in this space.