EMI Group companies sued online music industry executive Michael Robertson for copyright infringement on Friday, according to a Reuters report.

This comes seven years after his former company paid recording firms more than $100 million to settle a similar case, when "several EMI-owned labels and publishers sued Robertson and MP3tunes LLC, which runs www.sideload.com and www.mp3tunes.com, for willful infringement of copyright over the Internet."

In response, Robertson said in a phone interview with Reuters from San Diego he "had not seen the lawsuit but the case appeared to be retaliatory, as MP3tunes had sued EMI in San Diego in September over a take-down notice the record company sent for Sideload.com, a search engine for digital music files."

EMI Labels Sue Online Music Executive Robertson [Reuters via PC Mag]