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Warner Music Group has filed a federal copyright-infringement suit against the MP3 aggregator Seeqpod, which scours the Internet for music files and allows people to stream said files from its site. The site–which is apparently owned, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy (?!)–believes that it isn’t engaging in infringement according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because it doesn’t host the files it streams; it merely allows users to find them easily. But we know what the record industry thinks about technical details!
Last year WMG engaged in similar lawsuit-threatening tactics against the streaming-media site imeem, and that company subsequently caved, making licensing agreements with the majors that will probably run it into the ground sooner or later. I’m going to guess that the “sue first, chat later” tactic is being repeated here, especially since Seeqpod’s been getting a fair bit of positive press for its iPhone compatibility lately, and what better way to deflate said press with a nice, juicy court document? Here’s hoping that the Hype Machine and elbo.ws are watching their backs, or at least responding to their DMCA takedown notices in a timely manner.
Seeqpod [Official site]
Warner Music Suing MP3 Search Engine Seeqpod (WMG) [Silicon Alley Insider]
thats the same defense that Alan Ellis (née OiNK (RIP)) is going for. its kinda BS. If I owned a swap meet and people were selling drugs in it, to say that I can’t get in trouble because I was simply hosting a place where people were supposed to swap legal goods would be ridiculous.
In other news, Warner Music Group anxiously awaits Uncle Kracker’s next album in hopes of bolstering head-scratching lack of album sales.
I think we all know by now that the music industry cares not if you are breaking the law. All they care about is getting money so they can sue other people who might be breaking the law. Makes sense, no? Waitaminute…
Seeqpod considers itself just a search engine, and therefore protected by the DMCA and doctrine of fair use. I’m no lawyer, but it’s obvious the site does a lot more than just search. (”Playable search” is the company’s tag line.) Hype Machine and elbo.ws are fundamentally different because they do not play music found via searches.
I take that back. Hype Machine enables playing, doesn’t it?
@coolfer: It does.
I’m happy as long as they don’t hit shareminer.
But the thing with Hype is you can’t download directly from them. You have to visit the originating post to download any content.