Universal Music Sues MySpace

Grooves writes "Universal Music is suing MySpace for copyright infringement. Universal threatened to sue YouTube before the Google acquisition was announced, so now it looks like they have moved on to the next target. Ars speculates that Universal is really after a piece of the action. 'On the morning of the Google-YouTube deal, Universal — along with Sony BMG and CBS — signed a licensing agreement with YouTube. If MySpace were to sign a similar agreement with the label, there is little doubt that the lawsuit would disappear.'"

Comments

Won't catch Google by surprise...

[slobber]

Google doesn't maintain a lawsuit defense fund for nothing. Rumor has it that it grew to $500M after youtube was acquired. Apparently google was aware that likelihood of lawsuit would go up dramatically. It looks like Universal decided to test legal waters on MySpace first before tackling Google.

Re:Won't catch Google by surprise...

[Salvance]

What's really unfortunate is that the lawsuits' end result is that the music industry gets significant licensing revenues from the deal, but the agreements are setup in such a way that the individual artists never do. Many of these are artists would be more than happy to share their music (or some subset thereof), but not in a situation where everyone is making money from their music except the creators.

Extortion

[anubi]

Looking at all these Slashdot reports of suing, it looks like this is the standard practice of corporate extortion.

This way, the "barriers to entry" can be set to any level the more powerful entity desires, so they can maintain their monopoly.

Smaller companies simply do not have the financial stamina to fend off litigation attacks like this.

The strongest ( most well funded ) entities will do well under such a system.

The rest of us... well... better do it in another country.

Re:Extortion

[ClassMyAss]

Except that they really shouldn't have a case as long as MySpace is taking infringing material down as soon as it is brought to their attention. By my reading, the safe harbor provisions were specifically put in place to protect exactly the type of thing that MySpace has going on, a webpage hosting service that they cannot be expected to police entirely. The fact that their software automatically does a format-shift when people upload videos isn't (or at least shouldn't be) relevant at all.

This is more of the same - someone provides a tool, some people abuse the tool and do illegal things with it. Too many people to police means that the provider cannot afford to make sure everyone is acting within the law. But the people whose copyrights are being infringed upon can't afford to go after the individuals for both PR and practical reasons, so they look for someone with fat pockets to blame. Frankly I'm confused about what is so different about a tool on a web server somewhere and a tool on my hard drive - if I used Winamp to convert a copyrighted video and then uploaded it to a GoDaddy hosted server, nobody would be blaming Nullsoft or GoDaddy for my crime. It would be my fault, 100%. It is ridiculous that the courts continue to allow these types of suits to continue without any clarification as to what the law actually means when it comes to hosting user submitted content.

I've got to say, I really thought MySpace would be immune to this type of thing, as much as I'd love to see it implode. The fact is, they don't base their revenue model on infringement in the least. If you removed video hosting altogether from MySpace, I sincerely doubt if anyone would even notice, considering YouTube's success in that venue. It's looking more and more like the only safe user content to host is plain old text, and I think that's a damn shame. The record industry middlemen seem to feel that it's more than appropriate to expect everyone on the net to protect their copyrights as fiercely as they do.

Universal Lawyers

[MrNonchalant]

What is it with companies starting with "Universal" and web 2.0 litigation?

For the Love of God, Someone Go to Court!

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I really hate this crap. Small company does some innovation and becomes popular and the next thing you know, they're being sued by a multi-national corporation that's really just hoping the other company will settle the case so they can get a piece of the action.

I don't understand how MySpace would be liable for copyright infringment that's committed by users of the service. Doesn't MySpace classify as a common carrier? Of course no one ever goes to court to fight the big guys, *sigh*.

Universal Music are getting Zune Money

[linuxci]

Remember Universal are getting money off Microsoft for every Zune sold. Perhaps this deal was done in order to give them a bit more money to go after Google. Just like MS did with their SCO Linux licences.

I don't know why so many people are lenient on MS, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and all that... MS have fooled many people, many times but some people associate anything bad said against them as coming from a zealot.

Personally I think their track record means they deserve to be thought of badly, they have to prove us wrong not the other way round.

Re:Universal Music are getting Zune Money

[lilfields]

Why would Universal go after Google? Myspace is owned by News Corp...which just so happens to own rival network and movie studio Fox. Google's Eric Schmidt sits on the board of Apple...Apple has i-tunes...Universal sells videos/music on i-tunes. This law suit has little to do with video, but to do with music that people upload for profile songs. Myspace saw this coming as they added music fingerprinting. Myspace will get a slap on the wrist, and be forced to enforce rules that should have been enforced to begin with. I know plenty of people who will go to a Myspace page just to listen to the music on it. It's like a form of radio, but Universal sees no cut, and Myspace reaps the profits from their mix of advertising. YouTube does not have this problem, at least in my eyes...too many deals have been inked for Universal to suddenly attack Google.

Just sue the Internet

[Ryan Mallon]

Universal Music, RIAA, etc should stop thinking so small. All this pirated, or copyright infringing content is on the Internet right? Why not just sue the Internet and get it over with ;-).

Re:Just sue the Internet

[troll -1]

Maybe they should sue DARPA.

A battle of equals

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

At least this one will be a battle of equals. One corporate titan against another. The interesting copyright issues that need to be decided here can be fully briefed on a full and complete record. That is a plus.

I have to wonder...

[no reason to be here]

is this about trying to get a licensing agreement, or are they maybe thinking they could destroy a website that has proved to be an excellent avenue for unsigned and indie musicians to get exposure?

Extortion? You have no idea....

[8127972]

Here's how the phone call went....

MySpace: Hello?

Universal: MySpace? Nice website you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.

MySpace: What?

Universal: You could make this "problem" go away if you gave us a "donation." Otherwise, something bad is going to happen. Capiche?

circumvention of our legal system

[benicillin]

the most interesting thing about these pre-suing agreements that have been arranged (ie. the youtube payout) is that these companies are circumventing the legal system. originally you have a legal battle that ends in a decision. then we started seeing one company sue another but settle out of court (so that no decision on the issue could be rendered by the judicial system.) now we are simply seeing arrangements made before anyone sues, the grandest way of avoiding any real legal decision on the issue. very interesting how they work things out without even deciding if they fall within the laws of the country. we'll never know if it's any kind of infringement, cause they'll never get to court in the first place.

Slashdot good vs evil decision

[imunfair]

These are the sacred rules of Slashdot to decide which of the two opposing parties is actually the good one in any given fight. If both parties are equal, proceed to the next step.

1. Small business = good, big business = bad
2. open source = good, proprietary = bad
3. rootkits = bad
4. suing people = bad
5. lots of patents = bad
6. internet related = good
7. given all above items are equal, put on wizard's cap and role 16-sided die for one party. If it is even they are good; odd is evil. first poster to declare their results determines the outcome unless they make a typo - in which case the first person calling them an idiot or troll will determine the good/evil ratio of the two opposing parties.

PARADOX!

[XnavxeMiyyep]

I want MySpace to lose money, but I don't want Universal Music to get money by suing people.... well, I guess if I support lawyers, then I win no matter what!