Warner Sues Search Engine, Tests DMCA Safe Harbor

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Warner Bros. Records is suing SeeqPod, the music search engine, in an attempt to test the limits of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions with a theory of contributory, vicarious and inducement liability. While other services like Last.fm have cut deals with the labels, SeeqPod relied on the DMCA Safe Harbor alone to protect it. According to the complaint [PDF] SeeqPod 'deliberately refrains' from adding simple yet ineffective content filters to screen out copyright infringing materials, presumably by not buying those filters from label-affiliated companies. Of course, this lawsuit is merely part of a recent trend seeking to move the responsibility for policing copyrights away from the copyright holders and on to third parties."

Comments

Why do they even have this much power?

[pembo13]

Why does Warner yield this apparently massive amount of power in the first place?

Re:Why do they even have this much power?

[ricebowl]

On what grounds would you refuse them this power? Surely they should have the right to pursue litigation if they feel they, or their property, is being abused. Whether or not that's intellectual or actual property, though I do agree that they should be treated differently.

Just because Warner is suing Seeqpod doesn't mean that they have any over-arching power to do as they will, regardless of the majority/vocal opinion around the internet; but, and bear in mind I'm not American, so I could easily have this ass-backwards, if this goes to court then either the DMCA Safe Harbour will be found, in some way, inappropriate or the case will enforce the perceived strength of the Safe Harbour provision.

While I'd hope for the former (and coming from the UK I'm envious of the American Fair Use doctrine) I'd accept the risk of the latter, despite the obviously-limited effect that'd have on me. Surely to deny someone, corporation or individual, the right to pursue judicial support would be, if not unconstitutional, but unethical.

Yes, I know the patent trolls and various labels and companies have abused that right, but that right should be protected in order that everyone else can be safe in the knowledge that they can go to the courts for help and restitution. Denying one makes it easier to deny the second. Slippery-slopes and all that...

Despite all of that I do believe that Warners are acting like fools pursuing this, but that's their right.

Re:Why do they even have this much power?

[flyneye]

Warner has this kind of power because they are a multi-national communications company.
They're prolly bigger than Microsoft if you put all the subsidiaries together and counted the till.
Unfortunatly for them they specialize in movies and music,two "commodities" whose business model is falling apart due to the evolution and wising up of the human race.We no longer wish to pay to hear the same old stories rehashed ineptly on the same old template.We also no longer wish to pay for music that we are "told" is talent and the best to be had as long as its easy to market for them.
Nope,we have no love for the movie and music industries and it's simply hilarious to watch them thrash and grasp at clumps of grass as they sink deeper into their graves.
          Frankly,from an evolutionary standpoint,we are moving beyond our T.V.,radio and theater addictions,in favor of more homegrown internet entertainment and just blend the industries product into the slurry and pop em all like bon bons indiscriminatly.
          I suppose if those industries want to quit losing money,they should quit spending it.Cut their losses and provide products or services people want to purchase.At the very least they should slap some stockholders till they regain intellegence.It's evolution baby,and Warnercom is just a fossil and doesn't even know it yet.HI-lari-OUS!
          "But what about all the poor people whose livelihoods depend on the world paying far too much for garbage entertainment?"
        To quote Ted Knight in "Caddyshack" "The world needs ditchdiggers too".

Re:Almost, but not yet, fully bulletproof!

[jc42]

If anything, they should be using these sites to take down the offenders' pages and not the sites themselves.

Y'know, I've often wondered why people haven't been pointing that out. It would seem that for a copyright holder suing the person that points them to an infringer would be just a case of "shooting themselves in the foot". Why wouldn't they want someone to collect pointers to their copyrighted material, and make it easy to go after the infringer?

Maybe Warner is secretly in favor of copyright infringement, and it trying to shut down the search sites so that infringement can continue untracked. If so, there's some interesting economics going on here.

Filters

[Ajehals]

From the summary;

...'deliberately refrains' from adding simple yet ineffective content filters to screen out copyright infringing materials... Unless this is a typo, it seems perfectly sensible, if you are not required to use filters (Assuming that "Safe Harbour" applies) at all, that you would certainly not use ineffective ones. If that is all that is available in terms of content filters, then I guess you could go further and say that there is *no* way of filtering content effectively and so it is absurd to take legal action against someone for not doing so.

I guess the best method would be ORAPC (One RIAA Agent Per Computer), they could sit next to you whilst you browse the web and help you avoid infringing.

Re:Filters

[rhizome]

Unless this is a typo, it seems perfectly sensible,

It's not a typo, it's editorializing on Slashdot's part. Notice where the quotation marks are.

Re:New legal justification for open downloads

[Klaus_1250]

The record companies have not provided a way for me to enjoy my license to listen if the CD gets scratched, as it is now they force us to buy a new license they should probably reimburse anyone who has had to buy more than one license because of damage media. I noticed about 10 years ago CDs became very easy to scratch not the bottom but the top. Because the carrier medium can be damaged we should all be able to get a download of a new instance of the song we paid for from the Internet if we purchased the license to listen to it. Since the record companies have not provided a way for us to get a replacement copy the Internet downloads can ethically be justified. That is one of the reasons why downloading (NOT uploading) is legally allowed here in the Netherlands, though this is now under attack. If I'm not mistaking, record labels are also obliged to swap damaged media carriers at a reasonable cost (handling, packaging, shipping, media), but for some awkward reason, this is not mentioned anywhere.

Then wonder no more....

[Half-pint HAL]

Why wouldn't they want someone to collect pointers to their copyrighted material, and make it easy to go after the infringer?

Because a distribution site/point can close down and move to a new place, new name, new page layout and start up again. If they register with the search engines, they're just as visible as they were before the move. The fact that the site has to change address means that they would lose contact with their audience if it wasn't for the search engines.

This has created the current internet ecosystem: sites and collections of files that drift from place-to-place, and search engines/indexing sites that act as a fixed-location portal to the itinerant sites. The public only need to know the portal address. The portal is the hub. Kill the hub and you break the entire network, but go after content hosts and nothing changes.

HAL.