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Lycos Mp3 Lawsuit?
jonathanclark writes "Lycos's mp3 search branch
is being
sued for what is being called "contributory
infringement". I'll be watching this one closely.
" Denial, Desperation, Litigation. My official 3 stages
of an industry about to change. Stage 4 is anyone's guess.
(This post is smiley-captioned for the humor impaired)
MP3s are used to illegally distribute music. Music has a strong political effect. Witness Vietnam. Some would say that music got us out of Vietnam. Music has political and military power far overshadowing the effects of copyright infringement.
Even today, the phenomenon of Rock 'n Roll Terrorism is poisoning the minds of our population, especially minors. The most flagrant example of this is the anarchist band "Chumbawumba". The lyrics, "I get knocked down, but I get up again, no one ever gonna keep me down" is a clear reference to President Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. MP3, by allowing the speedy distribution of Rock 'n Roll to the entire world, is the delivery system for weapons of psychological warfare.
Recommendation:
List MP3 technology as a "munition" for purposes of ITAR. Make it a federal felony to export MP3 encoders and decoders, whether software or hardware, outside of the US and Canada. This will keep Rock 'n Roll terrorists from spreading their disease, and is a necessary infringement on First Amendment rights to insure national security.
Allow an exportable version of MP3 with a 35dB signal-to-noise ratio (note that CD technology gives a ratio over 90dB). The low fidelity of MP3-35 will not be a threat, as people have an immediate revulsion to music played with as much static as the equipment we use in public schools to teach children to appreciate Bach and Beethoven. Terrorist rock, sent by MP3-35, will simply be ignored.
Please consider the above recommendation and act upon it quickly. The mind you save may be your own.
I agree... But warez by itself sais its illegal..
ZIP searches are legal.. look at ftpsearch or archie... they are often used to find warez.. but that aint their purpose...
Cars can be used to do illegal things (such as bank robery getaway) but it doesnt mean that by themselves they are illegal...
Same with mp3s... If they advertized themselves as illegal mp3s, I would understand, but they dont....
So serch engines must make a legal determination as to wheather a search is permissible or not before executing it? Harumph.
It looks like not only ISPs and the USENET sites, but search engine sites too are in dire need of common carrier status. Otherwise too many sites will start self-stifiling thenselves rather than risk lawsuits thus diminishing freedom on the 'net. This would be a bad thing, IMO.
ISPs have already had all their hardware siezed because 'illegal material' was found stored on servers. This has to stop before it gets worse.
This could be an even larger problem if the suit is successful. If Lycos is sued and loses the suit then precedence will be set. This would open the door to lawsuits by software vendors because services like AltaVista or Google can be used to search for pirated software. I can see a certain software company doing this.
Heck, maybe non network saavy people can get into the act too. In most larger cities you can look in the yellow pages and get prostitutes under the thinly disguised heading of Escort Services. I'm sure if the religious kooks otherwise known as TV evangelists come up with the idea it'll be tried.
I can understand that the record companies are incensed by the proliferation of illegaly distributed music on the internet. This is the wrong way to go about problem though, not that there really is a right way. It does eventually effect there bottom line and I'm not a believer that just because a company is profitable or is excessively profitable it deserves to be shafted.
I do think that fairly soon these large record labels and the organizations that protect them will be gone. I sense a paradigm shift coming. With the advent of virtually free web space its quickly becoming possible to become your own manager, promoter and advertising agency. The internet is going to become a global version of the local scene: instead of band members and friends pasting flyers for your latest gig on every available surface it'll be a posting to web sites that promote your particular style of music and links to your latest MP3 single (listen to it a few times for free folks, but if you like it send us dough)
As in Kubler-Ross, stage 4 is where they just learn to live with it.
From a business point of view... If you follow the links on Lycos for its MP3 Search, you will find information on how to obtain, install and use a ripper to pull tracks directly off of a CD. This information is displayed on a Lycos Webpage, created by a Lycos employee. It is not a link that Lycos happens to be displaying. This certainly implies that Lycos is advocating the illegal use of copyrighted materials. I can certainly see why the music industry (tm) would be upset about this.
No one is saying that allowing small bands to place their own music on the web in MP3 format is bad, or illegal. The music industry is concerned with the illegal use and distribution of material that it owns.
Now, I also think that the music industry would like to see MP3 banned, and closing off access to the small independent bands, thus ensuring their own monoply on an already tightly controlled industry, and a continuing increase in their own bottom lines. However, that is not what the possible lawsuit against Lycos is about.
NOTE: I am not stating that Lycos does or does not advocate music piracy. These are my opinions as expressed by me.
What is there to sue Lycos over ?? If they had incorporated the mp3 searcher into their original search engine instead of opening a mp3.lycos section, noone would have noticed, but it would still BE there.
So they sue because Lycos puts their searcers into categories.. I sure hope common sense will prevail (if there is such a thing anymore..)
This is all getting very pathetic. There is no way to stop warez, mp3 and as bandwidth gets better, you'll see movies heading the same way. It's all about being there early, instead of doing what the music biz is doing now, fighting too late.
.. and I don't pity them one bit.
Appropriation.