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MP3.com named in copyright lawsuit
cybrthng writes "Check out the news on CNET's News.Com about how PlayMedia is now taking its lawsuit against NullSoft after MP3.COM also. " The article talks about the fact that MP3.com doesn't know all that much either-although it appears that PlayMedia is targeting them because they have determined that MP3.com was the biggest distributor. Either that, or they want a chunk of the 115$US million MP3 is hoping to raise in their IPO.
My best guess is that the creator of AMP is rather miffed that he didn't market his code well enough to profit from it, that he didn't get into business arrangements that would make him a partner(*cough* why was Nitrane even necessary), and now has been courted by lawyers who think they can wring large chunks of money out of the equation.
The MOST interesting part of the equation is Winamp licensing an engine from FFH. FFH will, IMHO, flip around and bend Playmedia over the proverbial legal bar questioning their chutzpah demanding legal protection over something that they ostensibly "stole" from FFH in the first place.
My "off the cuff" legal analysis of this situation will be that the judge will throw the entire case out, noting that Playmedia(and FFH) lost their claim over the *large* period of time they allowed WinAMP to spread. The Nullsoft guys will successfully argue that Playmedia knowingly allowed the code to be used, that any similarities in code were those that would be expected (by anybody, even Playmedia) from somebody who had seen the source code legally and had recreated it in a new technical system, and that to accept Playmedia's claim would be to usher in a new era of Contagion Litigation.
Contagion Litigation, related to submarine patents, occur when a given technology is allowed to spread contagiously, and when enough parties are infected, the legal nature of the product is reasserted and everybody is forced to pay. It's a form of fraud, obviously, since if each receptor of the "diseased code" had known the legal implication of using the technology before integrating into their systems they would have chosen an alternate route.
There's an element of beauty in all of this. Luckily, the autocratic nature of most courtrooms should cut through the BS rather quickly. I'm sure there's significant precedent against stuff like this.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://doxpara.netpedia.net
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
These people think that Winamp stole some of their code. Alright, maybe that is possible. But they are trying to get money out of mp3.com? On what grounds? Because mp3.com spreads files that *could be used* with this tainted player?
Well, someone once ganked part of a text editor from me and made it shareware. I didn't mind at the time, but now I could kind of use some cash, so: all writers of text on the internet owe me money! They are flagrantly creating material that could be viewed and even *edited* with the program that was stolen from me. I better start a lawsuit right now...
Seriously, how can this person look at himself in the mirror in the morning?
--Lenny
mp3.com called our band up and asked to use one of our songs ( Temple Dogs ) for a TV commercial for MPMan. This is a portable mp3 player that competes with the Rio. Apparently it is being used on the QVC network.
Years of playing bass and I make it to the Home Shopping Network! Oh well.
However, when our singer asked about IPO the answer was: "Don't Go There, change the coversation."
I suppose any information that could be leaked would be a securities violation.
In any case, even though mp3.com lost money last quarter I bet that the stock will go up very fast. You don't suppose the traditional record companies would want to buy a piece of the pie in case they can't shut them down? Just the fact that the traditional companies would buy stock, Microsoft with all their money would probably hedge their bets too. All that purchacing would make mp3.com stock an excellent short term investment. Maybe not as insane as amazon.com but I bet pretty damn close.
Ken Broadfoot
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
They are not suing because winamp can play illegal mp3s, they are suing because they made the AMP decoder which WinAMP used for a while up to 2.20.
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
It has nothing to do with MPEG. This is over a specific piece of software. My understanding is that the AMP creators are claiming that WinAmp is based on code stolen from AMP, therefore violating their AMP copyright. For example, HTTP is open, but if you write a web browser that uses it, you still have the copyright on that web browser.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Let's see, I can sue Walmart, Eckerds, Osco, Walgreens, and all of the other pharmacies because the pharmacies sold fen-phen.
I can sue any distributor becuase they sold a product, that was illegal, or could have been a knock off, even though they didn't know about it...
Millions to be made...
If people smell money to be made, they blindly pursue it without thinking.
RB
Last time I looked, Winamp wasn't the only free MP3 player that MP3.COM offered so I don't see how they can backup the claim that MP3.COM was reliant on Winamp. Plus I don't see how MP3.COM knew about any code being used from AMP before the lawsuit, thus I think any reasonable judge will throw out the case since they are a unknowing third party.
Nitrane(TM) is copyright protected and is the property of Nullsoft, Inc. This software may be used freely only with Winamp(TM), and may not be copied, sold, distributed or used for any other purpose without the prior written consent of Nullsoft, Inc.
The prior was taken from the README.TXT from version 2.10. Nitrane is under a separate copyright from Winamp. Winamp is just a shell to different modules. It would be easy to write a plugin for Winamp that uses XAudio instead of FFH or Nitrane. Nitrane on the other hand is provided free, though it must be used with Winamp. I'm no legal scholar, so I don't know if the AMP license would allow for this resriction, but Nitrane has always been distributed for free and Nullsoft has never collected any money for Nitrane.
I think PlayMedia is just looking to make money. By going after distributors, even though it will never hold, they are just wasting everybody's time and showing how incredibly stupid and selfish they are. Winamp is the best mp3 player. Peter Gogas