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Court says Edonkey server admin cannot be held liable for infringement

10 September 2008 14:34 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 3 comments

A court in Germany has ruled in favor of an administrator of an Edonkey server saying that he can not be held liable for infringing downloads through his server as long as he takes "reasonable steps" to prevent those downloads.

In the decision, the court ruled against Warner Music Germany which had sued the admin last year after they found Warner Music songs indexed on the server. Earlier this year Warner actually won the case but the admin appealed and was successful this time.

Warner Music contacted the admin after finding a single CD being shared and asked him to take it down. The admin complied accordingly and put "keyword filters in place to make sure that the songs in question wouldn't get indexed again." Warner however then found another CD by the same artist and began the lawsuit.

The ruling, which should set a precedent at least in Germany, says the admin cannot be held liable because his server did not actually host the files in question. The court also added that "keyword-based filtering system was enough to stop infringement and that the server admin wasn't required to proactively stop future infringements of titles that were not part of the original complaint."

Permalink to this article | Topic: Lawsuits & Legislation

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13thHouR (Inactive) 10 September 2008 17:48
"keyword-based filtering system was enough to stop infringement and that the server admin wasn't required to proactively stop future infringements of titles that were not part of the original complaint." lol. If you want to remove the content you actually have to inform ppl what content actually infringes your rights. You know i've got some great porn listed as "Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells" so if i post this to a p2p site do i infringe on Warner's copy-write, for mealy naming it that? Why does America think that their law is global, take that MAPP/RIAA! RIAA: # Sony BMG Music Entertainment # Universal Music Group # Warner Music Group # EMI MPAA: # The Walt Disney Company # Sony Pictures # Paramount Pictures Viacom�(DreamWorks owners since February 2006) # 20th Century Fox (News Corporation) # Universal Studios (NBC Universal) # Warner Bros. (Time Warner) [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 10 September 2008 17:49
Pop_Smith (Senior Member) 10 September 2008 17:59
*Quote:* Why does America think that their law is global, take that MAPP/RIAA! Actually, this is a lawsuit filed by the German leg of WB not by the American leg. As such they were (probably) acting within German law in filing the suit. By the way its the MPAA, not the MAPP, just FYI. :P However, I am glad that they ruled in favor of the admin as he complied with the first request and put filters in place to try and stop the sharing of the mentioned content. [ + quote]
joe777 (Member) 12 September 2008 19:57
*Originally posted by 13thHouR:* You know i've got some great porn listed as "Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells" so if i post this to a p2p site do i infringe on Warner's copy-write, for mealy naming it that? Good point, and, not taking away anything you said, but, Mike Oldfield was signed with Virgin, and he later took them to court for breach of contract. Cant remember if he won. On a side note the old Edonkey servers with Dual opterons(Lol) were always fast, but, when you searched for flicks, then most of the time it was pron, which is like loosing 10 dollars/euros/pounds and finding 5!!!! But always blistering speeds if you open them ports. [ + quote]