James Delahunty
8 Mar 2005 22:35
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is being asked to investigate web sites that claim to offer legal music downloads for very low prices but in fact only offer downloads usually of freeware software available on the Internet which are often used to download music illegally. Such Web sites typically charge $30 to $40 and prominently advertise services as "100 percent legal." Some of these sites then have small print that warn users about Copyright Infringement and link to resources to find out more.
A Washington-based civil liberties group, the Center for Democracy and Technology, said it planned to file a formal complaint early Tuesday with the trade commission charging such Web sites with deceptive trade practices. "They're fooling people into spending money to buy products that are competing with legitimate products," said Alan Davidson, an associate director for the group. "These are the people who are really polluting the marketplace."
Lawyers for www.mp3downloadhq.com said that, "the company genuinely regrets that anything it has done or failed to do has been interpreted, as potentially confusing or misleading", and promised to remove the "100 percent legal" claims from its website before Friday. Www.Mp3DownloadCity.com and www.MyMusicInc.com are both targeted in the Center for Democracy's FTC complaint but neither site would comment.
Source:
Yahoo