James Delahunty
20 Oct 2005 3:25
A U.S. court on Wednesday has told a "music download" website to stop promising its customers that they won't face copyright infringement lawsuits from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) if they download music for free using their service. Actually, the site doesn't even offer a service, it offers tutorials to downloading music on free P2P services like Kazaa (yes, tutorials that can be found for free online).
The site even has the nerve to carry the claim that it's "Napster's Number One Replacement Software". The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that MP3DownloadCity.com promised users that if it paid $24.99 for the service they would not get sued for their actions. The site also told users: "Rest assured that File-Sharing is 100 percent legal". While file sharing services are generally legal, the material an individual shares judges the legality of their action.
As most of you know, the U.S. music and movie industry has sued about 14,000 file sharers for illegally sharing music and movies over P2P networks. It would be an awful shame if someone believed MP3DownloadCity's claim and in the end got sued for sharing music. Trick services like this are something that the RIAA should take into account when it files P2P lawsuits.
The website must now remove its claims as the court has ordered, and the court is also considering the FTC's request for a permanent ban. The FTC has said it will try to get the individual involved, Cashier Myricks, to return all the money he got from thousands of people. The FTC also wants him for now to state he is selling access to a tutorial and not actual software as it appears reading the site. "The main point is we don't want people getting sued over copyrighted material," staff attorney Matthew Daynard said.
Source:
Washington Post