Internet Music Site

[xDazedx]

What is the name of your state? tx

You know I was glad I happened by here today and saw this thread regarding websites with music on them. There is a site called www.singingfish.com that I have often wondered about. Primarily because some of my music is on there and I am not real pleased about it.

What this site does is sends bots across the internet to find *.mp3 extensions. Once located it appears a script ads it to their database and then it gets submitted to their website. There are many top name artists on there that available for downloade. To top it off, they do not host the songs but leech them off the site they located them from. This way they avoid paying for bandwidth and I suppose it removes them legally from any wrong doing? I am surprised no one has gone after this site.

Is it legal for this company to do this?

 

[seniorjudge]

What is the name of your state? tx

You know I was glad I happened by here today and saw this thread regarding websites with music on them. There is a site called www.singingfish.com that I have often wondered about. Primarily because some of my music is on there and I am not real pleased about it.

What this site does is sends bots across the internet to find *.mp3 extensions. Once located it appears a script ads it to their database and then it gets submitted to their website. There are many top name artists on there that available for downloade. To top it off, they do not host the songs but leech them off the site they located them from. This way they avoid paying for bandwidth and I suppose it removes them legally from any wrong doing? I am surprised no one has gone after this site.

Is it legal for this company to do this?

Q: Is it legal for this company to do this?

A: No.

 

[xDazedx]

I would love to know how they are operating then. They use AOL search engine and are backed by some large companies.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[The Occultist]

They have to be caught, evidence has to be gathered, and then a lawsuit will begin. The website will not have to shut down until the court says they must. During the majority of the Napster and Grokster trials, they were able to continue running normally.

 

[divgradcurl]

If they are merely linking to songs that are already freely available on the internet, then they are probably not doing anything wrong.

However, if they are linking in such a way that it appears to a user that the site itself is hosting the materials, then they may be liable for copyright infringement.

Merely linking to materials, infringing or not, is not (YET) illegal in the U.S. However, if the linking is done in such a way that it is not clear to the user that they are being redirected to another site, then they might be liable for infringement.

 

[The Occultist]

How accurate is that, though? I thought the courts ultimately decided that Grokster was at fault even though they did not actually do any infringing but still created a way for infringement to occur? Or am I just completely misunderstanding it?

 

[divgradcurl]

That's right, Grokster got nailed for contributory infringement. However, as far as I know, and I keep reasonably close tabs on this (I do way more patent stuff than copyright, but I like copyright stuff), merely linking to infringing stuff has not been found in the U.S. to be contributory infringment. It has in other countries, Denmark if I remember correctly is one, but so far in the U.S., linking is still okay.

That said, if what they are doing is directly linking to materials so that you cannot easily tell that the particular site is not actually hosting the material, then you probably are on thin ice. But so far, linking alone is probably okay.

Here's something a few years old, but as far as I know, still good law: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/headlines/content/2000040401.html

This page: http://www.chillingeffects.org/linking/faq.cgi has a couple of cites to cases that did find linking to infringing materials infringing itself, but these cases are pretty limited in scope -- the DeCSS case talked about linking to illegal materials, as in criminally illegal, not just copyright infringement (although the criminal statutes involved do fall under the copyright code). The Utah case has some pretty narrow distinguishing facts, so it's not at all clear whether or not its ruling is more generally applicable. But there are no circuit court cases on this that I am aware of.