Push has come to shove. The world’s biggest record company, Universal Music Group, has filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against the world’s biggest social network, MySpace, and its owner, News Corp., charging them with complicity in the widespread “theft” of songs and videos, according to reports by MarketWatch and Hollywood Reporter. The suit accuses MySpace of operating a “vast virtual warehouse” of “user-stolen” content and asks for damages of up to $150,000 for each song and video.
In a statement, MySpace dismissed the suit as “unnecessary and meritless” and said it has “no doubt we will prevail in court.” It claims that it is protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which shields Internet service providers from certain copyright violations committed by their users.
Universal, however, appears set to argue that the DMCA protections do not apply in this case for two reasons: MySpace reformats files uploaded by its members, and it runs ads tailored to the user-uploaded songs and videos. For these reasons, it alleges, MySpace is not a passive network operator but rather is complicit in the copyright infringement and profits from it. Should the case go to trial, it could produce a landmark ruling with far-reaching implications for Internet media sites that rely on so-called user-generated content.
Cynthia Brumfield, of IP & Democracy, says the lawsuit “is probably a good thing. With two giants duking it out in the federal courts, the likelihood is good that some kind of legal precedent will be set. Maybe video file sharing sites (and other video-enabled Internet businesses) can finally get definitive legal ground rules, whatever they may be, providing a higher degree of certainty so that the industry can move forward.”
That may be true, but it’s cold comfort to MySpace, which now finds itself in a dicey situation. Losing a trial could be disastrous, but if it makes a big payment to Universal to settle the suit, it will have many other copyright owners knocking at its door looking for similar payoffs. Although it’s unlikely that either party desires a long and costly trial, MySpace may well be following Grokster to the Supreme Court.
We should not forget that Universal is owned by Vivendi, and the French have historically been one of the strictest countries in the world regarding IP protection. Will the American legal system allow the rules of the Internet to be set by a congolomerate headquartered in Paris?
This should be a good fight! I deal with sr. UMG execs on a regular basis and this issue has come up in our conversations on numerous occassions. It’s not being driven by the French but I like the conspiracy theory angle.
It’s driven by Doug Morris.
This case is not like Napster….NAPS did not have the DMCA to shield it. Compliance with the DMCA requires a number of elements, one of which is No Profiteering from copyright infringement. This element of the statute has never been litigated, to my knowledge. It’ll be interesting to see if a judge feels that selling ads before, after or around (potentially) copyright infringing content breaks the DMCA. If he/she does, Fox could then face inducement challenges under Grokster.
At the end of the day, UMG is rapacious in their greed. They want to control all music and don’t understand the motivation of their customers.
A victory for Fox is a victory for user expression.
The file encoder that takes mp3 to swf or AVI to flv is a tool provided by mspace. Using the same argument the myspace space is a tool so therefore the law still covers myspace in that the users are the one violating copyright law.
All I have to say is LAME! Universal is just angry because they are an old company run by people with no imagination. LAME!!!!!!!!!!
They should sue all the users. If this case wins in favor of Universal this will make problems for all other community sites like youtube.
my 2 cents :-)