Warner Music Sues Seeqpod: How Dare It Help People Find Stuff Warner Wishes Didn't Exist
Date : 01 25 2008 Category : Business
Techdirt
A few months ago, Edgar Bronfman Jr., boss of Warner Music, made a bunch of headlines for supposedly "admitting" that the recording industry had taken the wrong strategy and had "inadvertently gone to war" with customers. That was a pretty big lie. That's because it wasn't inadvertent at all. Bronfman Jr., himself, had announced that he was going to send an army of lawyers after file sharing services and users way back in 2000, kicking off the war, while he was the head of Universal.
As if to highlight the fact that his "conversion" was nothing more than a PR tactic, Warner Music has continued where it left off: suing companies that aren't actually doing anything wrong. The latest is a lawsuit against Seeqpod, the rather popular music search engine/playlist maker. Seeqpod doesn't host any infringing materials. It's really just a search engine that finds music that's available elsewhere, and creates a playlist out of it. Warner is claiming that it's a violation of the DMCA. As the EFF notes, this seems like exactly the sort of situation that the DMCA's safe harbors were supposed to cover -- but it's become clear that the recording industry no longer believes those safe harbors should exist. If this case moves forward, it will be an important one, but given how expensive it would be, don't be surprised if Seeqpod gives in and decides to settle.
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As if to highlight the fact that his "conversion" was nothing more than a PR tactic, Warner Music has continued where it left off: suing companies that aren't actually doing anything wrong. The latest is a lawsuit against Seeqpod, the rather popular music search engine/playlist maker. Seeqpod doesn't host any infringing materials. It's really just a search engine that finds music that's available elsewhere, and creates a playlist out of it. Warner is claiming that it's a violation of the DMCA. As the EFF notes, this seems like exactly the sort of situation that the DMCA's safe harbors were supposed to cover -- but it's become clear that the recording industry no longer believes those safe harbors should exist. If this case moves forward, it will be an important one, but given how expensive it would be, don't be surprised if Seeqpod gives in and decides to settle.
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