Warner Music Group Posts Another Copyright-Infringement Lawsuit To The Internet

noah | January 23, 2008 3:45 am
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Warner Music Group has filed a federal copyright-infringement suit against the MP3 aggregator Seeqpod, which scours the Internet for music files and allows people to stream said files from its site. The site–which is apparently owned, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy (?!)–believes that it isn’t engaging in infringement according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because it doesn’t host the files it streams; it merely allows users to find them easily. But we know what the record industry thinks about technical details!

Last year WMG engaged in similar lawsuit-threatening tactics against the streaming-media site imeem, and that company subsequently caved, making licensing agreements with the majors that will probably run it into the ground sooner or later. I’m going to guess that the “sue first, chat later” tactic is being repeated here, especially since Seeqpod’s been getting a fair bit of positive press for its iPhone compatibility lately, and what better way to deflate said press with a nice, juicy court document? Here’s hoping that the Hype Machine and elbo.ws are watching their backs, or at least responding to their DMCA takedown notices in a timely manner.

Seeqpod [Official site] Warner Music Suing MP3 Search Engine Seeqpod (WMG) [Silicon Alley Insider]