Petteri Pyyny
7 Apr 2003 15:22
RIAA has busted four individual university students in three different U.S. universities, claiming that they've distributed thousands of illegal MP3 files using their dorms' Net connections and P2P networks. RIAA is seeking for a very moderate compensation, mere $150,000 per distributed song, for damages.
Otherwise the cases are pretty clear, some of the students sued in this instance, were running Direct Connect P2P clients, distributing the MP3s over the DC network. But at least one of the students was running a search engine that would allow users to search shared files within the campus network, not a P2P client. And as far as we know, running a search engine -- whatever it happens to find -- is perfectly legal, otherwise Google would've been busted for a long time ago.
RIAA's take on the issue is obviously somewhat different: "Differences are irrelevant from a copyright perspective," said RIAA Senior Vice President Matt Oppenheim. "All of these are networks created for one purpose and are being used for infringement."
Source: News.com