Jari Ketola
18 Oct 2004 18:10
The owner and webmaster of MP3s4free.net, Stephen Cooper, faces a lawsuit of AU$500m ($364m) from the world's record companies. The site, which the ex-policeman ran since 1998 until he was raided in October 2003, provided links to MP3 files hosted on various servers around the Internet.
Cooper says that he never thought that there was anything illegal about the site, and ran it merely as a hobby. Some claim that he made up to AU$65,000 ($37,400) a month from the site, but Cooper denies such allegations. "There are no millions of dollars stashed away anywhere, no secret garages full of Porsches and Ferraris," he said. He also stated that he thinks that the whole lawsuit is ridiculous, and he can't afford the legal fees to fight the case in the Federal Court.
In addition to suing Cooper, the recording industry has also sued Comcen, the ISP hosting MP3s4free.net while it was still online.
The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) fails to see the ridiculous aspects of their $500m claims. They are seeking full damages -- regardless of whether Cooper and ComCen are capable of paying for them. But more importantly, they are trying to seek a ruling that criminalize even linking to pirated content.
Source: News.com.au