James Delahunty
14 Jul 2005 8:44
An Australian man has bee found guilty of copyright infringement for posting hyperlinks on his website to other sites offering illegal music downloads. Stephen Cooper ran a site called mp3s4free. He has been ordered to pay costs along with two fellow defendants, Chris Takoushis, of ISP Comcen, and Liam Bal, a director of E-Talk Communications. Takoushis and Bal were accused of aiding and abetting Cooper in order to increase advertising revenues.
Federal Court Justice Brian Tamberlin said he was satisfied that there had been copyright infringement in this case. Coopers legal representative was very disappointed with the decision as he had argued that Cooper couldn’t be guilty for copyright infringement due to the fact that his site hosted no illegal MP3 downloads. The Judge simply explained that the links to the sites offering the illegal files had aided their illegal distribution.
A music industry spokesman said it was a "a very significant blow in the war against piracy". Major record labels including Sony, Warner Music Group, EMI and Universal Studios began proceedings against Cooper, Takoushis and Bal through the ARIA's Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) group.
Source:
The Register