Alltheweb.com - in the RIAA's crosshairs?

Does ATW's MP3 search spell trouble down the road?

[celerityfm]

This [slyck.com] article reminded me of a small search feature on Alltheweb.com that I think adds up to bad news for us and them.

MP3 Search.

Not that there is anything wrong with them offering an MP3 Search tab, and AlltheWeb certainly isn't AudioGalaxy or something similar.

But- None of these mp3 sharing companies actually host any MP3s, they give out "links" to MP3s on other people's servers.

Whats the difference between ATW giving links that point to webservers and AudioGalaxy giving links that points to some guy with a cablemodem's "mp3server"?

ATW's MP3 search tab even has a reliability index just as you would find on AudioGalaxy or others!

My opinion is that linking is not a crime. The courts, however, seem to disagree. Is ATW the RIAA's next target?

Thoughts?

[heini]

Hmm this mp3 search is up at all Lycos properties. They for sure had some good lawyers checking for potential liability issues more than once.

[celerityfm]

I think your right, they probably did have some lawyers evaluate their MP3 search liabilities-- didn't realize it was on all Lycos properties though! (Shows you how often I venture off from Google heh).

Perhaps FAST isn't vunerable because anyone using a website to share an MP3 can be typically be tracked down and are probably violating the TOS of their ISP and a simple email can get rid of the violating MP3 site--

But an anonymous user on a P2P MP3 network, thats a bit tougher- then they have to go after the company offering the networking technology instead...

So mabye FAST is in the clear? We'll see what happens though if they get to be megapopular :).