RIAA takes search engine down

because engine allowed finding of copyrighted material

[Tapolyai]

This topic [webmasterworld.com]has been tossed around before, with a slight twist.

For those unitiated to this news, Jesse Jordan, college student/webmaster to a search engine was sued by RIAA, and they settled out of court for $12,000.
(more detailed article here [abcnews.go.com])

Here is a question:
Does a Google link [google.com] make Google a party to the distribution of illegaly obtained copywriten material?

I think RIAA is stepping 'out of bounds', and no one cares to fight back.

To take this home, if you are security site and you have links to 'black hat' sites - do you contribute to the spread of illegal activities?

Acording to RIAA, you might.

[bcolflesh]

Welcome to "First World" Terrorism 101 - we've just replaced the firing squad with subpoena armed lawyers...

Regards,
Brent

[jeremy goodrich]

Touchy subject, but imho, going after a college student for something like that is way out of bounds. I wouldn't advocate piracy, and neither did this guy.

But - because he lacked the financial ability to fight back, decided to settle - and the RIAA took him for it.

Not cool at all, imho. Problem is though in the USA that since they settled out of court, I'm not sure that the poor guy can ever recover his $$$ from the folks that took him for a ride.

Doesn't Lycos or Alltheweb offer an MP3 search? Why haven't they been sued if this guy was 'facilitating piracy'?

[JonB]

Down with the RIAA.Instead of rearanging and reinventing themselves for "new century" they continue to rip off people with high their prizes and "sue small people" ... I will be happy when the music industry run by riaa will finally colapse.

[Oaf357]

I know this is kind of old news but technically doesn't EVERY search engine crawl copyrighted work? I know a bunch crawl my copyrighted works.