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Music Media

Lycos Mp3 Lawsuit? 80

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-can-only-end-in-tears dept.
jonathanclark writes "Lycos's mp3 search branch is being sued for what is being called "contributory infringement". I'll be watching this one closely. " Denial, Desperation, Litigation. My official 3 stages of an industry about to change. Stage 4 is anyone's guess.
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Lycos Mp3 Lawsuit? More

Lycos Mp3 Lawsuit?

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  • Copyright infringement? National Security! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    (This post is smiley-captioned for the humor impaired)

    MP3s are used to illegally distribute music. Music has a strong political effect. Witness Vietnam. Some would say that music got us out of Vietnam. Music has political and military power far overshadowing the effects of copyright infringement.

    Even today, the phenomenon of Rock 'n Roll Terrorism is poisoning the minds of our population, especially minors. The most flagrant example of this is the anarchist band "Chumbawumba". The lyrics, "I get knocked down, but I get up again, no one ever gonna keep me down" is a clear reference to President Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. MP3, by allowing the speedy distribution of Rock 'n Roll to the entire world, is the delivery system for weapons of psychological warfare.


    Recommendation:
    List MP3 technology as a "munition" for purposes of ITAR. Make it a federal felony to export MP3 encoders and decoders, whether software or hardware, outside of the US and Canada. This will keep Rock 'n Roll terrorists from spreading their disease, and is a necessary infringement on First Amendment rights to insure national security.

    Allow an exportable version of MP3 with a 35dB signal-to-noise ratio (note that CD technology gives a ratio over 90dB). The low fidelity of MP3-35 will not be a threat, as people have an immediate revulsion to music played with as much static as the equipment we use in public schools to teach children to appreciate Bach and Beethoven. Terrorist rock, sent by MP3-35, will simply be ignored.

    Please consider the above recommendation and act upon it quickly. The mind you save may be your own.

  • but mp3s are legal... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I agree... But warez by itself sais its illegal..

    ZIP searches are legal.. look at ftpsearch or archie... they are often used to find warez.. but that aint their purpose...

    Cars can be used to do illegal things (such as bank robery getaway) but it doesnt mean that by themselves they are illegal...

    Same with mp3s... If they advertized themselves as illegal mp3s, I would understand, but they dont....
  • ...if the legal-type people involved have no idea what a search engine is, or how it works; and who would then start applying obscure [stuff.]

    They don't have to be ignorant of search engines; they just have to find something that they think'll stick. If that's "obscure," that's fine.

    They were talking in the article about contributory mumble-mumble, so it sounds like there's already a contestant in the ring, so to speak.

  • Posted by peacockj:

    all i want to say is...uh huh...riiigghhhtt...
    The parent poster of this really has their head up their a$$ so far that they don't realize what life is. Who cares about how music affects people?...certainly not me. I love music and am not about to let people tell me that it's corrupting our society...it's free expression. It's a reflection of our society, mainly from the people that think injustice is occurring. Get off your high horse and take a moment to realize what you are saying.
    1. it costs roughly $2 to make a CD, the record companies sell it to stores for $10 and the stores sell it for about $12.
    this is truly a showing of how the record industry needs to be screwed over. thank you.
  • Defeat. (But not for us.)

    Don Negro
  • Anarchy. Fsck 'em all! ;>

  • If they had ZIPs search... or JPG search it is legal...
    porn search would be legal kinda too..
    warez no...

    Why not? A 'warez' search is just a ZIP search after all. ZIPs are legal!

    I wondered how long it would be before Lycos had legal trouble. Yes, there is a great deal of legal MP3 traffic, but let's not kid ourselves here: Lycos' MP3 search is designed to let people search for pirate MP3s. They know the amount of pirate MP3 activity on the net, and they want the pirate's eyeballs just as much as any other user.

    This doesn't mean their actions are illegal; but I just get sick of seeing people argue that Lycos is performing a public service helping people find indie artists' legal MP3s. If you think they didn't have pirates in mind from the start, you're delusional.

  • As long as you do not distribute it, there's this little annoyance law (annoyance for RIAA) which basically allows you to copy and not distribute anything you have purchased.
  • What part of "(this post is smiley-captioned for the humor impaired)" did you not read?

    Sheesh. :)

  • They don't return the page that owns the mp3. They just link the mp3, which makes it very difficult for the artist to get credit. How many popular mp3 players display tags? Lycos should put some effort into making it look like they're not trying to give themselves credit for the mp3's.
  • bieb4.bvo.ahk.nl - - [16/Mar/1999:06:37:02 -0500] "GET /sounds/bach1.mp3 HTTP/1.
    0" 200 7550848 "http://mp3.lycos.com/cgi-bin/search?query=Bach&ot ype=Navigate&oq

    If they're aliasing http links to ftp to make it look like there's no web page associated it's working. They were http links to my mp3's, before I shut the server down. Get an http server and some mp3's and try it out.

  • For your convenience, they have been bundled together at www.lycos.com


  • Record companies seem to be sending the message: "We will persecute anybody involved in MP3's even if they are doing nothing illegal because we want to squash the whole thing". This is a genuine threat since the lawsuits cost a lot of money for the companies involved even if they are frivolous.
    IANAL but isn't this itself of questionable legality.. "class action suit" anybody ?

    Rant follows...

    Of course this technique only works under American legal system where the defender of a stupid lawsuit still has huge bills (as opposed to loser pays costs system). This won't change since the only people with power to change it are lawyers (American politicians are almost exclusively former lawyers, etc etc). Eventually it will be economic madness to be anything but a lawyer in America. For instance you won't even be able to drive without earning lawyer salaries because of all the lawsuits putting insurance premiums up. And all the time they talk about about how this is defending your rights and protecting the consumer bla bla bla... I need to get out more.

  • Other search engines should do the same and drop record industry sites from their search engine databases. Let the record industry webmasters explain to their bosses why hits have fallen way off.
  • So serch engines must make a legal determination as to wheather a search is permissible or not before executing it? Harumph.

    It looks like not only ISPs and the USENET sites, but search engine sites too are in dire need of common carrier status. Otherwise too many sites will start self-stifiling thenselves rather than risk lawsuits thus diminishing freedom on the 'net. This would be a bad thing, IMO.

    ISPs have already had all their hardware siezed because 'illegal material' was found stored on servers. This has to stop before it gets worse.
  • The first step will be to try and make programming illegal without a license, because of all the "harm" a badly/malicously written program can do on a networked system.

  • Stage 4 (Score:1)

    by EAVY ( 2121 )
    As Gandhi said: First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.

    The stronger the opposition, the fiercer the fight, the closer at hand is victory...

    They can't win, so they try harder, but that can't change the outcome at all!!

    ---

    Another thing: I think everybody should be responsible for their own actions, so if I put up a link to illegal content, the surfers themselves are responsible for what they do - ignore it or follow it, but it's your decision, unless I autoforward you there or put the contents in one of my frames. The usual disclaimer. And if I bought a CD, I should be able to get as many MP3's of it as I want, which applies for other areas as well.

    (Rant: What I hate most is copy-protection for games, or worse, registration requirements. It only bothers legal users. Crackers always get through while I'm bothered by silly authentification checks.)
  • The rising hodge.

    All hail Discordia,
    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  • heh (Score:1)

    by hazard ( 2541 )
    Ok, even if those people win the case and Lycos mp3search will have to shut down, nobody prohibits one to setup an mp3search server in a country like Russia and have a good laugh watching those lawyers trying to sue anyone there..

    It's Internet - no geographic borders here.. Those people just dont get it..
  • This could be an even larger problem if the suit is successful. If Lycos is sued and loses the suit then precedence will be set. This would open the door to lawsuits by software vendors because services like AltaVista or Google can be used to search for pirated software. I can see a certain software company doing this.

    Heck, maybe non network saavy people can get into the act too. In most larger cities you can look in the yellow pages and get prostitutes under the thinly disguised heading of Escort Services. I'm sure if the religious kooks otherwise known as TV evangelists come up with the idea it'll be tried.

    I can understand that the record companies are incensed by the proliferation of illegaly distributed music on the internet. This is the wrong way to go about problem though, not that there really is a right way. It does eventually effect there bottom line and I'm not a believer that just because a company is profitable or is excessively profitable it deserves to be shafted.

    I do think that fairly soon these large record labels and the organizations that protect them will be gone. I sense a paradigm shift coming. With the advent of virtually free web space its quickly becoming possible to become your own manager, promoter and advertising agency. The internet is going to become a global version of the local scene: instead of band members and friends pasting flyers for your latest gig on every available surface it'll be a posting to web sites that promote your particular style of music and links to your latest MP3 single (listen to it a few times for free folks, but if you like it send us dough)

  • It was practically the same as any other mp3 search on the Internet. Comes up with 90+% garbage. Same broken links, incomplete songs, etc. What the hell good was it for anyway? Now, it's not good that their getting sued over it, but I've heard very little about non-corporation sites getting sued for having better searches... Bastards.
  • The Borg know this tactic well. :-)
  • Ever heard of garnisheeing?
  • Actually, it's not legit. They _REALLY_ wanted to go after casette tapes too. (Why buy the tape for your car when you can just copy the CD to a blank tape?) However, tapes are too well established to go after. Imagine the outcry if they did.

    Tapes have the same properties as MP3, save for one critical point: Tapes cannot be copied for (nearly) free across the internet.

    So, a more dangerous (to them) media and a less established one is the target they need to go after.

    Besides, ask RIAA sometime about copying an album to tape to listen to it in your car. That has the same legal status as copying it to your RIO to listen in your car...

    --Dan

  • When you ban some name, the general public responce is to refer to the same thing under a different name.
    So, Everybody would simply rename there files to *.luv or something as silly.

    The very Idea that it is illegal to index all the MP3 files on the Internet just because some kiddies are pirating music, is just nonsense.

    Don't even think for a moment that nobody would taka advantage of it, if this would pass.

    Why not hold Altavista responsible for the contend they point to ?

    Astalavista would close for sure !
  • A couple of lines jumped out at me from this article

    "It is the first time we have gone against the search engine process..."

    That's a good idea. Who needs search engines anyway? Maybe these guys will "go against" the rest of the internet too. That'll get rid of ALL the MP3s. Who needs the internet anyway?

    I think this is a good example of how you cannot fall far behind technology and then, just as it begins to threaten you, start a massive war against it. These types of empty legal threats reveal the music industry to be very uninformed.

    Hasn't anyone told them that MP3's are legal? I've got 13G of 100% legal MP3, and I got many of them off Lycos( and that was before mp3.lycos.com, when no one was making a stink!) All search engines will provide links to illegal (at least most of them will) stuff, but not because they endorse it, but because the links are submitted and not moderated.

    So, when it's all boiled down, Lycos is being sued for catagorizing it's MP3 search engine to a different machine?

    I can understand why "No one at Lycos was immediately available for comment" because they are all too busy laughing.

    ~Nameless, the blameless moderator
  • Very good points. This is sort of similar to the whole deal a while ago about software linking to third party sites for information on avalible tickets. If Lycos were to actually loose a case like this, it'd be rediculous. The whole Internet, in general would have to be made illegal. I mean geez, imagine the horror we could accidently stumble across a website, or a newsgroup, or a chat room and find the address to an mp3 site, oh no!

    The record companies need to stop panicking and learn to embrace MP3 as a useful media. I'm not familiar with the history of such, but I'm sure such FUD was running rampant when Cassette Tapes came out. Or reel-to-reel for that matter. "You mean they can dub their vinyl onto Cassette's now, and share them with their friends?!". It's human nature that people will copy things, no matter what medium they are on. I hope MP3's will swing the whole financial situation of the music industry back in check. The big record companies
    make boatloads of money and the artists usually end up making didly squat. MP3 and other electronic distribution format is feared because it takes away the power from the corporations and put's it into the hands of the artists, where it should be.
  • stage 4: collapse (profits dry up, employees abandon ship, companies go bankrupt)
    alternate stage 4: lawyers win (legislation and lawsuits preserve the status quo, new technologies get shafted)

    As a sidenote, it seems to me that the way for Internet distribution of music to take off is to break the big recording companies stranglehold on radio. If artists signed with goodnoise or MP3.com started getting radio time, the internet music business would go big time, and leave the current bunch of (insert profanity here) record companies in the dust.

  • Stage 4: Acceptance (Score:3)

    by ToastyKen ( 10169 ) on Wednesday March 24, 1999 @07:38AM (#1964915) Homepage Journal
    As in Kubler-Ross, stage 4 is where they just learn to live with it.
  • If they had incorporated the mp3 searcher into their original search engine instead of opening a mp3.lycos section, noone would have noticed, but it would still BE there.

    From a business point of view... If you follow the links on Lycos for its MP3 Search, you will find information on how to obtain, install and use a ripper to pull tracks directly off of a CD. This information is displayed on a Lycos Webpage, created by a Lycos employee. It is not a link that Lycos happens to be displaying. This certainly implies that Lycos is advocating the illegal use of copyrighted materials. I can certainly see why the music industry (tm) would be upset about this.

    No one is saying that allowing small bands to place their own music on the web in MP3 format is bad, or illegal. The music industry is concerned with the illegal use and distribution of material that it owns.

    Now, I also think that the music industry would like to see MP3 banned, and closing off access to the small independent bands, thus ensuring their own monoply on an already tightly controlled industry, and a continuing increase in their own bottom lines. However, that is not what the possible lawsuit against Lycos is about.

    NOTE: I am not stating that Lycos does or does not advocate music piracy. These are my opinions as expressed by me.

  • ...and another "underground" search engine (borg search engine, mp3.box.sk) will pop up anyway. It is a waste of time and money. Or you can just use irc and ask for what you want.
  • I believe stage 4 will be the record companies whining to the government in an attempt to regulate either the MP3 format or search engines themselves.
  • So, what exactly is illegal about using a ripper to pull tracks off of a CD? Making an MP3 for personal use is not illegal, although the RIAA might want you to believe that that is the case. I fail to see how including instructions for performing a legal process is "advocating the illegal use of copyrighted materials." Maybe if the instructions they had were along the lines of 1) rip CD's, 2) install anonymous FTP server 3) put all of your MP3's on said FTP server 4) tell Lycos about your site so that we can include it in our search.

    By your logic, the RIAA should be sueing all of those consumer electronics folks who build stereo's that will copy a CD onto a blank tape. That's illegal, right ;-)>

  • If Diamond Rio could stand up them, and win....who says that Lycos won't do the same. Since Lycos get a LOT of traffic based on this site, they are going to protect the new revenue stream. I wonder how far this will go? Will Scientology sue Dejanews, for pointing to news postings of copyrighted Scientology material? Will Bill Gates sue Slashdot, for linking to the site of the first person to copy his $720 book to a web page? (Of course who the heck would!?) Trust me, if Lycos puts up a fight the big bad bully will go away.
  • Seeing as how they have the Secure Digital Music Initiative, stage 4 is "Embrace/Extend"...?
    • Not speaking as an employee of Lycos

    I agree with you that many of the links (most?) that MP3 search engines include are garbage. But you have to look a little deeper than that and wonder why? I can tell you from experience that Lycos's (and other) MP3 search engines that I have used always start out as having a very good catalogue of links. But many of these sites, faced with the increase in traffic that a search engine of this nature causes, end up getting closed down in a hurry. I think that because Lycos had a higher profile search page, this happened more quickly than it would otherwise.

    You shouldn't fault the engine either for the content or the lack thereof. It's only a reflection of the internet itself and MP3 are a diffcult commodity to track.

    Joe Pranevich

  • While there is no porn.lycos.com, there is a www.lycos.com/adult -- The adult web guide that has been around for quite a while.

    Sorry, no warez though.

    Joe Pranevich
  • All the links in mp3.lycos.com are FTP links. They do not have associated pages to them so there is nothing to link.

    A quick browsing of the page is all you need to do to understand how the system works. There's nothing being, in my opinion, hidden.

    Joe Pranevich
  • I think they are right to sue Lycos for this. Of course, it's not really fair to single out them, but it's a start. They record industry will never accept digital music. A few small examples may come up where they try digital distribution, but I don't think it will last. For one thing, they have traditionally made their money by being the one who control production and distribution. That won't last for long. They will never accept losing those parts. MP3s et al mean that artists will be able to distribute their own material. The recording industry will have to shift its focus to make consulting-like practices. They can provide studios to record in and manage advertising, but those are services, not products. They can be parcelled out like commodities, and they will be. But, no matter what, it will be a while before they accept losing the distribution part of their moneytrain.
  • the format is legal, but don't forget that copyrights are still in effect. Artists can put up MP3s on their own site, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. Chuck D put mp3s from the new PE album up on the Public Enemy site, and the powers that be(Polygram..oh wait they got bought out..Universal) forced him to take em down.
    There was a story about this in Wired [wired.com]

    But yeah, mp3s are legal as long as material is put up by those with the copyright, or you own the material and your mp3 is purly for archival purposes.

  • I think this is another manefestation of the problem with the legality behind linking to somebody's site. Really all lycos does is link to the mp3's and the pages that contain them. If what comes out of the lawsuit is that lycos is infringing on copyrights, then anybody who links to another site which does "bad" things would be liable.

    For example: What if person A put up a site which linked to a person B's home page. Then, what if B put up for download a bootlegged mp3. Is A liable for contributing to copyright infringement because anybody (C, for example) could use A's site to get to B?

    I think we should stand up for our freedom to link to any darn site we please, and express our displeasure of these crazy lawsuits.

  • This suit will never last. They are outnumbered, outgunned, and have no clue what they are talking about. Check out their hompage here -

    http://www.ifpi.org/piracy/index.html [ifpi.org]

    They have a little bit about "What is Piracy?"
    Here are the three types they list:

    1. Simple piracy - is the unauthorised duplication of an original recording for commercial gain without the consent of the rights
      owner.

    2. Counterfeits - are copied and packaged to resemble the original as closely as possible.

    3. Bootlegs - these are the unauthorised recordings of live or broadcast performances.



    So who's selling MP3? I have 2 Gigs of em and I've never paid a dime. Nor have I met anyone trying to profit by selling them.

    I left some comments for them. You should too.
    Visit their feedback page here:

    http://www.ifpi.org/feedback.html [ifpi.org]

    Tell them what you think about this lawsuit!
    ---
    The statement below is true.
  • You just have a dirty mind ;-)
    Kind of gives you an idea of the mindset of the industry when they have an obsolete name like that.

  • Is it not legal to rip tracks off of one's own CDs? So I want to put my favorite songs (again, off of albums I own) on my hard drive. As long as I don't distribute them, that's all legit.

    I can also then burn them onto a CD and listen to it in my car. Legit.

    Whether or not this is what people actually do is another argument entirely, but I don't think that Lycos can be held responsible for that. If they CAN the precedent this stupid lawsuit sets is going to be a Horrendous Thing indeed.


    --
  • Stage 4: Civil War. What this topic really needs is an acronym that sounds "kewl" I mean DDL(x) where x is the next step. As for Lyco's, I hope they win this one and shove it down the throats of the music industry.
  • I would make it a conditional:

    Legislation, if you've got the clout;

    Loosing the game, otherwise.


    But I agree: We'll see attempts at legislation here, and also in the attempts to combat the OSS revolution.
  • If they (the greedy record pinheads) do proceed with litigation it will cost Lycos an unfair and huge amount of money, but if Lycos is willing to advocate a principle of "we don't provide, we point; you f**k" then Lycos (and, by implication, all of us) CAN triumph! The frequent wisdom the Supremes have demonstrated when dealing with internet stuff (unlike our idiot congress) reinforces this hope... Even if there is such a doctrine as "contributory infringment", it could be defeated. Hopefully.
  • Stop deluding yourself. Yes, the *format* itself is legal. But distributing copyrighted content in that format without permission from the copyright holder is called infringement. And I would wager that > 99 percent of the searches on mp3.lycos.com are for copyrighted material being distributed without the permission of the copyright holder. Lycos certainly seems to have built the site to encourage such searches, as well. "Just type in the name of your favorite band or song title and let MP3 Search do the rest."
  • The "legality" of mp3s is irrelevant in this case. The copyright status of the mp3s that can be found via the search engine is. Being able to do a search for "mp3" on any search engine is one thing, and could/should not be restricted. Setting up a front end that is tailored to find mp3s that are being distributed without the permission of the copyright holder is probably akin to setting up a search engine for the express purpose of locating people selling stolen cars.

    And just because the mp3s aren't "advertised" as illegal, doesn't mean a thing if it can be shown that the search engine was designed to facilitate the distribution of infringing mp3s.

  • Not necessarily. My feeling is that, should Lycos fight this and lose, then whatever ruling comes out, whether in the original trial or appeal, it's Lycos' front-end for the mp3 search that will be at issue, not whether a generic search engine can be used to search for whatever (at least I hope it would come down to that). mp3.lycos.com practically invites users to search for mp3s that are infringing copyright ("enter your favorite band or song"). They're walking a fine line with it, and a lot will depend on the skill of their lawyers to redefine how a "reasonable" person would interpret the meaning of the site.
  • You missed my point. If Altavista started advertising warez.altavista.com then I think software companies would have the beginnings of a foundation for a suit. If Lycos were a bit more circumspect in their approach with mp3.lycos.com - prominent positioning for sites like mp3.com, et al., who distribute "legal" files, some sort of tree index like Yahoo that gives you legitimate mp3s and is more prominent than the raw search tool (so you find artists offering mp3s more easily than a rip of the Titanic soundtrack), and lots of disclaimers regarding copyright issues - then they would have a stronger leg to stand on.
  • Mark my words... The Music Industry will attempt to get a law(s) passed to restrict your freedom!
  • Hell, why don't they set up a Warez.lycos.com too? And p0rn.lycos.com? That will really get people there...
  • Here Here!
    This is a wonderfully subtle idea which makes excellent use of natural market forces!

    Does anyone really believe that record sales have dropped as a result of mp3 dispersion? I, personally, am buying more cds now that I am exposed to so much new music on the net.

    Suing the search engine is alot like suing a map maker for providing a map of a part of town where drug sales occur. I.E., a far strech for such a short-sighted group.
  • What is there to sue Lycos over ?? If they had incorporated the mp3 searcher into their original search engine instead of opening a mp3.lycos section, noone would have noticed, but it would still BE there.
    So they sue because Lycos puts their searcers into categories.. I sure hope common sense will prevail (if there is such a thing anymore..)
    This is all getting very pathetic. There is no way to stop warez, mp3 and as bandwidth gets better, you'll see movies heading the same way. It's all about being there early, instead of doing what the music biz is doing now, fighting too late.
    .. and I don't pity them one bit.
  • The mass employee/manager exodus.
  • I suspect that legal action would (surely?) only go ahead if the legal-type people involved have no idea what a search engine is, or how it works; and who would then start applying obscure legal clauses which are wholly inappropriate.

    Unfortunately, this may well be the case... and surely I'm not the only person who think this whole anti-MP3 thing is getting out of hand...?
  • So what? Distributing copyrighted software without permission from the copyright holder is also infringement. However, go to altavista.com and type in 'warez' and hit search...does this mean that every software company who has ever released commercial software can sue Altavista? I'll shit my pants the day that ever happens...
    _______
    Scott Jones
    Newscast Director / WKPT-TV 19
    Game Show Fan / C64 Coder
  • Sorry about the blank post, I pressed Enter instead of tab.

    Mp3 search engines allow RIAA to easily and cheaply find copyright violators whom they can prosecute. Unfortunately for them that would be prohibitively expensive and wouldn't amount to much because very few Mp3 site operators have a lot of money or make money from their site.

    So they use strongarm tactics to control the flow of information. It is not illegal to publish the Anarchist's cookbook so how can it be illegal to make a MP3 search site.
  • Its a shame that those 4 or 5 fat cat record industry executives could lose their jobs. Like maybe the could do real work like the rest of us stiffs. I would'nt trust them with a computer keybord though...
  • or where you being sarcastic?

    Chumbawumba came out over a year and a half ago.
  • This seems to be typical of established business' response to the rapid pace of technological change: when the way that things work changes dramatically, rather than change their business to cope with the new technology, they hire lawyers to squash it. It's a good sign that the technology will be popular: it has created some fear.

    This is a good thing. Large companies with old business models based on old technology should be afraid. Then they can get in gear and work with it or die off. Unfortunately, the change (whether embracing the technology or dieing) seems to involve lining the pockets of an awful lot of lawyers.

    I guess it's clear which industry wins regardless.
  • I read the whole thing twice before I got it. Couldn't understand wtf the pornographic industry would sue Lycos/Fast over their search engine. Admittedly you can find a lot of 70s music from porn movies there, but anyway.
  • What's all this nonsense about banning MP3? You can't ban a fileformat, that would be like banning a weed. Oh, wait.. they already did that. Corporate lawyers control the world.

  • Real Stage Four (Score:3)

    by FRENZY ( 30584 ) on Wednesday March 24, 1999 @07:06AM (#1964951)
    Appropriation.
  • we have here an age old problem ... it's called supply and demand ... we demand mp3 someone is going to supply them ... that is what the search engine is ... a supplier ... they may not produce it but they supply it ... (anyone else thinking this sounds like the drug problem) ... unless they find some magical way to decress the demand the supply and the supplier will continue to exist ... there is no debate on this ... there is no stopping it ... there is only time and man power wasted on it
  • Great comment !

    A FTP-Search engine like mp3.lycos.com (former Fast FTP-Search) has a crawler checking all ftp-servers and offer found links ! If the links are nonworking, the delay between crawler and search-engine-view is to long -> make more crawler-runs and you get not so many broken links.

    Because FTPSearch has thousends of ftp-servers the could not check every server hourly. Thats the problem - it`s the problem of FTPSearch !

    As an example you will find more mp3`s on a search engine who has 3 days old links than an engine with 1 day old links.

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