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Music Media

MP3.com named in copyright lawsuit 39

Posted by Hemos from the we-want-it-all dept.
cybrthng writes "Check out the news on CNET's News.Com about how PlayMedia is now taking its lawsuit against NullSoft after MP3.COM also. " The article talks about the fact that MP3.com doesn't know all that much either-although it appears that PlayMedia is targeting them because they have determined that MP3.com was the biggest distributor. Either that, or they want a chunk of the 115$US million MP3 is hoping to raise in their IPO.
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MP3.com named in copyright lawsuit More

MP3.com named in copyright lawsuit

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  • layer 3 from hell (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Isn't MPEG suppose to be an open standard without copyright?, does anyone know anything about AudioLayer 2 and the legal status of it?. As far as I know it is more free and sounds only slightly worse (if you compress hard: under 128Kbit).

  • Registration (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    $1 per download at mp3.com... I wonder how many of the people that downloaded winamp through mp3.com actually registered it, or how many people. Seems to me the major reason winamp is so popular was that it was "free" when mp3 was just getting started, ie the few other players back then were crippled and winamp just had a recommendation to register. :)

  • How to succeed in business... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Even if the lawsuit doesn't have any firm legal grounds on which to stand, the primary aim here (aside from milking internet-based companies to feed lawyers) is to hurt Nullsoft and MP3.COM. Unfortunately, even if the judge throws the case out, Nullsoft and MP3.COM would have been forced to spend truckloads of hours and dollars just to achieve their result. Their recourse? A countersuit is likely, but that's even more money and time down the drain. The whole time, Winamp and Shoutcast decay without upgrades/bugfixes; MP3.COM sees a drop in content updates because of the lawsuits; and the mp3 community suffers. Don't forget PlayMedia is part of the beloved RIAA, who wants to cripple all things mp3.

    Time to register Winamp and give 10 bucks to the Nullsoft Legal Defense fund, eh?

    $0.02
  • >Seriously, how can this person look at himself
    >in the mirror in the morning?

    They can't. Vampires have no reflection.
  • Well, at least you have musical talent. :)

    Anyway, MP3.com is the largest "net" IPO this year, to my knowledge. And, considering how other net IPOs like TheStreet.Com have *tripled* on the first trading day, it's going to happen to MP3.com

    And, considering that MP3 is *all over* the media, it's definitely going to go up at least 300%, IMHO.

    Though, you probably won't want to buy MP3.com on its opening day of trading. Classically, strong IPOs go straight up the first day, then follow with a week-long decline. Then they start going back up again.

    Obviously, this stuff isn't guaranteed to be true, it's just usually that way.
  • Gradstein contended that PlayMedia could be entitled to much more money if the court finds in its favor. MP3.com's business largely is based on MP3 downloads and thus has "required them to give their users the ability to download music in the MP3 format, which in turn has been reliant on Winamp," Gradstein said.

    Silly lawyers, when will they learn..

  • Telling them to stop, and getting a temporary injunction are two different things. One is ordered by the court and is enforceable. The other is virtually meaningless. The poster was correct, but your point is taken as well. Perhaps they should have tried to get an injunction. Guess it doesn't really matter now. Their claims seem pretty groundless.

  • 1) The GIF/Unisys thing is a pretty awful situation that deserves to be redecided.

    2) Unisys never had any dealings--as far as I know--with GIF developers. Contrast this with the probable fact that the AMP guy had some early communications w/ Justin Frankel and thus can be presumed to have consented-until-further-notice.


    Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
  • ---
    As for adding MP3.com, well, that's how litigation works. It seems highly unlikely that MP3.com will be found liable, but it will certainly impact their IPO.
    ---

    Oh, beautiful. Playmedia becomes liable for damages for filing an intentionally frivolous lawsuit during the IPO period when MP3.COM theoretically might not even be able to defend itself(companies need to be QUIET before they open their IPO, lest the SEC say they're advertising.) Then the lawsuit gets ruled as utterly and knowingly malicious, and boom, mp3.com threatens to sue their pants off unless they drop the Nullsoft suit.

    Nice.


    Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.

  • Theory for what's going on (Score:5)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Monday May 17, 1999 @09:31AM (#1888639) Homepage
    My best guess is that the creator of AMP is rather miffed that he didn't market his code well enough to profit from it, that he didn't get into business arrangements that would make him a partner(*cough* why was Nitrane even necessary), and now has been courted by lawyers who think they can wring large chunks of money out of the equation.

    The MOST interesting part of the equation is Winamp licensing an engine from FFH. FFH will, IMHO, flip around and bend Playmedia over the proverbial legal bar questioning their chutzpah demanding legal protection over something that they ostensibly "stole" from FFH in the first place.

    My "off the cuff" legal analysis of this situation will be that the judge will throw the entire case out, noting that Playmedia(and FFH) lost their claim over the *large* period of time they allowed WinAMP to spread. The Nullsoft guys will successfully argue that Playmedia knowingly allowed the code to be used, that any similarities in code were those that would be expected (by anybody, even Playmedia) from somebody who had seen the source code legally and had recreated it in a new technical system, and that to accept Playmedia's claim would be to usher in a new era of Contagion Litigation.

    Contagion Litigation, related to submarine patents, occur when a given technology is allowed to spread contagiously, and when enough parties are infected, the legal nature of the product is reasserted and everybody is forced to pay. It's a form of fraud, obviously, since if each receptor of the "diseased code" had known the legal implication of using the technology before integrating into their systems they would have chosen an alternate route.

    There's an element of beauty in all of this. Luckily, the autocratic nature of most courtrooms should cut through the BS rather quickly. I'm sure there's significant precedent against stuff like this.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://doxpara.netpedia.net


    Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
  • All the fuss around MP3, is IMHO some weirdo work around from music publishing compagnies. They fear a big money loss - and in some way the system they have established. Remember when The firts CDs came out - and we where told that the new prices fro music where due to the new medium and the better quality that came with it. In fact The music compagnie pushed the CD's very hard because they made more mony wiht a cd than with a Vinyl disc ( we now know the cost of duplicating CD's : it's very cheap compared to Vinyl duplication). Now that everybody can make a big price drop on music - they don't want to loose 10 years of marketing efforts to make music a pricy thing.
  • These people think that Winamp stole some of their code. Alright, maybe that is possible. But they are trying to get money out of mp3.com? On what grounds? Because mp3.com spreads files that *could be used* with this tainted player?

    Well, someone once ganked part of a text editor from me and made it shareware. I didn't mind at the time, but now I could kind of use some cash, so: all writers of text on the internet owe me money! They are flagrantly creating material that could be viewed and even *edited* with the program that was stolen from me. I better start a lawsuit right now...

    Seriously, how can this person look at himself in the mirror in the morning?

    --Lenny
  • One of the reasons that WinAMP switched to the FFH engine was because it would avoid the lawsuit then. For a small company, a lawsuit like that would literally kill NullSoft, stopping progress on the engine for months, and the lawyer fees alone would put them out of business. Nullsoft isn't going to be a part of this trial if they have their say with it.

  • mp3.com called our band up and asked to use one of our songs ( Temple Dogs ) for a TV commercial for MPMan. This is a portable mp3 player that competes with the Rio. Apparently it is being used on the QVC network.

    Years of playing bass and I make it to the Home Shopping Network! Oh well.

    However, when our singer asked about IPO the answer was: "Don't Go There, change the coversation."

    I suppose any information that could be leaked would be a securities violation.

    In any case, even though mp3.com lost money last quarter I bet that the stock will go up very fast. You don't suppose the traditional record companies would want to buy a piece of the pie in case they can't shut them down? Just the fact that the traditional companies would buy stock, Microsoft with all their money would probably hedge their bets too. All that purchacing would make mp3.com stock an excellent short term investment. Maybe not as insane as amazon.com but I bet pretty damn close.

    Ken Broadfoot

  • Well, at least you have musical talent. :)

    That is true. Hell, I'm doing good to play a radio.

  • "and you tell someone to stop distributing something because it is illegal, they are completely entitled to ignore
    you."

    Actually, it's fairly easy to get a temporary
    order on this kind of thing. You can, if motivated, stop just about any action if it
    is the contention of a pending suit.

  • X11Amp (Score:1)

    by SIGBUS ( 8236 )
    X11Amp uses the mpg123 decoding engine - Tomislav can't do a thing about it.

    --
  • They are not suing because winamp can play illegal mp3s, they are suing because they made the AMP decoder which WinAMP used for a while up to 2.20.



  • Is it just me, or does it sound like PlayMedia are just covering as much ground as possible?
    Cast your line in enough places, and you'll catch a fish eventually.

    Oh..and what is the legal side of suing someone who makes a mp3 player? Isn't it like suing ACDSystems for making ACDSee, which technically allows you to view illicit images?

    Hmm... I wonder if the makers of X11amp are going to be receiving a few letters from various lawyers...
  • Despite the uninformed opinions, there *is* a valid reason to go against NullSoft. MP3 is a patented format, and the player software they originally based WinAmp on was copyrighted. They have since moved WinAmp to another MP3-engine, which ends the alleged infringement at a particular point -- hopefully limiting their liability.

    It's a shame that a decent format has to go through this wrangling, but Nullsoft brought this upon themselves when they first pirated the code and used it. They may have popularized MP3, but they didn't have a legal right to use it. Can anyone say GIF?

    As for adding MP3.com, well, that's how litigation works. It seems highly unlikely that MP3.com will be found liable, but it will certainly impact their IPO.
  • You've been listening to too many conspiracy theories, and haven't been paying attention to the facts:

    * PlayMedia is suing Nullsoft and MP3.com over pirating the copyrighted AMP code.
    * The RIAA is cracking down on people who pirate already released and copyrighted music.
    * Music publishers worry about missing new talent that gains grass roots popularity on the net.

    The first two responses are based on illegal acts, the third is just corporate greed seeing their monopoly slip away. The music publishers have as much to do with the PlayMedia suit as the CIA did in the JFK shooting.
  • Make sure you read the licenses attached to the sources. Several of them are NOT free -- generally the better ones too. PlayMedia is suing Nullsoft for using copyrighted source code. They are not suing *everyone* who ever used *any* MP3 code.

    Of course adding MP3.com is frivolous, but that's another issue.

  • It has nothing to do with MPEG. This is over a specific piece of software. My understanding is that the AMP creators are claiming that WinAmp is based on code stolen from AMP, therefore violating their AMP copyright. For example, HTTP is open, but if you write a web browser that uses it, you still have the copyright on that web browser.

  • Brian D. Litman Co-founder, President & Chief Executive Officer Tel: +1-323-656-1200 Fax: +1-708-575-0821 Email: brian@playmediasystems.com there is the VP's info. Let him know how you feel about frivilous lawsuites.. Hmm.. he is effecting my abililty to download available mp3's and play them, and since i run a shoutcast server uhm i'm loosing airtime, and potential customers over a frivilous lawsuit..

    i could prolly get a class action if i want to stoop as low as they do.. i could clame i'm using a different media player to stream my music but that my listeners by bulk are using a registered and licensed winamp and since the injunction against them, websites aren't offering the newer version without the disputed software because of lawsuit reasons, so therefore its effecting my business and that of hundreds of other legal streaming media companies.

    but then again, why would anyone waiste there time to do something like that.. when they could simply be pioneering instead of suing cuz they can't keep up with the technology themselves..

  • Don't you mean distributers of text, we can't hurt the artist themselves. I think you should find all the mirrors carrying the ganked editor especially the ones utilizing the text encoding system because they are oviously profiting from your loss
  • You can sue all you want....

    ...winning, on the other hand is another thing.
  • If WinAmp were open sourced, it would become very obvious that it doesn't use the AMP engine.
  • I think it like 60 or 90 days... Prevents insider trading and what not. Violating this rule is like breaking a commandment but much more serious.

    Maybe not eternal damnation, but easily 6-7 figure fines and jail time (Which leads to the widening of certain orifaces...)

    RB
  • Let's see, I can sue Walmart, Eckerds, Osco, Walgreens, and all of the other pharmacies because the pharmacies sold fen-phen.

    I can sue any distributor becuase they sold a product, that was illegal, or could have been a knock off, even though they didn't know about it...

    Millions to be made...

    If people smell money to be made, they blindly pursue it without thinking.
    RB

  • No case really... (Score:4)

    by ddpg ( 34874 ) on Tuesday May 18, 1999 @06:58AM (#1888659) Homepage
    Gradstein contended that PlayMedia could be entitled to much more money if the court finds in its favor. MP3.com's business largely is based on MP3 downloads and thus has "required them to give their users the ability to download music in the MP3 format, which in turn has been reliant on Winamp," Gradstein said.

    Last time I looked, Winamp wasn't the only free MP3 player that MP3.COM offered so I don't see how they can backup the claim that MP3.COM was reliant on Winamp. Plus I don't see how MP3.COM knew about any code being used from AMP before the lawsuit, thus I think any reasonable judge will throw out the case since they are a unknowing third party.

    Nitrane(TM) is copyright protected and is the property of Nullsoft, Inc. This software may be used freely only with Winamp(TM), and may not be copied, sold, distributed or used for any other purpose without the prior written consent of Nullsoft, Inc.

    The prior was taken from the README.TXT from version 2.10. Nitrane is under a separate copyright from Winamp. Winamp is just a shell to different modules. It would be easy to write a plugin for Winamp that uses XAudio instead of FFH or Nitrane. Nitrane on the other hand is provided free, though it must be used with Winamp. I'm no legal scholar, so I don't know if the AMP license would allow for this resriction, but Nitrane has always been distributed for free and Nullsoft has never collected any money for Nitrane.

    I think PlayMedia is just looking to make money. By going after distributors, even though it will never hold, they are just wasting everybody's time and showing how incredibly stupid and selfish they are. Winamp is the best mp3 player. Peter Gogas

  • Seems to me the only product playmedia manufactures (albeit, in large quantity) is lawsuits.

    As far as I can tell, MP3.com allows people to download other MP3 players too. Is playmedia going to sue everyone that has posted a link to Winamp? Do I even want to know the anwswer to that?
  • Nullsoft licensed AMP from Playmedia at first. Then Nullsoft wrote their own engine(Nitrate), now Playmedia is claiming Nullsoft stole code from the AMP engine.

  • For all i know Nullsoft only made the audioplayer Winamp which a whole bunch of people are now using.

    On their site (winamp.com) they are supporting all sorts of groups that want to distribute their music free in mp3 format.

    Mostly those lawsuits end up without any progress. Whats the point?

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