Facebook yanks Audio
p2pnet news | RIAA news:- With, possibly, the principle discretion is the better part of valour in mind, Facebook has yanked Audio, a third-party streaming application which allowed users to upload music playlists others could listen to.
“It wasn’t licensed by labels and publishers,” says the New York Post, going on:
“While no lawsuits had been filed by the recording industry against the service, playlist swapping on Facebook didn’t go unnoticed by the major labels. A source at one label alleged the company was engaging in ‘massive infringement’.”
And You Know Who is standing prominently in the foreground.
‘Massive infringement’ is the catch-all buzz-phrase dreamed up by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA lawyers for general application in any and all situations involving file sharing and/or copyright infringement.
It appears in most, if not all, RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) court documents
“Facebook’s move comes as labels are moving aggressively to force Web 2.0 companies to share revenues from music-related audio and video offerings,” says the New York Post. “MySpace, Grouper, Bolt and Imeem have all been sued or threatened with litigation by the major labels for not seeking proper licenses for ad-supported music and video services.”
However, Audio, “is now telling us that it expects to be back online “within the next several days,” says VentureBeat, adding:
“Here’s what happened, according to Audio: It was given a DMCA takedown request from a record label, sent via the RIAA — then Facebook decided to take Audio offline while the matter remained unresolved. Facebook isn’t commenting on this odd situation, except to say that ‘any application is allowed on the site if it complies with our terms of service’.”
Adds the story:
“The company tells us that Audio has had “sufficient notice” to make adjustments. It actually removed Audio once before, within two days of launching its developer platform in May (our coverage). No clear reasons were given at the time, but it is our understanding that Facebook was having an internal discussion about the legality of Audio. However, Facebook re-instated the application only a couple of days later.”
Audio’s disappearance won’t surprise Nick O’Neill, however.
As far back as May, “The hidden Audio application that launched on Facebook this past weekend has become extremely popular,” he posed on allfacebook, continuing:
“Every minute there are around 100 songs being uploaded. I’m not sure who is footing the bill for this one but it has to be fairly pricey. Aside from the fact that there is huge bandwidth cost in maintaining the application, Facebook audio is technically illegal.
“The funny thing is that everyone that uploads a song can be tracked to their name. While there will be legal issues surrounding the privacy of people that are uploading music to the site, I can guarantee you that the RIAA is going to be documenting everyone that uploads music.”
Stay tuned.
Also See:
New York Post – Facebook blinks on music app, August 1, 2007
VentureBeat – Facebook kills Audio for copyright violations, July 31, 2007
allfacebook – Facebook Audio: Can This Last?, May 29, 2007
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
