Big Music KrAPPy ruling
p2pnet.net News:- The Big Four record label cartel is claiming a victory in Korea. Its Korean Association of Phonogram Producers (K[r]APP) forced Soribada to drop its free service in accordance with copyright protection laws, says the Korea Times, going on:.
Soribada runs the country`s largest peer-to-peer network with more than 5 million subscribers and 400,000 users. The KAPP filed a lawsuit last November for an injunction to bar Soribada from providing about 67,000 songs on its network that are copyrighted by the music lobby`s member labels.
In the ruling, the court went a step further by announcing that it will now be illegal for Internet users to distribute Soribada`s file-sharing software and share music files with existing peer-to-peer programs, basically ordering a complete halt to the Internet company`s current services.
In February, a new Korean law barred individuals or companies from sharing copyrighted music, without the consent of record companies, says the story. This stopped the trading of music files through p2p software, e-mail or web logs.
But, Soribada is no longer a separate program running through a single server, a company spokesperson is quoted as saying.It is now more of a technology that is spread over the Web. It`s hard to say if anybody should acquire full control over such activities.
And, critics point out the demise of the CD-based music market has more to do with a loss of market share than to individual peer-to-peer activities, with sales from Web sites and telecom operators replacing a large part of the traditional market, says the Korea Times, adding that K(r)APP, has been involved in a similar dispute with Bugs Music (www.bugsmusic.co.kr), an Internet site that allowed users to listen to music for free but not download it.
After a series of legal disputes, Bugs Music ended up selling 60 percent of its company to a group of recording companies and gave up its management rights with a KAPP senior official stepping in to head operations.
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See:-
Korea Times – Court Blocks Free File-Sharing Services, August 31, 2005
