| Australian court upholds download ruling
An Australian court in Canberra, Australia has backed
a previous ruling against the Web site operator of mp3s4free.net as it
allegedly provided a search engine through which users could illegally
access MP3 files. According to the court, the Web site had effectively
authorised the copyright infringement by providing links to Web sites
which enable illegal downloads.
The operator of the Web site had argued that his Web
site provided a similar functionality like Google. However, the Federal
Court Judge ruled out his argument by saying that the assumption that
Google’s activities in Australia do not result in infringements was
untested.
Stephen Cooper, the operator of mp3s4free.net, was ordered
to remove his website and pay the court costs of the music companies,
which included labels like Universal Music, EMI, BMG and Warner Music.
In a similar case last month, a Chinese Web search engine
Baidu.com, was cleared of copyright infringement by a Beijing court while
it faced a lawsuit from music companies after posting links to sites offering
illegal music downloads.
Internet users’ group Electronic Frontiers Australia
warned that the ruling could “create significant uncertainty”
for many Internet firms.
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