Facebook Gives In, Cuts Off Project Playlist For No Legal Reason

from the safe-harbors,-people... dept

Earlier this week, we discussed how MySpace had blocked Project Playlist's widgets in response to record label complaints (and, of course, its own desire to have a competitor to its MySpace Music offering locked out) while Facebook left it up. We were surprised to see some claim that Facebook was being "irresponsible" here, because Facebook has a pretty strong legal defense. Of course, it's probably a legal battle that Facebook doesn't want to be involved in, so the company has now followed suit and disabled the Project Playlist app, claiming it violated Facebook's terms of service.

This is yet another example of the recording industry's effort to use chilling effects to get its way, such as by going after third parties to do its dirty work. Third party service providers, such as both MySpace and Facebook, have clear liability protection thanks to the DMCA's safe harbors. Yes, the record labels are in a legal battle with Project Playlist -- but that's between the labels and Project Playlist (and most agree that it's really the record labels using litigation for "negotiating" purposes, rather than based on any strong legal backing). It's not surprising that MySpace of Facebook caved -- why should they fight someone else's legal battle -- but it highlights the problems of when companies like the major record labels are allowed to go after third parties. Those third parties will often fold, because they don't have the incentives to fight. It's an abuse of the law to get others to do the RIAA's unsavory business.

And, in the long run, it's only going to hurt both MySpace and Facebook. If I were a developer for either platform, knowing that they would fold like a cheap card table as soon as some bigger company shows up with a bogus legal claim, I'd focus my development efforts elsewhere. Either MySpace or Facebook could have taken a stand, knowing that any lawsuit would likely get tossed after a quick safe harbor review, and developers would have known that those platforms were safe places for developers. Now... it's probably time to look elsewhere.

Filed Under: chilling effects, mixtapes
Companies: facebook, myspace, project playlist, riaa

Record Labels Continue To Go After Music Startups

from the onwards-and-downwards dept

On Friday, we wrote about how the likelihood of eventual lawsuits created a chilling effect that shut down Mixwit, a useful online mixtape service provider. It seemed quite unlikely that Mixwit was violating copyrights, as it didn't host any music nor make the music that people played through available for download. However, that won't stop the record labels who seem to believe that any service that lets you play music must first receive the big record labels' blessing (and, in case you were wondering, that blessing costs a lot of money, and often equity).

Earlier this year they sued one such startup, called Project Playlist. Similar to Mixwit, Project Playlist doesn't host any music. It just sends a search query to a variety of search engines, finds results of publicly available music via those search engines and then aggregates the results into a playlist. It then allows you to create widgets with that playlist. All of this should be perfectly legal. Project Playlist simply has no way of knowing whether the music found via various search engines is legal or not. It's not doing any of the hosting. It's not allowing downloading for infringement purposes. It's difficult to see what possible complaint the record labels have with it, other than the simple fact that it's a good innovation that people like, and no one's paying the big record labels for it.

Of course, lawsuits take some time, and apparently (unlike some other startups) Project Playlist hasn't simply folded when the lawsuits showed up. The company, which has raised a significant amount of money and has brought on experienced internet execs seems to be fighting back. So what did the record labels do? Well, they went after third parties, such as MySpace and Facebook who host the widget from Project Playlist. This is even more untenable than the lawsuit against Project Playlist. MySpace and Facebook are even further away from any liability, because as open application platforms, they don't even know much of what their applications do, let alone that one may be going to search engines, finding publicly available songs, putting them into a playlist and letting people stream them.

But, why should anything like that stop the record labels? So, late last week, MySpace gave in and locked out Project Playlist widgets while Facebook seems willing to push back on behalf of users. MySpace's move really isn't that surprising, since MySpace launched its MySpace Music offering to terrible reviews and (from the buzz we've heard from insiders) much less use than projected. MySpace Music competes directly with Project Playlist, so the company must be thrilled about an excuse to shut down access to Project Playlist, even though the end result might just drive users away, and make app developers that much more cautious about betting on MySpace as a platform.

Apparently, record label folks are claiming that Facebook's refusal to block Project Playlist is "irresponsible," which is laughable coming from the recording industry -- perhaps the most irresponsible and short-sighted industry around. Facebook knows that it has the law on its side, and at best the recording industry can launch a wasteful, money-sucking lawsuit against it, which will only drive music fans further away from the recording industry. If the record labels want to talk "irresponsible" they should look at themselves in the mirror first.

Update: Interesting timing here. Apparently Sony BMG has worked out a deal with Project Playlist. While News.com designates this as "good news," I'm not so sure. Yes, it's probably good news from the standpoint of avoiding a lawsuit, but it's bad news from the standpoint that Project Playlist was pressured into signing a deal that legally it almost certainly does not need. It's now set a precedent that rather than stand up for its rights, if you threaten enough, the company will fork over money (and potentially equity). Once again, this just reinforces the record labels' incorrect position that no one should be allowed to innovate in the music space without paying a toll to the big record labels.

Filed Under: copyright, playlists, takedown, widget
Companies: facebook, myspace, project playlist, riaa

RIAA Now Decides That Not Enough People Have Heard Of Project Playlist

from the reverse-attention-whores dept

There they go again. The RIAA and MPAA keep picking totally random, mostly unknown, startups and suing them -- giving them all sorts of free publicity. They did it years ago with Napster and more recently with The Pirate Bay. And yet... they keep doing it. In the latest example, the RIAA is suing a company called Project Playlist, which offers apps for MySpace and Facebook that let you play music found elsewhere online. There are a bunch of similar offerings out there (some of which I think are even more well known). If this case goes forward, it could be quite interesting, as again it's hard to see how Project Playlist is the liable party. It just lets users point its player to mp3 files that are found on other sites. Those files may be infringing, but Project Playlist is just the player. It would be like suing Sony for making a Walkman on the assumption that most tapes used in Walkmen include infringing copies of songs.

Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit, mp3s, riaa
Companies: project playlist, riaa