MIT Shuts Down Alternative File-Swapping

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 10:27:55 -0300
From: Claudio Gutiérrez <gutierrezclaudio () terra cl>
Subject: MIT Shuts Down Alternative File-Swapping
To: dave () farber net

Two MIT students who thought they'd found a way to give their fellow
students access to a huge music library without running afoul of
copyright law hit a snag Friday when the school shut down the service in
the midst of a licensing dispute.


The "LAMP," or "Library Access to Music" system officially went live
Monday, pumping music into dorm rooms over the school's cable television
network. By sending the music over cable, rather than swapping files
over the Internet, the system avoided making an exact copy of the music
and was expected to face lower copyright law hurdles.

The students, Keith Winstein and Josh Mandel, said they had negotiated
for the Harry Fox Agency, the mechanical licensing arm of the National
Music Publishers Association, to grant a license to a Seattle-based
company called Loudeye to sell the school thousands of MP3s for the
system.

But even last week as the system prepared to go live, there was
confusion. The Harry Fox Agency said no such license was complete, while
Loudeye insisted it was.

On Friday, MIT issued a statement saying it was shutting down the system
at least temporarily while it pursued clarifications with Loudeye and
make sure the system was legal.

"We have taken it down temporarily to show good faith and because the
whole point is to be very, very careful and obey the copyright law,"
said Winstein, 22, adding he was confident the situation could be
resolved.

In its statement, MIT said it was assured by Loudeye that the company
was authorized by the record labels to sell the music. But after the
service was launched, "Loudeye informed us that some of their assurances
may have been mistaken," the statement said.

A Loudeye spokesman said the appropriate company official to comment
could not immediately be reached. Laurie Jakobsen, a spokeswoman for The
Harry Fox Agency, said the agency's position hadn't changed.

"We have not issued licenses to either MIT or Loudeye," she said. "We
are continuing discussions with them."

MIT said Universal Music Group, a record label, raised objections with
Loudeye over the arrangement. MIT then began discussing the matter
directly with other record labels, and decided to put the system on
hold.

UMG, a division of Vivendi Universal, issued a statement Friday saying:
"It is unfortunate that MIT launched a service in an attempt to avoid
paying recording artists, union musicians, and record labels. Loudeye
recognized that they had no right to deliver Universal's music to the
MIT service, and MIT acted responsibly by removing the music.

"MIT has now contacted us and apparently recognizes its responsibility
to compensate creators for the use of their works. Universal looks
forward to discussing how to make that possible."

MIT said the school "continues to be committed to developing a fully
licensed service."

The students planned to share their plan with other schools, whom they
said could emulate the project and give their students access to music
while potentially sparing them from lawsuits like those being filed by
the recording industry to try to combat illegal file-swapping.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=1&u=/ap/20031101/ap_on_bi_ge/file_swapping_alternative

--
Claudio Gutierrez
http://claudiogutierrez.blogspot.com

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