By Ashley Berger
With so many available streaming and pay-for services to access and listen to music without buying each individual song, there are still companies out there who provide illegal downloading services for customers who elect not to pay for their music. On September 26, 2016, heavy hitter record companies Universal, Warner Brothers, and Sony (among others) filed suit in California Federal Court against a German company operating the popular site YouTube-mp3.org, alleging that thousands of songs are illegally copied and distributed by stream-ripping services each month. Allegedly, YouTube-mp3.org has more than 60 million unique monthly users.
While the preliminary injunction and suit was only filed against the one domain name and its owner, Philip Matesanz, and the operating company, PMD Technology, there are still plenty of other sites where users can convert YouTube videos into MP3 files. The complaint alleges that this particular site is among the most popular sites, if not the most popular site for this type of activity, and is responsible for upwards of 40% of unlawful stream-ripping of YouTube around the world. Since 2013, unauthorized stream-ripping has increased by 50% in the United States.
By keying a simple Google search of “YouTube converter” to use the site, a user needs only the most elementary knowledge of how to enter the domain name and copy the link from YouTube into the site’s converter. With a few simple button clicks, a user has successfully “ripped” the audio of the video to an MP3 file which is then downloaded to the user’s computer. While those in the industry believe the creators and operators of YouTube-mp3.org are in the wrong with their activities, Cary Sherman, the CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said in a statement, “it should not be so easy to engage in this activity in the first place and no stream-ripping site should appear at the top of any search result or app chart.”
Overseas, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) also sent a formal cease and desist letter to Matesanz, putting him on formal notice. Though the BPI letter and California lawsuit are only directed at Matesanz and his company, BPI specifically encourages “responsible advertisers, search engines and hosting providers” to reflect “on the ethics of supporting sites that enrich themselves by defrauding creators.” In the California suit, the Plaintiffs allege the Defendants are circumventing Google technologies and YouTube as well. The Plaintiffs seek $150,000 for each instance of copyright infringement, or all of YouTube-mp3.org’s profits from the infringement.
The lawsuit comes nearly sixteen years after RIAA filed the infamous lawsuit against at-the-time startup Napster, and echoes many of the same concerns about sharing illegally obtained files. Sherman, who was then the president of RIAA, had said “Napster is about facilitating piracy and trying to build a business on the backs of artists and copyright owners.”
Napster’s claim to illegal fame was its technology that linked each users’ library, so that a user could access files from another user’s hard drive without paying for the accessible files. Critics of Napster in the early 2000s described what the site was doing, at the time, as distributing music at an unprecedented level. The critiques of YouTube-mp3.org eerily echoes the sentiments of what commentators said about Napster in the early 2000s.
Two years after the initial filing of the Napster lawsuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled the Napster product abets copyright infringement and that individual Napster users are infringing copyrights. The court in the Napster case also held that Napster “knowingly encourages and assists” the exchange of copyrighted music, which impinges upon the record industry’s sales. In their decision, however, the Ninth Circuit adjusted the scope of the lower court’s injunction, recognizing it too heavily burdened Napster and discouraged the innovation in technologies. In effect, the decision still shut down the original Napster product. By July of 2001, Napster shut down its entire company in compliance with the amended injunction and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2002, liquidating its assets in an effort to comply with a $26 million settlement agreement for past unauthorized usage, and $10 million future royalty agreements. Shortly after the shutdown, other file sharing services popped up in its place, but did not suffer the same large scale attack Napster did.
The California District Court will likely grant the injunction for the record companies, but the scope of the injunction will be the judge’s discretion. However, even if the injunction shuts down YouTube-mp3.org, like the other file sharing services that popped up after Napster, it is also likely other file conversion systems will replace YouTube-mp3.org. As of now, no court orders have been issued.
Student Bio: Ashley is a staff member of the Journal of High Technology Law. She is currently a 2L at Suffolk University Law School. Ashley holds a Bachelor of Arts in both Legal Studies and History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the views of the author alone and do not represent the views of JHTL or Suffolk University Law School.
