Music Industry Takes Soulseek to Court

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Last week we reported that French record labels were going after four file-sharing applications, including Limewire and the BitTorrent client Vuze. Now, just days later, two other French organizations are to continue this crackdown and sue Soulseek.

SACEM, the French association for music producers and SCPP, which represents record labels including Universal, EMI, BMG, Warner have filed a complaint against the filesharing application.

The industry bodies argue that Soulseek, an application created by former Napster programmer Nir Arbel, is designed to permit unauthorized access to copyrighted works. According to a French law adopted in 2006, distributing such software is an offense that can lead to a 3 year jail sentence, as well as a fine up to 300,000 euros.

While Soulseek can be used to share any type of file, it is almost exclusively used to share music. Soulseek has a multitude of sub-communities, each dedicated to their chosen musical genres. The members can be incredibly passionate and many of them are experts in their field. Although mainstream music is available, the majority of the files shared on the network are underground independent music.

On the Soulseek website, it is clearly stated that the intention of their application is not to infringe copyright. Instead, it aims “to help unsigned and/or independent artists find a place in the ever-growing music industry, in a place where discussion and the creation of music can take place.”

Similar to other music sharing communities such as the BitTorrent sites What.cd and Waffles.fm, many members are artists themselves, who share their music freely. True to this spirit, members of the Soulseek community founded Soulseek Records (or SLSK Records), a non-profit netlabel where artists publish their music for free, under a Creative Commons license.

Instead of supporting this creative platform, the French music industry continues its witch-hunt, effectively killing their own business. If they are successful, this case, or the lawsuits against the other four p2p clients, will undoubtedly impact other filesharing applications.

Source From Torrent Freak

The Music Industry just keeps going farther doesnt it? Now its sueing random sites with little connection to piracy, just because they can. I think they need to be stopped at some point.

 

[Murder he Wrote]

The Music Industry just keeps going farther doesnt it? Now its sueing random sites with little connection to piracy, just because they can. I think they need to be stopped at some point.

No...I think they should carry on and take down every torrent site. Whilst I agree that it's a good place for "new artists to find themselves", it's unfair on the big artists who spend years and a lot of money making music..for someone to just come along and download it for free.

The same can be said with software. Adobe would have spent years and would have spent thousands developing their products. It's just completely unfair and selfish for people to go to torrent sites and "just" download them in a matter of hours instead of paying Adobe what they deserve for market leading software.

Effectively it's stealing...which is illegal. Are you saying that the music industry shouldn't try and put a stop to stealing? ...would you tell a policeman to stop chasing a thief if they had just burgled your house?

 

[froggyboy604]

The record label should find new ways of making money like online advertisement on their artists websites instead of suing as many people since it is ruining the music industry reputation when they sue people who want to help new and unsigned musician.