Record companies have gained another win in the copyright battle – with a Federal court ruling against websites containing hyperlink to copyright material.
The Federal Court upheld a 2005 ruling that mp3s4free.net operator Stephen Cooper and the ISP hosting the website were guilty of authorising copyright infringement because they provided links to sites where users could illegally download music for free.
Although Cooper argued that he did not have the power to prevent users from making copies or downloading from existing websites listed on other search engines such as Google, the judges said “The making of a particular unauthorized copy is no less an infringement of the owner’s copyright because other unauthorized copies are also made or are likely to be made.”
Cooper was up against thirty six respondents including major record companies such as Univeral, EMI, Warner and Sony. The dismissal of Cooper’s appeal may give record companies the go ahead to target operators and ISPs of similar sites.
