“In the midst of the file-trading craze caused by Napster, the
recording industry has been forced to turn its attention back to
shutting down MP3 FTP sites, in part because of an automated
aggregation website.”
“On Friday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
filed a suit against content-aggregation site MP3Board.com. The
copyright infringement suit filed in federal district court in New
York claims that the website knowingly gathers, indexes, and
organizes links to sites where illegal files are offered for
download….”
“By using three automated search engines, MP3Board.com is able
to aggregate hyperlinks to thousands of websites that offer music
files for download. Before posting the link, they are checked
automatically to make sure the site is live.”
“If this kind of automated hyperlinking is ruled illegal,
the Internet is going to grind to a halt,” said Ira Rothken, legal
counsel for MP3Board.com.“