Playlist.com - Legal status

[Two_and_a_Half_Inches_of_Fun]

Does anyone know what the legal status of playlist.com is? The website looks like it has to be committing massive copyright violations.

http://www.playlist.com/

[Rico]

Their copyright policy is rather vague. They’re not providing the content, they’re just linking to it?

<mod>

Tell ya what. I’m not sure. On the safe side, I’m going to close this and refer it to Gfactor for review - if he feels it is legit, I’ll let him re-open it. He’s not on-line right now, but I’ll drop him an email so he’ll see it first thing in the morning. Fair enough?

</mod>

[Gfactor]

They claim:

Project Playlist, Inc. aspires to index and organize the music on the Internet in a responsible and efficient manner, and is therefore committed to copyright protection. Accordingly, our search engine is based upon our growing index of links to music files legally posted on the Internet for promotional or other legal purposes. Our music player allows performance of music files through streaming technology and “in-line linking” of series of hyperlinks. In that way, we make it easy for our users to create a playlist that points to a series of music files hosted on third party websites. We do not control those third party websites. We do not host music files. We do not allow uploading or downloading of music files to projectplaylist.com. We are not a “file sharing” site, peer to peer or otherwise; and we do not support or endorse illegal copying of music.

Project Playlist, Inc. pays performance royalties to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, the three performance rights organizations (“PSO”) based in the Untied States. These three PSOs have reciprocal agreements with PSOs throughout the world. The creators and publishers of the songs you hear through projectplaylist.com or our embedded music player, are being paid a royalty for their work if they are members of ASCAP, BMI or SESAC or any one of over 125 other PSOs that represent songwriters and music publishers around the world. The more a song is included on our users’ playlists, the more royalties the writer and publisher of that song are paid by Project Playlist, Inc.

http://www.playlist.com/static/node/147435.html

While it is possible to use this site to infringe copyrights, there seem to be plenty of non-infringing uses. And they say they are doing what they can to avoid infringement. They’ve also got a takedown policy.

This thread is only about the legal status of the site. I think that’s a fine discussion to have.

Thread reopened.

Gfactor
General Questions Moderator

[Cluricaun]

Semi hijack - I’ve been a Project Playlist user for a long time and I’ve wondered what the boards stance would be on starting a thread in say CS where people could link to their playlists on said site.

[Gfactor]

@Cluricaun

Semi hijack - I’ve been a Project Playlist user for a long time and I’ve wondered what the boards stance would be on starting a thread in say CS where people could link to their playlists on said site.

We’re ok with this. Go ahead and mention that we already said it was ok.

[Rico]

UPDATE:

The RIAA sues Playlist.com.

<mod>

Sigh. Let’s close it back down. Sorry, folks.

</mod>