Says it sent the cyberlocker 22 takedown notices that “as far as Perfect 10 can determine” most “have not been removed.” Megaupload’s Bonnie Lam counters that every single one it’s reported has been removed “within hours,” and that it is preparing a countersuit against the adult media company.
Adult media company Perfect 10 is at again this time suing cyberlocker Megauplaod for copyright infringement in the US District Court for the Southern District of California.
It claims that between July 23, 2010 and August 8, 2010, it sent Megaupload 22 takedown notices, and that “as far as Perfect 10 can determine, most of these identified infringing works have not been removed.”
As far as it can determine? Perfect 10 doesn’t even seem to know, but Megaupload does, and it says it’s removed every single one.
“All infringing files Perfect 10 has ever reported to Megaupload have been removed within hours,” Mega HQ’s Bonnie Lam told me in an email. “We keep track of all DMCA notices and could identify all notifications from Perfect 10 and we have verified that all reported links were disabled within hours.”
“We also removed a link to content by the artist ‘Christina Aguilera;which was reported by the owner of Perfect 10 Mr. Norman Zada. But we doubt that Perfect 10 or Mr. Zada own the rights to works of that artist,” she added.
Perfect 10 claims that by charging membership fees for increased download speeds and access it is essentially profiting from the illegal distribution of copyrighted material.
Perhaps most odd is the claim that everything hosted on Megauplaod is copyright infringing.
“Megaupload does not own anything that it sells access to,” it adds in the court filing. “Whether or not someone else uploaded the copyrighted material to Megaupload servers does not give Megaupload the right to make copies of, distribute, display, or sell access to those works.”
But, that’s the thing – users distribute the links not Megaupload. It’s a cyberlocker that provides online storage and web hosting services, and any attempt to ” upload, post, e-mail, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party” violates its terms of service.
This isn’t the first time Perfect 10 has sued a cyberlocker for infringement. Last year in the same District Court it tried to get a temporary injunction against Rapidshare for engaging in “unfair competition” against “honest providers” such as Perfect 10.
The judge refused the application and said that RapidShare cannot be accused of copyright infringement, only its users can. It also took Perfect 10 to task for failing to name a single location where its copyright protected content could be found on the site.
The same is likely to happen again to Perfect 10, making for a perfect zero.
“We will file a motion shortly to dismiss the case,” adds Lam. “Our legal team is confident that we have nothing to worry about and they are working on a counter suit.”
Wouldn’t it be ironic if Perfect 10 wound up having to pay $5 million instead?
Stay tuned.
I've been interested in P2P since the early, high-flying days of Napster and KaZaA. I believe that analog copyright laws are ill-suited to the digital age, and that art and culture shouldn't be subject to the whims of international entertainment industry conglomerates. Twitter | Google Plus
