A 16-year Gold Coast kid is promoting the theft of music with his new site Vye Music.
Vye Music is described as a “meta-search engine” that allows you to “discover, stream, share and download millions of tracks”.The company claims it is doing nothing illegal because it doesn't host the content. That is a statement that would be very difficult to argue in court. Napster and Kazaa did not host content either and the Vye model is very like those two early P2P companies.
A disclaimer on their site would also have a difficult time standing up in court. It reads, “Your use of the Vye Music website is at your sole risk, and to the fullest extent permitted by law, Vye Music refuses liability for all eventualities arising from your use of this website, including issues pertaining to user submissions. You further agree to indemnify and hold harmless: Vye Music, VEXiS, their employees, directors, owners, affiliates and the like, pertaining to your use of the Vye Music website”. Just because you refuse liability doesn't mean you aren’t liable.
A simple test for The Beatles not only found the entire catalogue, but also the ability to easily download the songs. The Beatles label Apple Records only recently took legal action against a US download site that was selling their music. Yve is the doorway to giving it all away.
Further into the disclaimer, we read, “Although our providers comply with copyright policy and the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, they do not accept responsibility for the content that appears on or through the sites of other web service providers. Vye Music does not host any of the content listed in any of the search results of the Vye Music web service”.
It seems bizarre that in the footsteps of Napster and Kazaa that another company, let alone an Australian company, would even consider waving this so blatantly in the face of the music industry.
No doubt the music industry won’t sit by for long and let Vye grow. It looks on the surface to be a very well run operation using the face of a 16-year to project some sense of innocence. That may just be a matter for the court to decide.
