Does Qbox (music search engine) infringes on copyright?
Here is the question. Does an online music search program
infringes on copyrights?
About a month ago, an online music search engine was introduced called
Qbox. http://qbox.com/ It is a very simple search
engine that keyword searches music available on the web, legally
available I mean. There are many websites that provide
background music playing for consideration of about 500 Korean Won (50
US cents) per song. This Qbox search engine only searches
websites that provide legal background music playing for songs that
were legally purchased.
The upfront question will be whether Qbox violates any copyright law or
infringes on others’ copyright. This question is a little
tricky.
Purchasing music means purchasing the license to listen to the music.
Most times, the license only has the permission to listen to
the music privately. Once the purchaser plays the music in
public, he breaches the license agreement and thus infringes on
copyright. Traditionally, ‘playing in public’ meant playing
music in front of people or at place where people may hear the music.
What is ‘playing in public’ on the internet? Unless a website
is password protected, the website is open to public. When a
music is played on the website, people ‘may’ hear the music at any time
and from anywhere. This completely conflicts with the
traditional notion of public performance. Therefore, I think the purchase of
music for playing on the purchaser’s website should mean the license
includes public performance on the internet.
If it’s so, I don’t find any reason to say Qbox infringes on any
copyright.
On the other hand, playing devil’s advocate, I could argue that the
music was sold for purpose of playing on a website where the
acquaintances of the website owner visit and listen to the
music while reading the website. Hence, the license should
be interpreted for that exact narrow scope. Qbox opens the
possibility of public listening to music without even visiting the
website. What Qbox does is to redirect music hosted on
private websites to public’s eyes scurring for free music.
Then again, I could argue back that Qbox is only a slimmed down search
engine specialized for music search which has also been done by other
search engines. If previous search engines were not
infringing copyrights, neither does Qbox.



Does Qbox (music search engine) infringes on copyright?
Trackback by ť Q~ — March 3, 2006 @ 1:39 pm