Bundle of Sticks

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.