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Scour.net to Debut 'Son of Napster'

http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,13672,00.html

April 03, 2000, 06:47 PM PST

The creators of Scour Exchange, a new file-sharing utility, may soon face the wrath of the recording industry.

By Michael Learmonth

Napster, as it turns out, was just the beginning.

The infamous file-sharing program, which exploded on college campuses late last year, is spawning a host of imitators and making it even more difficult to stop the widespread swapping of copyrighted music.

Engineers at Santa Monica, Calif.-based Scour.net developed the latest entrant to the fray, Scour Exchange, and made it available for download over the weekend. Like Napster, Scour Exchange allows its users to exchange MP3 files for free. Unlike Napster, Scour Exchange doesn't necessarily search for the .MP3 file extension. Users may swap any file, whether it's a photograph, a video clip or an audio file.

"It's like Napster, in that it's building a sharing community," says Travis Kalanick, VP for strategy at Scour.net. "We do file sharing in a similar way, but we have all media types."

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Kalanick says his program has several features that would insulate it from Napster's legal concerns. Unlike Napster, he argues, Scour Exchange has "many non-infringing uses. With the launch of this product, we have done licensing and syndication deals with content providers to distribute legitimate content."

Also distancing the service from Napster, Kalanick argues that Scour Exchange simply adds functionality to the Scour.net search engine and says search engines are protected by a "safe-harbor provision" in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

"We are simply a search engine," Kalanick says. "We have built an application that enhances that search."

In addition, Scour has set up a procedure for dealing with copyright complaints that they believe to be compliant with the DMCA. Copyright holders must notify Scour in writing with a letter that contains the copyright-holder's "pen-on-paper" signature. Then Scour will take the infringing link out of the database.

Scour is also setting its own "three strikes" policy. If a copyright holder notifies Scour about a particular user three times, Scour will kick the user off its system.

"What they are trying to avoid is being held liable for direct infringement," says Neil Rosini, a copyright attorney who represents MyPlay.com. Rosini says Scour will have to demonstrate that its new service is "principally for trading copyrighted works that are owned by the people doing the trading."

"No one goes into this business prudently who has a desire to tick off the recording industry unnecessarily," says attorney Andrew Bridges, who defended Diamond Multimedia in its Rio case. "On the other hand, the recording industry doesn't play fair, and no one can wait for the RIAA's consent or approval in order to develop a business plan."

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