Record companies love to sue! There’s nothing quite like cornering some dastardly file-sharer with a class-action lawsuit. However, it seems that the Dutch have got pretty well fed up with the labels’ lawyers taking the world and his wife to court every time an illegal download is made. The Usenet site FTD.nu is suing BREIN, the Dutch equivalent of the RIAA, arguing that "FTD only facilitates communication between people who quite legally download from Usenet. FTD does not facilitate or carry out any upload and therefore can not be held liable.” (via hypebot)
FTD have asked the court in the Netherlands to clarify a number of points, including the idea that downloading is legal even where copyrighted material is the subject of the download and that revealing content to users on Usenet via FTD is legal without the permission of copyright holders. I can already see label executives shuddering at the thought that the court might rule in favor of FTD. Maybe they shouldn’t have been so aggressive with their never-ending lawsuits.
