February 13, 2008

 

 

VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL AND FEDERAL EXPRESS

 

Paul Sawaya

Jukebox

 

Dear Mr. Sawaya:

 

I am contacting you on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA) and its member record companies. The RIAA is a trade association whose member companies create, manufacture, and distribute the majority of all legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States. RIAA members include Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Music North America, and their affiliated record labels. As provided in 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(vi), we state that the information contained in this notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that we are authorized to act on behalf of our member companies as to the matters of copyright infringement set forth in this notice.

 

We are writing to notify you of the extensive copyright infringement of sound recordings being committed by means of the Jukebox functionality offered as part of Facebook’s service. Under the Copyright Act, those who distribute, reproduce, or digitally transmit sound recordings without authorization and those who assist, facilitate, or induce such actions by others are liable for copyright infringement. By indexing, linking to, transmitting, retransmitting, providing access to, and/or otherwise assisting users in streaming and downloading infringing copies of sound recordings emanating from various unauthorized sources on the Internet, you are violating U.S. copyright law. This infringement is widespread and obvious, and we believe it is well-known to you. By this letter, we demand that you immediately cease such activities and take steps to ensure that your service does not infringe upon the copyrights of RIAA members in the future.

 

Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. §§ 512(c)(3)(ii) and (iii), we are providing a representative list of works that are being infringed by being disseminated, distributed, and performed by means of Jukebox. While extensive, the representative list is not intended to be exhaustive; rather, we are providing it so that you can understand the nature and scope of infringement, all of which must be addressed. It is evident that countless other RIAA member copyrighted sound recordings are being infringed through your service in an identical manner. In addition to ceasing to index, link to, or otherwise provide access to the works in the representative list, you are obligated to remove all links to RIAA member sound recordings. To facilitate your removal of all RIAA member sound recordings, we are providing on a CD enclosed with the hard copy of this notice being sent by FedEx, a more extensive, yet still non-exhaustive, listing of sound recordings the rights to which are held by RIAA member companies. The streaming, uploading and downloading of any of these copyrighted sound recordings, and your enabling and encouraging of such acts, is not authorized by RIAA member companies, and thus constitutes copyright infringement. The enclosed CD will allow you to locate links to infringing works on your service and to remove or disable access to them.

 

Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(v), we have a good faith belief that the use of RIAA member company works in this manner is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. Accordingly, we call on you to immediately cease and desist from using Jukebox to directly and indirectly cause, contribute to, enable, facilitate, induce, encourage, and participate in the infringement of the RIAA member companies’ copyrighted sound recordings, including without limitation the works identified below and on the CD.

 

To be clear, the copyright infringement of RIAA member sound recordings through your service is obvious to anyone visiting your service, and undoubtedly is already well known to you. While this letter constitutes notice of infringing activities under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512 et seq., it does not in any way constitute a waiver of any right, remedy or action against you, including the right to recover damages for the infringements identified in this notice. All such rights, remedies and actions are expressly reserved.

 

Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(iv), you may contact me by e-mail at antipiracy@riaa.com, by telephone at (202) 775-0101, or by mail at RIAA, 1025 F Street, N.W., 10th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20004.

Sincerely,

 

 

 

 

Mark McDevitt

Vice President, Online Anti-Piracy

RIAA

 

 

Enclosure

 

cc (w/o encl.): Rudy Gadre, Esq. - Facebook, Inc.