In the latest development in the legal battle over "cyberlocker" services, Hotfile, one of these services, has revealed that it will file suit against Warner Bros. Entertainment, claiming that the company used a Hotfile anti-piracy tool to take down content that Warner didn't own.
Warner Bros. is one of many plaintiffs in the case against Hotfile, which was filed by the MPAA in February. The fact that Hotfile is fighting the claims indicates that a final legal ruling on the legitimacy of cyberlockers will probably be years in the making.
In a document recently submitted to the courts, Hotfile states that Warner "used an antipiracy tool provided by Hotfile at Warner’s request to improperly remove material for which Warner did not own a copyright, and that Warner removed some material without ever verifying the contents of what it was deleting."
Hotfile lawyers are accusing the MPAA of inviting delays in the case, as the entertainment companies are less affected by the financial damage inflicted by requiring legal support than the much smaller Hotfile. The defendants imply that cyberlockers are permitted in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's Safe Harbor clause, and that the sooner the courts examine the issue, the sooner the case will end.
The Safe Harbor clause is what allows YouTube to function, and what helped the video sharing site defeat a lawsuit from Viacom. It states, in essence, that websites and services cannot be held responsible for the illegal actions of their users, as long as they comply with takedown requests submitted by the copyright owners. (The European Union Copyright Directive features a similar clause called "mere conduit".)
And just as YouTube defeated Viacom, it appears that Hotfile has the upper hand. Don't expect a quick turnaround, though. If the court rules to start the discovery process regarding Hotfile's claim of Safe Harbor, the actual case won't even start until next year.
