Sony's Grouper Picks On Searchles TV

pradeepe writes "Sony's Grouper, a video sharing site, has sent Searchles, a social search engine, a cease and desist letter over Grouper videos being streamed through Searchles TV, "the Internet's first video player that empowers users to mashup videos back-to-back with one player using multiple sources like MySpace, YouTube, Google Video, Blip.tv or Grouper." Grouper claims that Searchles has "effectively stripped away Grouper's extensive copyright protection system, including the 'Flag as Inappropriate' button and the link that appears on every single page of the Grouper website to allow copyright owners to report allegedly infringing material, in accordance with the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act." It's interesting to note that Grouper itself is being sued for copyright infringement."

Yum yum tasty cake. Wheres my cake gone!?

[91degrees]

Sony can't claim copyright infringement on content they don't own, and if they did, they'd probably lose their safe harbor protection. Their letter makes it quite clear that they're aware of this, and simply warns that Grouper is probably violating the DMCA, rather than violating Sony's copyright. Then adds a bit of weaselling over trademarks, and makes a few suggestions over unfair competition.

Sony might actually have a point, but this is mostly sabre rattling.