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FTC Acts Against Site Claiming File-Sharing is "100% Legal"

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 20, 2005 - 9:29am.
Washington - A U.S. District Court has ordered the website MP3DownloadCity.com to stop making the claim that membership in its service will immunize users of peer-to-peer file-sharing services from copyright infringement lawsuits. While the site does not actually distribute its own peer-to-peer software, it does sell a $24.95 tutorial on how to use peer-to-peer services to download music and movies. The site makes claims such as, "Rest assured that file-sharing is 100% legal," and "Best of all, people are not getting sued for using our software." The motion picture and recording industries in the U.S. have to date sued thousands of individual users of file-sharing services for copyright infringement. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which brought the action, is now seeking a permanent bar on the deceptive claims, refunds for users, and a requirement that the company notify customers its claims were false.