To all members of the Quest Studios Message Board:
In order for Quest Studios to continue the Sierra Soundtrack Series website in accordance with Vivendi Universal guidelines, I need to request that users try and refrain from posting links to offsite music files, especially those containing Vivendi Universal, Inc. (Sierra Entertainment, Inc.) copyrighted material on this Message Board. This doesn't include the posting of links to other web
sites that contain such files, though I would request that it's not done on a habitual basis.
Though Quest Studios is authorized by Vivendi Universal, Inc. to post such files on its servers, it's not authorized to promote other sites that haven't acquired Vivendi's approval to do this. This would be considered copyright infringement of Vivendi Universal's intellectual property. In some instances, I may upload offsite Sierra-related files to the Quest Studios servers to avoid offsite links, thereby complying to this policy. I would also encourage the use of private messages and email for this. I'm only concerned with Sierra-related materials at this point because they are the only gaming company I have been granted permission to use their intellectual property online.
Quest Studios has always strived to maintain a website that adheres to and respects the copyright ownership of others. This policy has proven to be a significant contributing factor to Quest Studios' enduring presence on the World Wide Web.
For the most part, this hasn't been a very significant problem. We don't maintain a Links page, and this site's web links generally all point to legitimate sources. Most member's posts within the forum are to websites and not to specific files; those that are to files are usually pretty sporadic, and many not Sierra-related. I've only had to remove one link so far; so as you can see, this isn't a big issue.
If you have any questions regarding this policy or are unclear as to its depth, please feel free to contact Ari or myself via email or private message. I really appreciate your understanding in this matter.
-------------------
This may be of some interest to you as well:
Friday, January 28, 2005 4:57 a.m. PT
Norway court upholds Napster conviction
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OSLO, Norway -- Norway's supreme court ruled Thursday that a student whose Napster.no homepage was linked to free Internet music files must compensate the music industry.
The country's highest court upheld a lower court ruling that ordered the student to pay $15,900 in compensation. The published version of the court ruling withheld the student's name.
The student was learning computer engineering in the southern Norway town of Lillehammer when he set up the Napster.no site as part of a school project in 2001. His site had nothing do with the widely known Napster.com music site in the United States.
The Napster.no site provided links to music files in the MP3 format that could be downloaded for free. The site was online between August and November 2001, and provided links to about 170 free music files on servers outside Norway, the ruling said.
The music industry group Tono, Sony Music Entertainment Norway AS, Universal Music AS and others, saw the case as an important test of principle, and filed a legal complaint for copyright violations.
A lower court found for the music industry, while on appeal the Lagmannsetten court in Oslo cleared the student, saying any copyright violation occurred when others posted the music and not when he provided links to it.
In a summary of its ruling, the supreme court said the music was clearly published in violation of copyright law.
"The supreme court decided the case based on responsibility for abetting (an illegal act)," the summary said.
It said the student violated the law by showing people where to find the illegal music and that his actions "were premeditated and worthy of criticism."
Cato Stroem, managing director of Tono, said the industry was happy with the ruling, because it shows that music piracy won't be accepted and that copyright laws apply even on the Internet.
"The ruling will help build confidence in the Internet as a medium for the legal distribution of music," he said.
