Anyone who is familiar with Youtube and has been watching and/or hearing music online would be quite familiar with such instances where we see many websites implicitly infringing copyrights (as touchy as this subject may be). Some websites even consider their activity to be something heroic.

Though there have been lawsuits filed and websites brought down all this time because of infringement, Google issuing notice to YouTube-MP3[dot]org is now one of the major headlines around us. The site, YouTube-MP3[dot]org, used to rip MP3s from Youtube videos and provided the ripped MP3s for download via their website. This type of cease and desist notices happen all the time; so you may be wondering what is so special about this website particular website that we are writing about it. Well, we aren’t so sure ourselves; all we know is a blog post by TorrentFreak (which claims to have seen the letter from Google) brought this issue into the public domain (no pun intended) and has since spread like wildfire.

In any case, Google has banned the server of YouTube-MP3[dot]org from accessing Youtube, thus stopping any ‘further ripping’ by the website.

Google has always been a supporter of free content culture and has stood against Internet censorship (for the most part, any way). But Google also has to keep their good relation with the premium section of the media to keep themselves in the top position when it comes to talking about ‘Internet’. This move may well be Google succumbing to Big Entertainment’s pressure:

The top four record companies have pressured YouTube for many months to do more to thwart the scores of MP3 conversion services. In December, the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group representing the top record labels, noted the problem with these sites in a “report card” it issued on how well Google protects copyrighted material online.

Also, the RIAA wrote: “YouTube hosts videos explaining how to ‘game’ the Content ID system, and how to rip the audio content to create an MP3 file from a music video.”

As said above, while clearly this ain’t a lone case, as a user of the Internet, everyone needs to be aware of what they are involved in and what their actions imply when they download an MP3 from sites such as YouTube-MP3[dot]org.

[via CNET]