The brothers who operate South Korea’s most popular music-swapping Website were held not responsible for copyright violations committed by site users who swap pre-recorded music, in a verdict similar to American courts’ rulings involving peer-to-peer giants Grokster and Morpheus.
Soribada operators Jung-Hwan Yang and Il-Hwan Yang were indicted four years ago on charges of helping and facilitating copyright infringement, which could have meant five years in prison under South Korean law if the brothers had been convicted.
But a Seoul Central District Court appeals panel ruled January 12 that the Yangs should not be held responsible for what Soribada (“sea of sound” in the Korean language) users swapped.
The brothers held throughout the case that Soribada merely provided private communications channels and that they couldn’t control or monitor all their users’ activities. A lower court had held likewise in 2003, ruling the Yangs’ prosecutors didn’t show adequately that any crime had been committed or that the brothers themselves violated copyright laws.
