That landmark court decision in the Netherlands over the legality of an MP3 search engine is being called into question over allegations that two of the judges hearing the case hold undisclosed positions in music associations which may have affected their impartiality.
As previously reported, the Dutch appeals court recently overturned a lower court decision regarding a search engine that provided 'deep links' to illegitimate sources of online music. The lower courts ruled that zoekmp3.nl could not be held liable for copyright violation because they did not host illegal content on their own servers, but the appeals court ruled that simply linking to such music held on other servers was sufficient to be liable for such violation. The ruling was important because a common defence for sites that provide links to illegal sources of music is that they cannot be held liable because they do not actually host the illegal content.
However, some in the IT press are now questioning the legitimacy of that decision after it was revealed that one of the judges who heard the case is a member of an international umbrella group that includes the Dutch Association Of Phonogram And Videogram Producers, a key body behind the anti-piracy group that pursued the case against zoekmp3.nl. Meanwhile the Vice President of the court is a member of a Dutch fund that supports professional musicians.
With questions now being asked about the legitimacy of the ruling in the press it remains to be seen if zoekmp3.nl use the allegations to appeal the court's decision.