A German music search engine which worked a little bit like (and utilised the infrastructure of) previously reported US music search service Seeqpod has gone offline after being served with legal papers by Warner Music.
Songbeat tapped into various other music search services to find MP3s online, and then provided an app to let users more easily stream and download those audio files. The free app restricted how many songs could be downloaded, but for 20 euros you could download an unlimited number of tracks.
As EMI joined Warner in suing Seeqpod last week, Warner kick started the expected litigation spree against Songbeat by filing its legal papers. Songbeat went offline, but posted a message that read: "So we have sent Songbeat away to enter the 36 Shaolin Chambers of Software Kung Fu. Once it has finished its training it will be back and better than ever".
According to TechCrunch, Songbeat's creators say they will appeal any judgement against them should the courts side with Warner when they consider their case later this week. If that fails they say they will relocate the service to another jurisdiction and restart from there. Which sounds like fun.