[MichaelGG]

What if I've never heard of Madonna? Does the law actually encode some sort of pop-knowledge into itself? If I see a screenshot of an apparently home-made video am I supposed to think "small band that probably intentionally released this video to get more attention = OK" or "probably a filter added by a popular band that doesn't need more attention = Remove"?

This is ignoring jurisdiction, too. IIRC, AllOfMp3 operated for a while since in Russia they could buy a blanket copyright licensed and successfully used that to legally make sales until Visa illegally turned off payment and finally the Russian government got them to acquiesce. Yet the site was legal, despite everyone else accusing it of infringement.

Edit: Also, yes, perhaps the law is saying "well if you really knew" and leaving it to the courts. But there's also cases of where Viacom uploaded content, then sued over it, not knowing they themselves had uploaded (and hence licensed it) to YouTube.

[URSpider94]

What if I've never heard of Madonna? Does the law actually encode some sort of pop-knowledge into itself?

No, but the fact that the site owner is using these screenshots to advertise his service obligates him to do due diligence on the copyright status of those tracks. Coincidentally picking one of the most popular artists of the last quarter-century to promote your site rings a little hollow.

Your jurisdictional argument also doesn't hold water. First of all, the site owner was operating in the USA, so he's bound by US law. Second, buying a "blanket copyright" in Russia doesn't confer rights to sell content in other countries.

[perlpimp]

If someone buys content from russia they are dealing with russian entitiy not with US one. Given that he can probably shore up some sort of company and do business through that via appointed trustee.

[anigbrowl]

What if I've never heard of Madonna? Does the law actually encode some sort of pop-knowledge into itself?

A reasonable* person would have heard of Madonna and would respond to such evidence of infringement in a timely fashion.

* The definition of 'a reasonable person' is a vexed one. While it's popularly understood to mean something like 'a regular Joe/Jill,' and that's good enough for many purposes, it might be more helpful to think of it as 'someone whose behavior could be reasoned ahead of time by a third party.' So if you're running a site dedicated to music, and given that Madonna is one of the most famous music performers in the world, it's logical (reasonable) to assume you would know who she is. OTOH if you were running some antiquarian maps hosting site and someone uploaded a Madonna video there, you might be excused for not appreciating the significance of same in any action for damages.

/NAL

[Guvante]

> The second major component is that you not operate your service with direct knowledge of infringement.

By advertising he is kind of making your argument invalid. "This is the kind of music you can get" should involve some level of analysis to ensure you aren't accidentally listing copyrighted content if you truly want to live under the safe harbor laws.

For instance Youtube makes a best effort in all of its advertising to only show content that is legitimate. If some gets through that is fine, but you should at least spend a bit of time making sure you aren't accidently listing a well known band.