Google and Amazon could well be allowed to run their music locker cloud service without having to seek permission from record labels as the judge in the mp3tunes case puts the responsibility in users’ hands instead of the site’s operators’.

mp3tunes was found to infringe only on songs that it new were pirated but did not remove following a notice.

the DMCA imposes no obligation to investigate potentially infringing activity absent a specific complaint from copyright holders. The only exception is links to sites with URLs containing “red flag” words like “pirate” or “bootleg.

The quoted paragraph above means that without a specific notice from copyright holders, a site’s operator has no obligation to voluntarily check whether files stored in its servers are infringing on copyrights.

MP3tunes ruling opens the door for online music lockers