In an effort to defend the legal basis of cloud computing, Google on Wednesday asked a New York court for permission to file an amicus curiae, or friend-of-the-court brief, in a record industry lawsuit against ReDigi, an online market that facilitates the resale of digital music files.
A letter from the law firm representing Google, Fenwick & West, warns against granting the preliminary injunction requested by plaintiff Capitol Records. “A premature decision on incomplete facts could create unintended uncertainties for the cloud computing industry,” the letter states.
The court, however, denied Google’s request, on the basis that the parties in the lawsuit should be able to address the issues without assistance.
ReDigi describes itself as a used record store for digital music. It offers consumers a way to buy and sell pre-owned digital songs.
Record companies don’t like this idea because they assume people purporting to sell digital songs are actually just making copies, in violation of copyright law. Capitol Records sued ReDigi last month for copyright infringement, alleging just that.
