The new open platform from Facebook as opened up a number of legal issues that has drawn the baleful eye of RIAA and other anti-piracy groups. The center of the controversy is a user supplied index of songs using the Audio service that was written by someone else using the Facebook API. Of course, it also happens to be wildly popular.

At issue is whether Audio is violating the law. Warner, Atlantic, Elektra and other record labels recently sued imeem (court filing here), claiming that it knew full-well it was infringing on copyrighted material by offering users the “opportunity to share popular music and music videos for free.” Facebook is not commenting on changes to its terms of service, nor on any copyright issues. Source: Venture Beat

While Audio is back on line, it is easy to view the source of the HTML page and directly download the MP3 track, which in turns means that it is no longer covered by the security of the website.

Of course people are starting to ask if Facebook is playing DMCA games, providing safe harbor provisions, then off to the races again with the audio plug in for Facebook. This one will be interesting to watch and see how it plays out in the longer run. Right now though, it should be ok for audio to keep on going for the moment, but they may find themselves not covered by Facebook’s provision in the future. Meaning a wildly popular music plug in will go away.