Judge: eBay Not Liable for Bootlegs

In a ruling late Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Stuart Pollak in San Francisco County dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Grateful Dead fan who sought to stop sales of illegal concert recordings of the band. ``The suit argued that no legitimate brick-and-mortor auction house or no legitimate brick-and-mortor record store could sell infringing sound recordings to the extent that these are being sold on eBay and get away with it,'' said Charles Perkins, the lawyer for plaintiff Randall Stoner. The litigation did not focus on copyright infringement as has the Napster Inc. case. In that suit, the recording industry is suing Napster in federal court for allegedly contributing to copyright infringement by allowing millions of users to download copyrighted music over the Internet for free. In dismissing the suit, Pollak said he based his ruling on the Communications Decency Act, which forbids computer service providers for being punished for the speech of others.