But to respond to OP, IANAL but I think that you might have folded too easily. But it's understandable that you probably want to avoid a lawsuit at any cost.
How can you know what a DMCA Takedown is and not understand how Google can operate?
The DMCA gives you a "safe harbor" from accidental copyright infringement. But once you know it's copyrighted you have to take it down. AKA, the DMCA notice.
The DMCA won't protect you from knowingly linked to copyrighted material and waiting until someone sends a letter. That's how Megaupload is getting pwnd.
Maybe I know how it works. Maybe I said that to highlight exactly what you are talking about and to underscore the fact that he did not have to shutdown his service if he was compliant with DMCA takedowns, just like Google.
His app store page had a screenshot of his app playing a Madonna song...
"Finally, the service provider must not have knowledge that the material or activity is infringing or of the fact that the infringing material exists on its network. [512(c)(1)(A)], [512(d)(1)(A)]. If it does discover such material before being contacted by the copyright owners, it is instructed to remove, or disable access to, the material itself. [512(c)(1)(A)(iii)], [512(d)(1)(C)]. "
There should be Anon Legal spamming these services with tons of links to real sites supported by RIAA as to make searching for any legal music useless through google. Because google complies with RIAA, an effort should be made to make for google to have it be too expensive to verify said claims and/or RIAA suffer from same tactics they employ.
I'm aware of that. That still implies that at some point Google linked to illegal material yet when requested, they removed it. Presumably HypedMusic could have had a similar deal.
Yes, a provider can follow the DMCA safe harbor procedures to facilitate the filing of DMCA takedown notices, and comply with those promptly. The details are outlined here: http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi
Basically, a provider needs to provide contact information for a designated agent for DMCA takedown notices. Had Luke done so, and complied with legal DMCA takedown requests (as well as counter-notifications), he could have continued operating his service; however, that may have become considerably more work than he wanted to put into running the service.
But to respond to OP, IANAL but I think that you might have folded too easily. But it's understandable that you probably want to avoid a lawsuit at any cost.
Also, you might want to check this out
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi#QID862
and google around for 'wrongful dmca takedowns'.