Facebook, wanting to steer clear of the legal wrath of the Viacoms and News Corps. of the music world, shut down a program called Facebook Audio, which enabled members to trade music files. Audio
allowed users to upload music playlists that friends could listen to on a streaming basis, but not download. The free product was not licensed from music labels and publishers. Analysts said it was
only a matter of time before Audio lead to more litigation headaches for Facebook.
Indeed, Facebook's legal woes are mounting. The social network is currently being sued by former
classmates of Mark Zuckerberg, who claim that he stole the idea for Facebook from ConnectU, a college-age social network created before Facebook. Like MySpace, the company has also come under federal
scrutiny for the existence of known sex offenders on the site, which is frequented by high school and university students.
Following the decision to pull Audio, Facebook updated the terms
of service for its platform, imposing stricter rules on how it's used by developers. Even so, the Associated Press and others say social networks like Facebook facilitate the discovery of music and
music-sharing platforms, which often leads to piracy.
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