Using Kazaa? You've Got Bills!

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28286.html

 

The Danish Anti Pirat Gruppen (Anti Piracy Group) has issued invoices of up to $14,000 apiece to approximately 150 users of KaZaA and eDonkey for illegally downloading copyright material.

 

APG monitored the file sharing networks for available files with Danish IP addresses - and went to court to get the users' personal details from their ISPs, armed with screen shots of, for example, the KaZaA window showing the files on the user's hard-drive. The courts obliged and ordered the ISPs to deliver the personal details of the incriminated users. Then the bills were in the post ... landing on the mats of the unfortunate downloaders over the last few days.

 

The users are charged about $16 per CD and about $60 per full length movie. If they pay now - and delete the illegal content from their hard drives - then the amount is cut in half and they avoid going to court. Those who don't pay up are to be sued.

 

Question is: if the APG has only the file names from KaZaA or eDonkey - how can it make sure that they really are illegal files and not only "similar named files" or hoax files? Can APG prove that is the work of a certain user in a household - or will it go for the entire family?

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

Wow... that's right fucked up there.

 

[Guest Downhome]

Who's to say they didn't buy the stuff and put it on their computer? I'm just saying, ya know?

[Guest Eagan469]

get KaZaA Lite:

http://www.kazaalite.com

[Guest razazteca]

Big Brother can still track IP addresses so using K-Lite will not help much.

[Guest EricMM]

what if you buy the CD?

[Guest TJH]

I'll see them in court.

[Guest Downhome]

what if you buy the CD?

Now that I think about it, it doesn't matter if you own the CD, or anything like that. They look at it like this...

 

...if you have it available for others to download, then it is just like you stealing actual CDs and the such, and just giving them to other people for free.

 

They don't want ANY sharing, period. It's not so much your having it, just your sharing it.

[Guest MrRant]

Big Brother can still track IP addresses so using K-Lite will not help much.

Use a proxy.

[Guest J*ingus]

But it's only a problem in Denmark (for now), right?

[Guest Eagan469]

But it's only a problem in Denmark (for now), right?

File swapping in the legal crosshairs

 

 

By John Borland

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

December 2, 2002, 4:00 AM PT

 

 

A federal court on Monday will hear arguments that could derail Hollywood and record labels' lawsuit against popular file-swapping companies--or result in an order to shut them down.

The hearing could be the most critical legal skirmish since the closure of Napster, focusing on the Morpheus and Grokster file-swapping networks, and potentially affecting the more popular Kazaa network as well.

 

Attorneys for movie studios and record labels are asking that their copyright lawsuit against the file-swapping companies be brought to a near-immediate close, and the companies found guilty of massive copyright infringement. The file-trading companies are asking that the case be dismissed and that they be allowed to distribute their software unmolested.

 

 

 

If the judge grants none of Monday's motions for "summary judgment" and the case does go to trial, it will be the first time that any of the peer-to-peer companies have progressed that far in the legal proceedings. In the case of Napster and Madster--formerly known as Aimster--a judge granted preliminary injunctions ordering the companies to block copyrighted music trades, and the companies each fell into bankruptcy before a full trial could be held. Madster is still fighting its injunction, while Napster has sold its assets in a bankruptcy auction.

 

"It's a very critical" part of the case, said Charles Baker, a Brobeck Phleger & Harrison attorney representing Streamcast Networks, which distributes the Morpheus file-swapping software. "Either somebody will win and somebody will lose, or both sides will lose and we'll have a trial."

 

Any outcome will help shape the future of the file-trading world. The copyright holders' case against Streamcast, Grokster and the successive parent companies of the Kazaa software is widely viewed as potentially even more influential than the suit against the now-defunct Napster, and a full trial could be an important legal milestone for the technology community.

 

All three services distribute file-swapping software without maintaining the same kind of centralized directory server that Napster, Madster and other previous legal targets had. Connections between people for the purpose of trading songs, movies, software or anything else are made without the intervention of the companies themselves. Supporters say that gives them a better shot at proving they are simply software distributors and are not liable for the copyright infringement of the people who use the software.

 

The copyright holders say that the technical differences between Napster and these newer, more decentralized software programs are irrelevant. All of the services are aware of the copyright infringement and have built their businesses around its existence and should therefore be held responsible, the plaintiffs say.

 

The file-swapping companies' "systems were designed and intended first to emulate Napster and then to surpass it," attorneys for the studios and record labels wrote in their latest legal filing. They "have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams."

 

Indeed, interest in the file-swapping software remains high. According to Download.com, a software aggregation site operated by CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, Morpheus was downloaded nearly 400,000 times in the last week, while Grokster saw more than 112,000 downloads.

 

Kazaa, which is not part of Monday's hearing, remains the most popular, with more than 3.4 million downloads last week. The copyright holders are seeking to add Kazaa parent Streamcast Networks to the Morpheus and Grokster case, but a judge has not yet made a final ruling on that company's status.

 

Should the copyright holders succeed in persuading the judge to order the companies to block trades of copyrighted works or to shut down their networks altogether, it's still far from clear how this could be implemented.

 

Grokster and Kazaa both function using proprietary software called FastTrack, which in theory can operate even if the company distributing the software disappears. However, an incident early in the year that simultaneously disconnected all Morpheus users--who were then running their own variation of FastTrack--raised the possibility that the network could somehow be disabled from the inside.

 

Today's Morpheus would be even harder to shut down. It's now based on the open-source Gnutella technology, which creates networks that operate wholly independently of the various companies that produce Gnutella-based software.

 

The hearing will be held in Los Angeles federal court, in front of Judge Stephen Wilson, at 1:30 p.m. PST on Monday.

[Guest RobJohnstone]

ha, I remeber when the whole napster thing went down, my friend got a letter saying he owed some amount of money for downloading some dr. dre songs. He ignored it and never heard from them again. They shouldn't even waste their time it's impossible to stop file sharing online, the only way would be to have some sort of internet police watching our every move, oh wait, they just passed that bill

 

--Rob