Kazaa to Sue Movie, Record Companies

darwin writes "According to a (brief) story at yahoo, Sherman Networks (A.K.A Kazaa) just got the go ahead to sue the studios and record companies for copyright infringement. 'Studios and record companies had asked the court to throw out Sharman's countersuit, but U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles declined to do so.'"

Comments

They'll never win...

[Rockenreno]

but bravo to Sharman Networks for making they effort!

Re:They'll never win...

[igrp]

Well, actually, at this point the issue is not whether Sherman Networks has a case at all.

The defendants merely asked the judge to throw the case out on the basis of the allegations set forth in the counterclaim being "too vague".

Think of it of a text book pre-trail motion; it doesn't really have anything to do with the material case at hand. Plus, the lawsuit is going to get (at least partly) suspended until all the appeals of the Grokster case are sorted out. At least, Judge Wilson doesn't seem to a man who bows down to pressure.

Re:I dont get why it's "copyright infringement".

[corebreech]

I thought it was because the recording studios violated the license Kazaa is distributed under, which I guess counts as a copyright violation.

I wish them the best of luck.

Re:Uh?

[MoonBuggy]

What copyrights has Sherman violated?

The *IAA, however, are threatening people based on their IP addresses, and I believe you can't get confirmed IPs from Kazaa without using a DMCA breaking modified version (all IIRC, I don't personally use Kazaa).

Re:I dont get why it's "copyright infringement".

[Tim C]

The article is extremely light on details, but I can think of one way in which they may be able to sue for copyright infringement.

*If* the Kazaa licence explicitly forbids using it for such purposes, then the RIAA's agents are in violation of the licence agreement. That means that, as I understand copyright law, they have no right to have even installed the software, and so are infringing on Sharman Network's copyright.

They use p2p just as much as any of us....

[storl]

I remember reading an article recently (Wired maybe?) about a company that sells download statistics to record companies and radio broadcasters all over the world. They have software that monitors p2p networks, tracks what people are downloading, determines what general area of the country a person is in (by IP, guess) and puts all this in a nice fat database.

Who cares, right? Well, the music companies are paying these guys for the statistics. The very people that are suing kazaa and their ilk for a piece of software that supposedly only has the major function of piracy are using the same software for a very legitimate and profitable purpose. They love to know that some new song that is the number one download in Omaha isn't even being touched by the radio stations and should thus be put into heavy rotation. When asked about using such data, the radio stations and record companies of course vehemently deny any such affiliation.

I'm really curious as to whether or not kazaa's suit includes any information on this usage to help them along...

It's a EULA case...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Kazaa loses, wouldn't it be funny if this case establishes that the terms of EULAs are worthless and unenforceable?

Custom Versions of Kazaa designed by Bay TSP

[Mal Reynolds]

I suspect they're accusing the recording and movie industry of doing (effectively) what the Kazaa light group did. Making custom version of the Kazaa client to suit their own needs. It's a clear violation of the DMCA and of Kazaa's copyrights.
The RIAA and MPAA have employed very secretive companies like Bay TSP to develop systems designed to disrupt the P2P networks. Bay TSP has apparently authored specialized version of the Kazaa client to do just this. Which of course, because of the DMCA, is an act of illegal reverse engineering. In addition, this work had the clear intention of disrupting a network, a probable criminal violation.
There are probably a number of cyber crime laws that Bay TSP regularly violates as well. Because what Bay TSP is doing for the RIAA and MPAA is nothing more than serving as a paid vigilante.
While it is the duty of the RIAA and MPAA to report instances of copyright violation to law enforcement, they have gone far beyond that. They're now actively subverting the computer systems of those they assume to be guilty. There is no trial, there isn't even any official accusation. They are their own judge, jury and executioner. This is why vigilantism is illegal in most forms, just as it is in this one.
And if this means Bay TSP and their ilk are knocked down a notch and forced to act within the law, I applaud Kazaa for this action.

Re:I dont get why it's "copyright infringement".

[Walkiry]

Ooooh, does that mean the EULA practice is going to be challenged in court? This should be interesting.

You know, I was wondering about this...

[Grym]

This was, in fact, going to a question to Slashdot. But here goes anyway:

The FastTrack network (KaZaa), supports multisourced downloading. This cannot be changed in the settings. So, here's the problem: When the RIAA goes to court, how are they proving that the downloads haven't been multisourced from different people? Because if they are, at worst they're only proving that the client had SOME of A FILE which happened to come together into the song in the end. For instance, let's say I had a song that began as a sample from an RIAA-copyrighted song but then broke into a song that I created. If they're using multiple sources, how can they prove that the song they have isn't the beginning of their song with a middle and end that belong to me?

But what if, to avoid the above legal problem, the RIAA made their own client that did not support multisourced downloads, which is what I believe they have done. Wouldn't this require them to reverse-engineer the KaZaa client, and wouldn't THAT put them in violation of the DMCA AND general software copyright law since they are using it to make a profit?

What's more, I'm interested in how they are proving how many songs somebody is hosting. Are they, for instance, downloading one MD5-hashed song and then using the shared list to infer that the rest are legitimate RIAA-copyrighted songs? Or are they downloading every song and then comparing the MD5-hashes? And if the latter is the case, can it be implemented in the peer-to-peer protocols to keep individual users from uploading to the same people? That way, any lawsuit could be limited to say 5 songs or so?

What do you guys think?

-Grym

Illegal activities still have certain protections

[ScooterBill]

I've always thought it was funny that the government can tax illegal gambling winnings. It just means that two wrongs don't make a right. In this case, despite the fact that there was illegal traffic in copyrighted materials, doesnt' waive the right to all other protections under the law. Otherwise, why didnt' the RIAA storm into Sharman's office and take baseball bats to them.

M

Re:I dont get why it's "copyright infringement".

[xigxag]

You don't say who wrote that article, but it's totally incorrect.

Think about it. My company buys a hacked copy of MS Office 2003 from a company called MyCrowsOffed for 5 bucks, and we install it on 200 computers. Meanwhile MyCrowsOffed goes out of business.

Microsoft finds out and wants to sue us. Under what grounds? Can't be license violation, because we didn't agree to any license, we bought de-licensed hackware from a defunct company.

So does that mean I get to install and use illegal software without penalties? I didn't write it, so I can't be blamed? Cool.

Well, no. So obviously the quoted article is wrong.