Kazaa Offices Raided

rj writes "ZDNet Australia is reporting the Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) this morning raided the offices of Kazaa owners, Sharman Networks, along with P2P company Brilliant Digital Entertainment, and the homes of key executives. Background on prosecution of copyright music in Australia over P2P is also available."

Comments

third of nine

[thirdofnine]

Channel Nine in Sydney reported that they also raided Telstra Head Office, Monash University and the University of NSW, all for file trading.

Third of Nine

Anton Pillar orders explained.

[ratzmilk]

We have Anton Pillar orders here in Oz because we are part of the British Commonwealth and the Queen of England is our Head of Start, and one of their (our) Lords made the follow ruling.

In Anton Piller K.G. v. Manufacturing Processes Ltd., [1976] 1 All E.R. 779 at 782 Lord Denning stated:

"Let me say at once that no court in this land has any power to issue a search warrant to enter a man's house so as to see if there are papers or documents there which are of an incriminating nature, whether libels or infringements of copyright or anything else of the kind. No constable or bailiff can knock at the door and demand entry so as to inspect papers or documents. The householder can shut the door in his face and say, 'Get out.' That was established in the leading case of Entick v. Carrington (1765), 19 State Tr. 1029. None of us would wish to whittle down that principle in the slightest. But the order sought in this case is not a search warrant. It does not authorize the plaintiff's solicitors or anyone else to enter the defendants' premises against their will. Id does not authorize the breading down of any doors, nor the slipping in by a back door, nor getting in by an open door or window. It only authorizes entry and inspection by the permission of the defendants. The plaintiff's must get the defendants' permission. But it does do this: it brings pressure on the defendants to give permission. It does more. It actually orders them to give permission - with, I suppose, the result that if they do not give permission they are guilty of contempt of court."

As you can see, you can if you so chose deny access, but you had better have a pretty good reason.

Australian law allows police to search

[donscarletti]

IANAL however my parents are Australian lawyers (in the states of New South Wales and Victoria, not Queensland) so I aksed them.

Australian law allows a warrant to be issued providing that a Justice of the Peace has been convinced that there is reasonable grounds for suspecting that there is evidence of a crime on the premises.

I don't know how this compares with the US justice system and whether this was only granted by the patriot act (I doubt it). This has been the case for many years.

This is an invetigation of kazaa and it is reasonable that police be able to investigate suspected crimes wherever the evidence may be, otherwise criminals could conceal evidence in their homes and be totally immune to investigation.

Not the first time and it's getting worse

[villoks]

Well,

This has happened before in the USA and other countries, too. For example Cult of Scientology used to be famous for its raids to the critics' homes (Zenon's case,other cases

The situation is also getting worse in Europe, because the upcoming IPR enforcement directive will greatly strenghen Anton Pillar orders in all member states (unless we will manage to mount enough public pressure to stop the process, which is unlikely but not totally impossible - contact your MEPS today!)

V.

Re:Not likely

[0x0d0a]

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't the Kazaa network designed so that it doesn't rely on a central server? In that case, even if the company disappears, the network should still be around as long as people are wanting to use it to trade music.

You are correct, but your conclusion is not (and it's not your fault, either -- it's good ol' politics and business obscuring good clean engineering).

Kazaa operates in a fairly decentralized manner. At one point, the FastTrack network (what Kazaa uses internally) was open. However, the protocol was reverse engineered (by the GiFT project members and others), and third party clients started popping up. The FastTrack folks sold licenses to use their network -- plus, the use of an open protocol was detrimental to the client vendors, like Kazaa, as it meant that users could choose a (nicer) spyware-free client. The protocol was modified to contain an authentication system that *is* centralized. If Kazaa (the company) won't authorize you, you can't use the network.

The addition of the authentication system was a huge step back from an engineering standpoint, but a huge jump forward from a business one -- it make Kazaa very lucrative.