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Kazaa Offices Raided

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the detonate-frankfurter-adversary-hub-retaliate dept.

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."

17 of 787 comments (clear)

  1. Legal? by s0rbix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How is Kazaa to blame for the transfer of pirated media across its networks? Should we shutdown the alleys because people sell drugs there? Ridiculous. I hope the MIPI gets screwed in the courts for this one.

    1. Re:Legal? by TechnoWeeniePas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Dont forget about the porn...Kazaa is great for sharing porn...not just music! Collage students and old people alike love porn!

    2. Re:Legal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The creators of the file sharing networks knew EXACTLY what they were doing. If the alley manufacturer included special features like locked boxes that drug pushers could stand in and pass drugs and money back and forth through small slots, then yes, there is liability on the part of the alley manufacturer.

      Kazaa (or at least Kazaa Lite) removed the ability to see what files an individual user had shared primarily to make it more difficult to quantify how much of a violator someone was...

    3. Re:Legal? by pirhana · · Score: 5, Interesting

      >> Well, if 99% of alleys were filled with drug pushers, and 99% of the people who used the alleys were drug pushers, then yes, i'd be supporting shutting down alleys.

      Let me ask you something. If 98% of alleys were filled with drug, what would be your response? what if its still down to 50 or 40% ? Who set this limit ? Any technology is abused with varying degree. Even google is misused heavily. That doesn't mean that google should be shutdown. Any technology, if it has a legitimate use, should be allowed. The danger is that if Kazaa is shutdown because 99% of people use it for copyright infringment, tomorrow same logic would be applied for something with 90% copyright infringment and next day with something even lesser. So where will this end ? Last, this 99% crap itself is wrong. As far as I understand a substantial chunk of p2p network is used for porn sharing. So I dont think its anything even closer to 90%.

      --
      http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
    4. Re:Legal? by Gigs · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit."

      - Heinlein's Lifeline

    5. Re:Legal? by Sique · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What bad economics and planning would that be? Creating a product and then selling it? The only reason the entertainment industry is having trouble right now is because their product is easy to steal!

      Your argument falls somewhat short. The only reason that the entertainment industry exists in the first place is that it was expensive to start copying, but once you got it running, you could put out many copies very cheap.

      So when stuff like the printing press was invented and used, suddenly the burdensome path of copying books, music and other creative works by hand was obsolete. Once you had the work in your printing press, you could generate hundreds of copies. But the investition in the actual press, in generating the plates for printing and proofreading were expensive, so many artist couldn't afford that themselves. So they couldn't get their own work out to earn money, because they couldn't afford the initial costs necessary to start copying, thus forcing them to get other people to invest into them.

      Without legal protection of their work they didn't even had a chance to sell their work to the printing press operator, because all he needed was a single copy to create the printing plates. This put the artist out of the revenue stream for his own work. Many countries had regulations in place to stop this, mostly by forcing the artist to register his work with a royal office of Arts or something similar, and this office then protected the artist from illicit copies, but on the other hand the royal office now could censor the work by not allowing anyone to copy it or not accepting the work in the first place.

      Copyright (or Author's right according to the Berne Convention) was deviced to give the control of the work back to the author, who was still forced to sell rights to his work to printing press operators (because buying a printing press was still expensive). It took some time until Copyright was available to non-citizens. Charles Dickens for instance was never able to stop U.S. printers to sell his books, because U.S. Copyright law at this time was only protecting U.S. citizens. It wasn't until american authors themselves were trying to sell their works outside of U.S. (namely Samuel Langhorne Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain) until the U.S. agreed to protect non-citizen works in reverse for protection of U.S. works outside the U.S.

      The same situation came up with all developing countries which weren't very keen at protecting copyright from other countries until they had enough own works to protect abroad which made it worthwile to give protection to outlanders in exchange (think Japan in the early 20th century, Taiwan in the 70ies). This makes one wonder if it makes sense at all to force third world countries to enforce copyright at all. No one playing catchup in the last 150 years was protecting copyright until he reached a certain level himself ;)

      Back to the music industry. It has only one big selling point for artists: It can help to overcome the initial costs to spread the work and thus guaranteering a revenue stream back to the artist. There is no other actual unique service the music industry is providing to the artist. All other services could also be provided by a personal agent which gets a share of the revenue or a fixed salary or whatever.

      The music industry is also a service provider to the music listener: In an ideal world it helps the music listener to find music according to his taste and his purchasing power, preselect, finetune and in other ways improve the listening experience. Basicly it is acting as an agent between artist and listener.

      But both of those roles are loosing its importance to the music world. Copying costs near to nothing to nearly everyone, so the initial costs for an artist to spread the work is approaching zero. This makes the big selling point of music industry services to the artist void. All it has left is the additional services (connections, career counselling...), which could be bo

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  2. What this is about by eclectro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1) Message Sending. They want to scare file traders into thinking that nobody is beyond the long reach of music executi^H^H^H^H the law. Thus stopping supposed music swapping.

    2) They want to see if KAZAA/Sharman are keeping track of who the heavy users are. Thus KAZAA would know about illegal file trading, and be partly liable for copyright infringement.

    3) KAZAA/Sharman networks profit by looking the other way. However, if they are actively working to enhance "reliable sources" for file trading, that would look pretty bad.

    4) Any inter-office memos/emails relating to the above.

    It will be interesting to see exactly how private user's data really is. You would think that Sharman would (or should have) anticipated such a move by the recording industry.

    just my .02

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  3. Much scarrier than Patriot Act... by ElDooderino · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of all the subtle and not-so-subtle evils of the Patriot act, it is, at least to my knowledge, employed soley by the government/gov agencies.

    This situation in Australia seems not too dissimilar to SCO busting into Linus' house with presumeably armed gov. officials and confiscating everything.

    It's corporate terrorism.

  4. Why this is a "good" trend... by simrook · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm going to go out on a limb here and propose the following;

    RIAA/MIPI/"Recording Industry" has been conducting police raids in the United States out on the streets, handing out false tickets on false pretenses, etc... This began occuring over a month ago. Since then, they have lost key decisions in the courts, both in US and Europe, and things are looking bad for them. Now, they are beginning to conduct actual raids on property under obscure laws outside of the United States - obviously an intimidation tatic for those of us in the United States.

    Now... why is this good you ask?

    Because the day will come when an RIAA representative will knock at my university door and demand to see recipets for all my jazz mp3's (legally and educationaly obtained) I have laying around my harddrives. When this happens, hello Supreme Court.

    This series of events is giving us a very clear picture: The RIAA is a dying animal who is now lashing out in any means necessary. Non governmental agencies playing cops - be it here or austrilla - is a fundemental violation of human liberty - which is a value upheld by the UN and the World Court (which Austrilla is a member of). Not that this really matters since no one is going to do anything about it, at least right now.

    Later on, we are going to see events like these help us in a completely different court though - the court of public opinion. Isn't it easy to see a Dateline episode being made of this event? Isn't it easy to connect the dots and see that the RIAA and their chums are just doing this so the average American thinks that their home could be raided by Will Smith and his men in black protecting his copyright? Isn't it easy to see that the Average American would go apeshit if the RIAA actually tried to enter their house, and they later found out it was completely against the law?

    Let's return to the orignal question. Why is this good?

    Because the RIAA and every incarnation of it is pushing the very lines of human rights and freedoms that have been affirmed around the globe since the end of World War II.

    I have never seen America stand down in the face of a constitutional violation, never. Hell, even some of my republican friends acknowledge Roe v. Wade. Let the RIAA come and try to impose this scare tatic here in the USA. I fore one can't wait for this good thing to happen. Two days after they try to enter a house in the US (legally or illegaly) Scallia and Rehinquist will join forces and strike the RIAA back to the seventh circle of hell from which it spawned.

    Be happy with the RIAA's actions - it's a sign the end is near.

    - The Ever Defiant Simrook

    (p/s - All spelling errors are mine and mine alone.)

    --
    'Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it...
  5. Re:Huh. by BDyess · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The article says they used "an Anton Pilar order - which allows a copyright holder to enter a premises to search for and seize material that breaches copyright without alerting the target through court proceedings".

    Let's say they find signed confessions by each of the execs, saying they formed the company for the express purpose of allowing other people to breach copyrights. These confessions do not, themselves, breach any copyright laws. They would in fact be copyrighted by the execs themselves. Could those confessions be seized and used in court, under the Anton Pilar law?

    IANAL, but this seems like an abuse of an unrelated law to get law enforcement powers for free. I believe this was already tried by their US cousins.

    --Bill

  6. Want to stop this Australia? by Quizo69 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've started a political party which is currently looking for 500 members to get ourselves on the Federal ballot this upcoming election:

    www.neteffect.org.au

    If you want to have a representative in parliament who actually understands how this type of behaviour is a bad thing, and do something about it, then I recommend you visit our site and read through what we have to offer.

    It's time that we Aussies had a REAL "younger generation" to represent our views instead of a 42 year old "young-un"; someone who knows what a frag is, someone who cares about our online rights and someone who understands the pickle we're in regarding current copyright/patent laws.

    Oh, and someone (me of course) who's a regular Slashdot poster....

    At the very least have a look at our policies and forum - I think you'll find that we're very much aiming to be a real force for change in Australia.

    --

    Visceral Psyche Films

  7. Re:Huh. by Groote+Ka · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Apparently, they can do this.

    However, the article says that the "Anton pilar order" is there to enter a premises to seize material that infringes copyright.

    I don't think the police will find any material that infringes copyright in the Australian office of Sharman. I looks more like a fishing expedition and, most likely, a way to annoy Sharman. Pityfull people...

    But hey, Australia has said before they would copy US patent policy when the US would ask them to do so (US did, so Australia did what was aksed), as the US is the most important trade partner for Australia. The same might apply here.

    Background info:
    In Belgium and France, it's possible to enter premises as well to look for patent infringement, but the party who initiates the proceedings is *not* allowed to enter the premises! Only a bailiff and often an independent expert (patent attorney to neither party) and sometimes a police officer (called Saisie Contrefac,on). Could this be a deriverative of that?

  8. I wonder what information they took by hsoom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Michael Malone from iinet has posted on the whirlpool forums saying that iinet was one of the four ISPs raided and that no subscriber information was asked for. What were they after then? A rumour I read is that some RIAA infringement notices were returned with a kind 'go to hell' and the raids are in response to this.

    I know we give the Americans here on /. a hard time about their draconian laws and the RIAA acting like thugs. I have to say that I'm sad to see this sort of thing going on in my own country.

  9. Goodie, goodie, goodie! by Spock+the+Baptist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I finally have a post to respond to in which I can pontificate on the freedom of the press clause in the US Constitution.

    "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

    'Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press;...'

    I argue that the freedom of the press includes the right of any citizen, or group of citizens to own a press. At the time that the US Constitution was written the only means (i.e. technology) for communicating with a truly mass audience was the printing press.

    Historically, only the Crown had the *right* to own a press. The Crown might *permit* others to operate a press subject to prior restraint, but the Crown controlled the uses of all presses.

    In order to have freedom of the press individuals, or groups of individuals must necessarily be able to own, and/or have access to the technology that physically, and infrastructurely allows he/she/them to communicate with a mass audience.

    Thus, it must logically follow that the freedom of the press must include the right to own the means of communicating with a mass audience.

    New technology that provides the ability to communicate with a mass audience has historically, over time, been encompassed by the notion of the freedom of the press with regard to ownership.

    The music industry in trying to advance its copyright claims via the elimination of various channels through which copyrighted materials flow illegally. This runs afoul of the freedom of the press.' That is the notion that a technology which allows for the communication between a person, and a mass audience is covered by the freedom of the press. Ultimately, copyright claims must be superseded by the right of the individual to have at their disposal the means of communicating with a mass audience, i.e. 'freedom of the press.'

    --
    "Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
  10. Re:denial by Winkhorst · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Why is the air so thick with Anonymous Cowards reeling at the charges of fascism?"

    Because most fascists are anonymous cowards until they get enough of them together to feel secure. Then they have their little beerhall putsch and start terrorizing the weak and defenseless.

    The scary thing is, this isn't "government" by anything. It's a private entity given the right to force their way into your home because you MIGHT have something that belongs to them. These folks weren't elected by anyone except maybe the stockholders in an unopposed election. If I were Australian, I'd be jumping up and down asking who the hell gave corporations the right to act as a pseudo government. As a citizen of the world, I may just start jumping up and down anyway at the thought that the feared takeover by corporations has already begun. Does anyone here honestly think that Billy Boy wouldn't jump at the chance to run Amerika from his corporate office?

    --
    "Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
  11. Re:Huh. by ichimunki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A quick Google search seems to indicate that this Anton Pillar Order thing started in the UK, and has spread to at least Canada, Australia, Israel, and Trinidad & Tobago. These orders do, in fact, allow private citizens to enter another private citizen's domain (I have not yet determined whether there is any law enforcement oversight to guarantee that evidentiary chains are followed and that the scope of the order is not exceeded).

    Note that an Anton Pillar Order is a court order, so this is not just at the searcher's whim. However, prior to having one's premises searched, there is no opportunity for the searchee to lodge any sort of counter-claim, since their foreknowledge of the search is not required.

    Even the Howard Bermans and Fritz Hollingses of the United States haven't proposed laws this off-kilter. One wonders whether this type of law would pass "Due Process" scrutinity here-- obviously law enforcement doesn't need to notify the subject of an investigation or raid in advance. That's well-established. But do we have any precedent saying that a private citizen, even holding court order has the right to perform such an act pro se? Any lawyers, paralegals, or armchair legislators care to comment?

    --
    I do not have a signature
  12. Interesting Timing by kwandar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Its interesting that MIPI waited until just after the MGM v Grokster case to request and search.

    Probably my tinfoil hat, but I wonder if a failure to find anything would have been detrimental to the Appeals Court case? The RIAA attorney tried to push the point that Grokster were complicit in "trafficking in pirated goods", which the judge duly scolded them for, as abusive.

    The timing just seems a little funny?