Court Docs Reveal Kazaa Logging User Downloads

Dan Warne writes "The most explosive documents in the ongoing Kazaa court case have emerged today, including logs of discussions between parent company Sharman and the Estonian developer of the Kazaa Media Desktop. They include extraordinary admissions like: "Reporting will make Kazaa look like spyware, as soon as it becomes evident we record downloads and playbacks, users will flee to competitive networks" and then "One can argue that we have knowledge of copyrighted material being downloaded in our network and have to install filters. If we are reporting [gold] files, then technically we could do the same for every file." Finally, "RIAA [could] collect the IP addresses for everyone who has searched for or downloaded that file." Despite the Kazaa developer's concerns over these issues, Kazaa went ahead with the logging." (More below.)

Warne continues "APC Magazine journalist Garth Montgomery, who has covered every day of the trial in the Australian Federal Court, says: "In a nutshell, this has got to rate as the most explosive document revealed. It makes it damn near impossible to maintain the separation theory that Sharman and Altnet rely on in terms of business independence and technical infrastructure. The control they exercise over the system is complete." Montgomery has also scanned in all the documents and made them available in PDF format, including the confidential Kazaa purchase contract and technical specifications for the Kazaa Media Desktop."

Comments

Re:Once again...

[laughingcoyote]

Piratebay is hardly private, although I think your response is a bit of a troll-if they were doing that, they'd hardly have any users left, not to mention they'd be on PG's blacklist by now.

Evidence of what you're claiming aside, though, I've never used piratebay, although I have had a look at their legal correspondence. The site I use has, to my knowledge, not had its url posted here, and I'm not going to change that today.

A good private tracker, registration and ratio required, is a good degree of protection. I've never gotten -one- hit against my protowall while using those torrents.

Stop the Bullshit Now

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had enough of /. lately, whats with the unchecked facts? I know it's claimed that its up to the users in comments to identify this, but when the site constantly posts such trashy and unsubstantiated nonsenese it's hard to keep the faith.

For example, they're not actually logging file downloads, nor what you do. All they acknowledged is that they do this for Altnet, which you must have figured out (How can you buy a file from Altnet without the owner knowing about it?), and that they could potentially do this for Kazaa if they were so inclined and able:-

"Pritt: Posting stats to to 3rd party servers...."

it starts. But then, the fact of the matter follows:-

"Of course we won't know about downloads and playbacks of non-signed content, but it doesn't make a difference because:-

1) It's hard to communicate this to lawyers and users.
2) If we are reporting signed files [Ed: Altnet] then technically we can do the same for any file."

See for yourself, http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/2F22997D6933B15 ECA256FA1000FB45F/$FILE/TopSearch%20specifications .pdf

Bottom of page 4.

In other words, they only logged what they said they would in the user agreement, but they didn't broadcast it because people who don't check their fucking facts will post it on large public forums for debate, and immediately leap to all the wrong conclusions.

It's not the dynamite people think it is. All it shows is that they can log, it means that the next few moves are foretold:-

1) The argument will be made that they can log, and therefore are complicity.

2) The counter-argument will be that logging on
such a scale is an invasion of privacy, illegal and out of the scope of the user agreement.

3) The argument will be made that the agreed upon logs with the users can be used as evidence against P2P users. It's not a serious logistical blow, but will be the *real* credibility damage Kazaa will face.

The endgame is either a Kazaa concession to log all activity, another sale to a different country or just a block on un-authorized files through a deliberately dis-incentivised weak version of Kazaa noone will want, and the winding down of the network will play to the Napster tune.

Re:Once again...

[cpt kangarooski]

Entrapment is far more limited than people normally think. Basically it's where you're enticed to do something you would otherwise not have done, as opposed to merely being given an opportunity to do something you would've done elsewhere anyway.

The first example that springs to mind is the Space Madness episode of Ren and Stimpy. Stimpy would normally never press the History Eraser Button, but when he's not only deliberately put in proximity to it, and the narrator keeps pushing his face in it, that's basically how much effort is needed for something to be entrapment.

Just being undercover -- that's not entrapment.

You could probably google for a discussion of the issue with some good case cites or something.