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Kazaa's Australian Assets Frozen
sandstorming writes "Wired is reporting that Sharman Networks (the creators of Kazaa) and Altnet (which licenses technology to Kazaa) have had their assets frozen in the country of Australia. The verdict comes almost four months after the start of the trial prompted by five record company suits. The Australian federal court will convene on March 22nd for final oral submissions, and the verdict is expected several weeks later. Is this the beginning of the end for Kazaa?"
you should always keep your money in Swiss banks...
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Well, DUH! Just move to the next p2p software. Kazaa was shit anyway.
I'd say this is the end of the beginning of the end.
I mean even if they did win. They'd have to install alot of spyware to pay for all the court costs.
"I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?'"
--Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Don't balme to tools.
Karma: Bad. Calmer, good.
...for final oral submissions...
huhuhu.. he said "oral"... huhuhuhu...
Is this the beginning of the end for Kazaa?
The beginning of the end for Kazaa came when Cohen released the first Bit Torrent client. The program has gone dangerously downhill since then, with ever-increasing corrupted or misnamed files being uploaded by corporations, a smaller user base with a smaller variety of files, and increased fear by the public of getting sued for downloading illegal MP3s - not to mention slower download speeds and an adware-riddled client.
Hopefully this is closer to the end of the end for Kazaa.
Long live the new age of governance! Our wonderful Wild West internet is just becoming another government approved entity. Sharman sucks balls, but the idea that all the governments of the world are going to be able to reach out and touch the assets of any non-approved internet entities, means the age of innovation and information dissemination is over. Regulation of any behavior that threatens the status quo of any government on this planet will end what makes the internet great.
It looks like kazaa is going the same way as napster :(
In a few years time we'll see some DRM-infested music store that sells tracks for a dollar.
Cant osama get off his lazy ass and do something usefull (bomb those RIAA bastards out of existance)???
Lets be honest. The reason 99.999% of people use it is to rip off music and video. If it continued growing then there would be no new stuff to rip off.
And to the pirate toss pots who say they buy the stuff after they rip it off, I say you're talking shit.
All of this nonsence sets a bad precident.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Where can a person live to escape the influence of corporate america and its legal influence of politicians world wide... I move to australia and this crap happens with the free trade agreement, and now here in the UK on the front of the times there is a threat of prosecution for 'copyright infringement'. I am starting to understand the desire to see the end of my home country in some ways. Yes, I said it. I do not believe in the death of innocent people, but those innocent people have voted to perpetuate the lifestyles they cling to and that involves in many ways (oil, patents, etc) the erosion of other cultures value systems. No longer does morality play a role in the US (has it for some time?), but more it is what can we get and how can we get it. Make my shares climb and I do not care how you do it. Greed is a virus. UGH!!! For those who wish to vilify me for this sentiment, have at it.
Using BitTorrent doesn't make it "harder" for you to get caught than using KaZaa and whatnot. I deal with cease and desist letters involving BitTorrent files all day.
Like we really didn't see that one coming.
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Dont try to profit off of copyright infringement.
Until this took place, the industries really didnt notice, or care.. It just increased the market share in the long run.
If things had been kept 'free', with no commercial angle, there would have been no massive lasuits and attacks on our digital rights..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"oral submissions"...*best homer simpson giggle*
Since most of the music from the RIAA is imported from america why would the australian government try to stop people getting the music for free? and possibly increase the amount of money leaving the country to america to pay for music? even though we all know most people will just get it for free elsewhere or simply not bother getting it. Why are people so chronically against themselves these days? "support the industry" "support the economy" "give them your money they need it" they think walmart is a damn charity.
The creators of Kazaa? I think not. They are the current owners of Kazaa maybe, but it seems that a Swedish guy together with two Estonians created the application, while the P2P protocol came from Amsterdam. It was sold to Sharman Networks later on. The Australian software company then messed it up big time - but that is history (it seems).
Source: various articles on Google found by searching for "creators of kazaa".
I dont buy stuff because I do not have the money, I dont have the space for it and I can get it free so I do. Get over it, things will NEVER change.
IF we CAN we WILL. Im reducing my "paid" software regulary once they become viable alternatives, ie openoffice instead of Office, tbird instead of outlook and so on. I dont do that out of morality, I do that because I like those products. I still use pirated copies of VMware Photoshop etc because there are no other alternatives that suit my needs and I cannot afford them and I dont make money from them, TOUGH SHIT. BITE ME.
Anyway, this is like blaming Smith & Wesson for people shooting each other in the street.
"The trial primarily focused on the authorization of copyright infringement. Lawyers representing the music industry say Sharman can prevent the transfer of illegal material. It doesnt, it says, because the primary activity of Kazaa users is to infringe copyright."
This is interesting though - can you really tell the difference between "illegal" and "legal" material to be shared on P2P? Other than DRM, that is.
Don't blame the tools, blame the people who misuse them, right?
EFF used to suggest that downloaders get sued -- but as soon as those people get in trouble, it's all about "how dare these big mean companies sue music lovers".
Slippery, sloppy logic.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Wasn't Skype created by the same people? Will Skype be affected by this?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Does this mean that other, previously usable, networks will experience an influx of Kazaa-using idiots; resulting in a crapflood of corrupted/mislabelled/poorly tagged/shit quality files? :(
down there.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Its not 'corporate *america*' that is the problem.
Its corporations in general, *world wide*, who now have more power then small countries.
This of course doesnt mean governments are also an issue, but today it looks like the corporations are a much larger threat in general.
Dont blame the USA for a systemic world problem.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"...assets frozen in the country of Australia"
Australia is a country now?
I thought Australia was a penal colony of the British Empire. This is very disturbing news indeed.
I fear what will happen if this news spreads to other parts of the Empire. What if the barbarians of the American colonies want to govern themselves?
The mere thought almost makes me feel nauseous enough to skip high tea.
ISPs can't be forced to give up who used ISP address by corporations.
Kazaa has been a usless network for a long time. Its only saving grace is that the RIAA was obsessed with them. If Kazaa falls they will need a new target.
The wired story was written before the hearing...the court refused the petition from the RIAA...
I just took a walk outside, here in Canada, and my assets are frozen too!
I don't thik it would be possible to freeze my assets in Australia.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
You think the only freedom threatened here is the freedom to download what I shouldn't be? What about the freedom to download what is perfectly legal and I have every right to download? That freedom is going away too.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Kazaa's Australian Assets Frozen
- I'd have told them it was a bad idea to keep their money in a PayPal account, but they never thought to ask me I guess.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
- Sell DRM-free files direct from the record companies, cheaply because of minimal individual production costs (bandwidth instead of stamping and transporting a CD).
-
Sue everyone still stealing files.
The problem with Bittorrent at the moment, now that eXeem has fixed the centralisation problem (no torrent websites, because they can be shut down), is that it isn't anonymous. You need to know the IP address of other people in the torrent in order to connect to them, so even if the IP address is sent encrypted, the peer it is sent to could be a representative of the copyright-holder (e.g. the MPAA, the RIAA). A solution would be to route communications through an anonymous relay, but this causes a bandwidth problem. What is needed is for everyone (not just on that specific torrent, or indeed on any torrent) to act as anonymous relays. It would slow everything down by half, but would solve the anonymity problem. And bandwidth isn't a problem, or won't be. If someone did develop an anonymous P2P torrent system, then the RIAA and the MPAA wouldn't be able to sue anyone (as in Point 2). But they'd still have to do Point 1 in order to compete. (I wouldn't buy from them if there was no way I could be sued. But some people would.) In the same way, Encyclopædia Brittanica have had to release their content for free on their website and be advertising-supported. If they charge even a penny for it, people simply go to other web-based encyclopedias. Brittanica have to use their brand to get used. And it isn't much on the web compared to Wikipedia. They only get bought as a book by mad librarians who haven't caught up yet, and like to waste paper as libraries. Unfortunately, the represents a whole new phase of the "Tragedy of the Commons", where resources are not scarce (i.e. files can be copied infinitely), and the price mechanism ceases to operate as a throttle. Ultimately, if no one buys from record companies as soon as a track is available on the internet, anonymously and for free, the record companies won't have enough money to produce albums of the high standard we expect. I've been using PeerGuardian2 recently. It's alarming how often I get queried by companies keeping track of P2P users. 30 queries an hour, on various ports (P2P) that I don't use. Use it if you don't want to get sued.They don't put DRM on CDs, and it didn't damage CD sales.
What scares the industry is the lack of degeneration from copy to copy. They also don't like one copy providing thousands of duplicates.
When CD's came out ther was no such thing as a consumer CD burner. The only way to copy a CD was to copy it to tape. This is done one copy at a time. A one hour CD takes an hour to make a single copy (most people only had one cassette deck) and the copy was degenerated from the original. A copy of the copy is even worse. It's like getting a copy of a movie years ago that has been copied from VHS to VHS to VHS. Not a nice copy by any stretch.
Things have changed. Computers can now RIP a CD. That involves a one generation loss. After that a copy of a copy of a copy is the same as the original copy and is good enough. The RIAA hates that. If the file is posted, then one copy can make thousands all the same as the original with no loss. This is even worse for the RIAA.
They don't put DRM on CDs, and it didn't damage CD sales.
It didn't until everyone and their brother got a CD burner and blanks were $0.25 each. Be honest. Do you have a burnded copy of a friends CD? The first copy is like a tape copy. Now, did you get a copy of an original or a copy of a copy? There is the problem. Even worse, is the copy from KaZa? That's the worst offence to the RIAA. There is no DRM on CD's because at first the tools to rip them didn't exist. Neither did the tools for anyone to burn a CD.
The truth shall set you free!
These idiots are hurting some of my friends. It appears that school kids are now told they aren't allowed to download music since its "illegal" when its not. Its only illegal to download music when its authors didn't put it up. The result is that a great way to promote local bands is now being blocked by the the schools.
I would like to get a transcript of what is being said in this court room because I expect someone is not telling the whole truth.
- assylum seekers STILL in detention centers
(and - if their homelands won't take them
back - they can remain in detention for LIFE
- non-profits NOT required to show donors
how they use the money collected (eg,
how much they pay to fundraise)
- NO "better business bureau's here"
because people fear legal ramifications
- limits to damages claims in court
("to help keep down the cost of insurance")
- still under UK, ie not a republic
(Aussies pay heaps each year to house
& feed "governor generals" & travelling
British royalty, last week: Prince Chas)
- rather than train Aussies (eg make more
adult education or affordable uni places
available), the gov't prefers to IMPORT
trained foreign workers... most recently
discussing a Guest Worker scheme.
South Australia sucks worse:
- Lower SA Gov't salaries for teachers who
are "NOT EDUCATED HERE" (eg, those whose
degrees were earned in USA), due to some
-previous- examples of US-educated tea-
chers (from years ago? eg, during the
big teacher shortages...)
- In pubs, a "Smoke-Free bar" is one in
which you have to stay a meter from the
bar to smoke... Right... Too bad if you
are an asthsmatic for whom smoke is one
of your disease's triggers.
- Smoke-free gambling venues do not come
under "smoke-free in public areas" laws!
Because it's the only way to make obscene levels of profit from producing and distributing music now that consumers have cheap and easy access to duplication and distribution facilities.
If you want to know more about how the trial went, please check out apcmag.com's coverage. It's entertaining, descriptive and insightful. It covers each day of the Kazaa et al. trial. For some reason, links to the other 15 or so articles are missing from this URL (I'm certain they were there earlier). Just search for "kazaagate" on the site, and you'll see all the articles.
why'd u write "country of Australia". most ppl know Australia is a country right? u never say the country of America or the country of England, u just say America or England.
The anonymous coward who turns off P2P sharing enables a bad cradle of leadership. By publically promoting file sharing, and by regaining the right to your own free personal use, can you defeat the tyranny that lives under the guise of the "economy". The economy grew faster as the P2P grew up, completely opposite of their claims. Only when they clamped down on P2P users did they SHRINK the growth.
Its the same Dark Ages of tyranny that spun off PATENT law that people still want to fight with anonymity? Funny, but only when the "illegal" becomes the "standard" will it not be illegal. That is how freedom works!
Do people really expect the 80% of the world outside the West to pay patent licensing or copyright fees? Get real. Your children will continue to slip into the collective grasp of big business solely because they cannot put the squeeze on what is outside their house. We've got a bad set of abusive parents (the "new world" clan leaders) running ours, to punish us for the rest of the neighborhood.
The artists will always continue to win, because quite frankly people love a winner. They do not like knockoffs, they want the real thing. So the artists will still prevail by going on tour. POP BANDS (Mille Vanillie - sp?) and PRODUCED STARS (Jessica Simpson) will be the sole losers, because quite frankly if they didn't have talent then they shouldn't of been out there!
Rather than allowing our businesses to continue to build their fascism we need to promote open filesharing. In an OPEN ECONOMY of distribution the HAVES and HAVE NOTS both win. In a closed economy of the distribution its only the HAVES that continue to HORDE all the wealth.
Think big.
How many times must it be said...
- copying is not stealing, there is a difference
- sharing music is not illegal, much less files, as long as you don't violate copyright
Please remember to separate these, as they are quite different.Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
The Wired story is wrong. There has been no freeze. See: http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/5002/wrong.html
http://p2pnet.net/story/4123
Wonder if the retraction (if and when we see one!) gets as much publicity as the "Kazaa's Australian Assets Frozen" headline. Bet it doesnt!