Australian Court says Kazaa Users Breach Copyright

mferrare writes "This from Reuters UK: An Australian court ruled on Monday that users of Kazaa, a popular internet music file-swapping system, breached music copyright and ordered its owners to modify the software. The music industry told the court that Sharman Network licensed users to access a network it knew was being used for piracy and hence it was authorising people to infringe copyright"

Comments

Freenet needs your support

[Anonymous Coward]

While Kazaa is a rather unsympathetic defendant, these rulings against P2P file sharing networks set dangerous precedents with respect to people's freedom to communicate over the Internet. While everyone hopes that political means can be used to resist the erosion of our digital rights, there is a backup plan.

The Freenet Project is working towards the next major release of the Freenet software, hopefully this side of Christmas. Among the major new features will be:

• Trusted links, so that only your friends will know that you are part of the network
• Switch from TCP to UDP to support seamless firewall traversal
• Complete code rewrite and simplification
• Support for live broadcast of information, in addition to storage and retrieval (allowing everything from IRC over Freenet to "instant RSS")

Freenet's goal is to ensure that people have the freedom to share knowledge without fear that someone is looking over their shoulder. Unlike Kazaa, Freenet is a voluntary, non-profit free software project.

The Freenet project requires $2,300 per month to pay for its full time developer, Matthew Toseland, but currently the project's reserves are very low, so if you can spare it (especially given the more immediate drains on people's generosity), your donation would be much appreciated.

Re:Freenet needs your support

[cswinter]

Perhaps these judgements against P2P operataors who are most cogent of the infringing uses to which their software is being put are not such a bad thing. 1) They harm businesses that are making money by closing their eyes and then suggesting with wide eyed astonishment 'Me sir, no sir, I never realised that was the main use of my network' 2) They promote research of more robust P2P software (i.e. freenet etc.), which has more legitimate intentions for the networks use.

nice call

[germ!nation]

so when are car companies going to be told to put limiters on all their cars set to the max speed limit in that country because, you know if they allow me break the law by speeding then obviously i have no choice but to do it.

Re:nice call

[ray-auch]

Fairly soon if you believe the news - some systems on trial already (eg. in the uk)

Plus, the main thrust of the judgement (according to news reports) seems to have been not that the software merely allowed, but that the defendants encouraged/incited the users' behaviour.

Car companies (at least here) are _already_ banned by advertising regulations from inciting people to speed.

Re:As a record store owner,

[LiquidCoooled]

I feel for you, I really, do.

I am a developer and just had a similar discussion with somebody in a p2p hub.
He was looking for upgrades to his already pirated and cracked software.

I outlined my stance and got a positive reaction from the other users in that hub.

It was as follows, I don't mind if people download and play or use my software or others, but if it becomes enough to want to play online with friends every day, or enough to become a business asset, then that person SHOULD become a customer. Expecting upgrades for something you haven't paid for steps way over the line.

I would be proud to see my software listed on p2p, mainly for the fact of more eyes seeing it.

I just don't like the scrotes that take it too far.

ps, when I read about your national list of pirates, I couldn't help but think of the Flying Spaghetti monster.

longer article and transcript

[quenda]

C|net:
http://news.com.com/Australian+court+rules+against +Kazaa/2100-1030_3-5849480.html

Full judgement:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/ 2005/1242.html
- reasonably plain english, and worth reading. No cause for outrage here folks.

EMule doesn't protect its user's anonymity

[Sanity]

The only reason the RIAA hasn't been suing emule users is that emule hasn't yet had a large enough userbase. Expect that to change very soon indeed.

Freenet is currently quite slow, but these problems should be rectified in the next version. There is no inherent reason that an anonymous P2P system must be slow.

Of course, you are correct that Freenet isn't about "file sharing", its about the free exchange of knowledge and information. If all you care about is getting free music, Freenet probably won't be well suited to your needs.

Re:Mp3 freedom?

[BackOrder]

Indeed, sad story.

It's not just about Australia anyway. All around the globe companies try to overpass their rights and tighten their customers in any way they can.

It's not just about piracy, it's about the perverse control they want to have. And they send us the bill, because each time a new technology comes out, with protection system, they make you pay for the R&D of the unwanted proctection system. At some extend, they have the right to protect themself.. but it's being rat to send the bill afterward.

If it's not DRM, it's DMCA, patends, copyrights, etc. When will the customer, or the simple tax contributor, will prevail?

Re:Ban file-sharing? What about libraries?

[tarunthegreat2]

Well I'd assume that the copyright holders would be the publishers, or whoever sells to the libraries, so I'm assuming the authors/publishers get something back from the libraries. The way I see it, the libraries will stock 5/6 copies of popular stuff, 1/2 copies of not so popular stuff, and the publishers will redistribute based on the roylaty agreements or whatever. Can somebody with more knowledge than me elaborate on this? Any librarians out there(shudder) on Slashdot?

Re:As a record store owner,

[Mant]

Why was this modded a troll when it's clearly saitre? I mean with gems like "They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?"

I thought it was pretty funny myself.

Re:Donating to freenet will not solve anything

[aussie_a]

You are wrong. The best way to get rid of unjust laws is to have everyone break them so they become unenforceable.

Actually, it's to publicly break them en masse, so that the jails will get too crowded so that people CAN'T be jailed. However to do that you need high numbers of people willing to do that. In the past people have been able to achieve the high numbers necessary because people WERE willing to go to jail, because the cause was something they strongly believed in.

I doubt you'll ever be able to get enough p2p users to do it, as most use it anonymously. In that case, they aren't activists. They're criminals.

Re:Donating to freenet will not solve anything

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to understand why it's okay to borrow a book from a neighboor and not to borrow an mp3 from a guy 1000km away

Well, if you wrote a book and were expecting to derive revenue from it, I don't think you'd have much of a problem with me lending my copy to my neighbor.

I think you might change your tune, though, if I printed up a few million copies and "lent" those out to anyone who wanted one.

Re:And emule is Fast?!!!

[ColaMan]

Who wants to look for part 745 of a 10000 part .rar file?

This is why you have utilities like par2.

Then you don't need part 745 specifically, most of the time you have enough redundancy in the bits you've downloaded that you don't need anything. And if you don't, par2 will tell you that you need x recovery blocks to repair it. *Any* x blocks. So if you can get those blocks off usenet, you're fine.

par2's also good for making redundant backups - if you make a set of par2 files that's got more than 50% redundancy, then all you have to do is put a random half on one CD and again on another. Even if both CD's are fairly corrupted, if you can recover at least half the total data blocks off the CD's, you're fine.