Kazaa Forced To Modify Search Engine

An anonymous reader writes "Eminem, Madonna and Kylie Minogue are just some of the popular artists whose songs are to be blocked from being illegally distributed on the peer-to-peer network Kazaa following Federal Court orders in Australia yesterday. Sharman Networks, the owner of Kazaa, was ordered by the courts to modify the file-sharing software to block a list of search terms -- primarily artist and song names. The search terms are also to be supplied by record companies. The directive follows the record companies' court victory in September against individuals and organizations associated with Kazaa."

Comments

what next?

[hug_the_penguin]

Perhaps the banning of the keyword phrase `fuck the riaa`? In case they haven't noticed, there are so many fakes on there anyway that a name isnt an accurate guarantee of what a file contains. But of course this matters not so long as the RIAA can line their pockers with consumers' money.

Re:what next?

[TubeSteak]

There are so many fakes because the RIAA has been happily hiring companies to pollute the search results for certain terms.

They filed this lawsuit so they could cut some annual spending. /tongue in cheek

The court has ordered Sharman to release a new version of Kazaa by 5 December that includes a non-optional keyword filter, restricting users' ability to illegally access and swap copyright music.

Unless Kazaa rolls out a change to the fast track network as well... why the f*** would anyone update their client? Some of the people using such software may not be to brightest lightbulbs in the house, but everyone is going to know this update will break certain functionality.

Re:what next?

[jd nerd]

"downloading and uploading copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder is illegal. It is theft."

it is illegal because the music industry has lobbied for it to be so. that doesn't mean it *should* be illegal, though. file sharing networks *should* be available to facilitate legitimate fair uses such as sampling and space-shifting.

for example, if i want to sample a new song, i shouldn't have to go to a friend's house, go to the music store, or wait for it to come on the radio. if millions of people already have it, and we have the technology to transfer it, why shouldn't i be able to sample their copy? (and i'm not refering to abusive sampling--i'll get to abuse in a second). moreover, if i own the cd at home, i should not have to go to an online music store and purchase another copy of my songs just to listen to them at work.

these uses should be fair. at some point, however, they do cross over into infringement. we all know the guy who loaded a hard drive with napster music back in the day. i agree that that is wrong. but if we agree, as a society, that mass-piracy is wrong, it doesn't follow that the fair uses i described above are wrong as well. but your approach, and the one taken by the riaa, seeks to ban any unauthrized copying

note that the last time a shift in technology produced a mixed bag of fair use and abusive copying, the consumers won. that was when the supreme court ruled on what we now call the vcr. copyright holders demonstrated that about 80% of vcr copying was unauthorized. the equipment makers showed that although the uses were unauthorized, many of them should be fair. for example, people used the machines for time-shifting, or viewing programs at a later time. the supreme court allowed the manufacturers to continue selling the machines because of the fair uses

can you imagine the world if that decision had gone the other way? no vcrs, so probably no video stores. no tivo. perhaps no dvd players, because the video industry and video rental industries would never have developed. perhaps no cd-rws, because they can be used to make unauthorized copies. well, this time around, it has gone (and is still going) the other way, with absolute bans on file sharing, criminal punishments for dmca violations, etc.

the balancing approach used in the past, and the approach i advocate for file sharing, is reasonable: it provides the music industry a return on its investment (and thus gives incentives for creation) and allows consumers some flexibility over their expressive environment. but that's not the approach advocated by the music industry. they take the approach you advocate: *any* unauthorized copying is theft. that approach is foreign to our intellectual property tradition, which allows for fair uses designed to protect our first amendment freedoms.

so, you can go around chanting your "any unauthorized copying is theft" mantra, but know that your approach is not necessary, and that it is highly unusual in a legal system that has traditionally allowed flexibile fair uses.

Re:what next?

[PhreakOfTime]

Exactly!

Personally, Ive found so may more groups that are orders of magnitude better than the garbage found on the radio and what is 'popular'. But then, the only reason its popular is because people want to buy the song they have heard 50X in one day... for some reason...

When did it end for me? Around 1999-2000 when the group 'metallica' put their ugly mugs before congress and told of the big bad wolf out on the internet that was stealing from them. There was no bigger irony I have seen than the group that wrote the song "Master of puppets" themselves being the biggest puppet ever. If you looked real close, you can see the RIAA's hand up their ass moving their mouth. That was the last year I bought a 'hardcopy' CD.

There is just so much more better music out there, I wonder if the RIAA has a clue how much they are pushing people twords it?

Eh?

[LiquidCoooled]

Apart from the obvious slashdot also has this technology in place:
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

I thought kazaa was long dead and buried and reduced to nothingness.

I know noone who uses it anymore, its all BT and eDonkey type stuff.

Another obvious thought here, could I supply my own list of copyrighted files and make sure they aren't searchable, my company has copyrighted files which should be protectable, wheres the web interface to do it?

Or is this another anal raping by the music industry just to get their own way?

Horay!

[Black Copter Control]

Now, Independent artists artists who actually want to have their music shared can actually find a market. The big labels already have their marketing channel (radio + TV). Now, there's one for the independents.

Re:Horay!

[Mr2001]

Now, Independent artists artists who actually want to have their music shared can actually find a market.

Don't try to spin this as something positive. Those independent artists could already use Kazaa as a marketing/distribution channel.. the presence of Eminem and Madonna songs on Kazaa wasn't stopping anyone from finding independent music.

This won't make it any easier for people to find legal downloads, it'll only make it (trivially) harder to find illegal ones.

Re:Horay!

[newell98]

If anything I would think that it would actually hurt them. If keyword filtering results in less people using the network, then thats one less avenue that an independent artist can use to get their music out. Popular artists will still be availible illegally from bittorrent etc., but people will be less likely to run accross a lesser known artist.

Problem with generics...

[Denyer]

I highly doubt Kylie Minogue is the only Kylie out there with recorded material, for example. Blocking specific artist+album+song combinations might be reasonable, but there's a lot of room for false positives.

In time, even more absurd terms may become blocked... eg, The.

Kazaa history

[putko]

So they started out in Europe, and only moved to Australia/Vanuatu because of RIAA pressure. Why don't they just sell the assets to a Vanuatu company and move the whole thing offshore?

Are the new guys, operating out of Australia/Vanuatu, somehow more legit than the guys who ran it before?

I thought the Kazaa guys were the sort to do "anything to win", including fairly Talmudic stuff like what they've already done (splitting the ads from the network itself, so that they can claim that they aren't really able to know about or stop infringing).

Arrogance of the RIAA

[martinmcc]

Yet again, we have the RIAA showing their complete ignorance of technology, and applying bullish tactics that will only succeed in irritating.

10,000 words list? I can pretty much bet that most of these will be very general i.e. 'Kylie' instead of 'Kylie Minogue', so any artist named Kylie who want to bypass the grabing hands of the record industry and distribute themselves will now have a much harder time.

It is absolutely crazy how this can happen. RIAA get a levy on blank media because some might end up with their copyright material. They install software on you machines becuase you might try to copy one of their cds. They now block 10,000 search terms on Kazaa because they might be used to 'steal' their copyright material. And for the many people who wish to use those terms for ligitimate reasons? Tough luck.

Have a look at the riaa web site, and you will read much about how they see themselves as the protectors of culture and music. What a load of crap. They are just middle men, and middle men that have no purpose, now that technology can provide the functionailty that they have in the past.

This changes nothing?

[Ilex]

I thought the whole idea of these new p2p networks was that they were decentralized which means any form of censorship has to be imposed at the application level. So doesn't this mean that third partly clients like KazzaLite are immune to these block lists?

And as nobody uses Kazza because of it's malware payload putting a blocklist in Kazza alone has about as much affect on piracy as blocking searches in bittorent.com

Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Several Obvious Problems:

[mrRay720]

1) Generic terms to block will make it difficult to search for other items. My favourite artist, "Kylie Kylie" distributes only through Kazaa. Now I can't find her stuff.

2) Not everything related to those the scum are allegedly protecting is copyrighted. I'm sure there used to be several free public domain photos of Eminem that you could find on Kazaa. No longer possible.

3) They just plain suck, don't they?

Idiots. Instead of researching the reason why people are willing to download music from P2P (such as CDs no longer being a trustable source, and legally downloadable music has impractical DRM and low quality sound, prices too high across the board) they sue people and make stupid keyword blocks on software.

I always used to do the best job I could to ensure artists are compensated, by buying music I listen to (ok, the suits and lawers got the money not the artists, but that's not the point). Nowadays they're making it increasingly hard for people to actually do the right thing. Sorry, I don't want a virus ridden PC thanks to your infected CDs - I feel much safer downloading my music. And since your stupid DRM sites don't work with my music player, I have no choice but to P2P. It's your own fault, guys. Give me no valid source, and I have no choice but to make my own.

Re:Several Obvious Problems:

[Halfbaked Plan]

Give me no valid source, and I have no choice but to make my own.

So you're taking piano/guitar/singing lessons, or do you really _not_ get it at all?

Re:kazaa is dead long live p2p.

[Anonymous Coward]

you do realize that in sneakernet the distribution topology can still be a tree, not necessarily linear, right? lan parties, anyone?

Re:Control

[hug_the_penguin]

That's an interesting point i hadn't thought of. If it comes to the day when they're using it to monopolise, that's the day we can take the entire institution down. Mod guys, that post deserves points.

Time for artists to sue the RIAA

[Zunni]

I would think this would be an interesting case for lawyers to debate over. After all if the RIAA are preventing artists from distributing their music by a specific means, that certainly would be actionable.

Time to get a few lawsuits moving in the opposite direction against the RIAA, after all in their bubble they actually think they are speaking on behalf of all recording artists, someone needs to step up and show them through the only means that seem to get through to them that they are missing the boat and actually hindering independant artists.

Other clients?

[daikokatana]

Last time I checked the Kazaa network, there were still some 3 million users counted, so that gives me the general idea that Kazaa is still in use... or is it?

Didn't everybody already move to KazaaLite, K++, or whatever hacked/rewritten client there is out there? Who is still using the original Kazaa client?

And how is the RIAA going to force those clients to include the forbidden search list?

so is Google next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will they now go and try to make Google block certain search terms?

Re:Control

[tepples]

It's by no means similar to web page censorship that confuses breast cancer with porn.

How not, specifically?

Go away, you're not 21

[tepples]

available downtown at record stores and gigs

RIAA music is intensely popular among minors. How does one get into "gigs" until age 21 if most "gigs" put on by independent recording artists are in bars?

Go away, you're not 21

[tepples]

Record music, put it on Kazzaa, play in local clubs, develop word of mouth

Problem is that a large portion of your target audience isn't allowed into local clubs because they're minors.