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Kazaa Blocks Australian Users

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the taking-my-ball-and-going-home dept.

afaik_ianal writes "The Sydney Morning herald is reporting that Kazaa is blocking Australian downloads of their client, just a day after the deadline passed for implementing keyword filters. According to the article, Shaman networks were still working on installing the filters yesterday."

2 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Re:why listen? by aussie_a · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why are they voluntarily blocking downloads? It's not like there's a Great Firewall of Australia to block them, and they're not based in Au

    From Wikipedia:
    Consumer Empowerment responded by selling the Kazaa application to a complicated mesh of offshore companies, primarily Sharman Networks, headquartered in Australia

    So actually, yes they are based in the AU. So yes, they kinda do have to follow rulings made by Australian courts.

  2. Re:"More" legal? by Bifurcati · · Score: 4, Interesting
    As best I understand it, they pay the Russian music body a licensing fee, and as far as Russian law goes, they've satisfied all the requirements necessary to distribute music. The grey area is whether they have the right to sell it to us folk over the seas. If it were CDs, then there's no law against importing a CD, but the internet is a different kettle of fish - it's quite unclear what their legal obligations are. They're probably not in the spirit of the law, but seem to be within the letter. The RIAA tried to get them shut down, but failed; it remains to be seen what course of action they take.

    As for the paying/not paying thing, artists (of major lables) get virtually zip from CD sales; I figure at least this way, the albums I buy are making it to the Top 10 on this site, which then encourages more people to buy them, etc, which ultimately results in more listeners and hopefully bigger sales at concerts, where they make their real money. Of course, this doesn't work out so well for the Labels (and hence the sustainability of the current industry model) but that's all for the better we might start to see some shake up.

    Anyway, I rarely buy new music - it's mainly jazz I'm after, and the occasional soundtrack.

    --

    Physicist, consultant, science communicator