KaZaa Ignores Court Order to Shut Down

An anonymous reader submitted that "The Amsterdam district court ruled two weeks ago that the KaZaa P2P program is acting unlawfully by making software available that allows users to download music files and must shut down. The court gave the company 14 days to do this or face $40,000 US a day in fines. KaZaa has chosen to ignore the shutdown order."

Easier to download anthrax plans that way

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure glad they didn't shutdown. Cuz, this'll provoke the 'cyber treatys' across multiple nations to be used. Time for that thing to get thrown out of multiple courts. Or time to face up that we really do live in a facist Ashcroft world

Umm...

[dagoalieman]

It seems to me this isn't the brightest of moves. They're trying to use it as negotiating power, yet ticking off a judge is a really bad idea- keep in mind the judge (at least in the US) gets the final approval on any deal that's worked out during a case.

Also, what do they think this will gain them? While I don't like the DMCAA et al, I think we can all agree there are flat out illegal pirates out there amongst the legal users. Because of this, they're an accomplist to theft/copyright infringement/whatever you want to call it. Plus whatever other legal teeth those provide for sinking into the owners of KaZaa.

Sigh. If the music industry would just quit fighting, start providing MP3 format cds with a couple of extra songs/what have you, I bet they'd find that their piracy issues would go down more than they expect. I won't even try to argue financial benefit, since it's no one really seems to know (RIAA: OH, we lost MONEY! Stores: NO, you sold more! People: Hey, we're getting f*cked!)

it's not about KaZaA

[prophecyvi]

There may be more to this than just the usual recording-industry-heavy-handedness. After all, KaZaA (or however it's capitalized) isn't nearly as big as Napster was - Napster was the one choice, most mp3-swapping was centralized around it. Now with WinMX, AudioGalaxy etc., not to mention the OpenNap servers, the fragmentation means no one service will dominate. That makes the pursuit of KaZaA suspicious to me. It seems the technology behind KaZaA, which also runs MusicCity, Morpheus etc. is what's under attack.

Bear in mind that Napster has targeted March as their return date, complete with pay-as-you-go music and under the boot of RIAA et al. Why would you go pay on Napster if you could jump on other networks and get it for free?

What are they thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going to try to do the same thing as Napster, you can expect to receive the same fate as Napster. What, did they think no one would notice or care? The only logical choice for this situation is to go de-centralized, open-source like Gnutella and forget about trying to make money from providing piracy software.

Re:Umm...

[dangermouse]

So, the relevance of this post to yours is hanging by a thread, but this is more or less on the subject of the RIAA fighting a good thing because they're idiots.

Yesterday morning, as I was sitting in traffic on 680 wishing I'd attached an outboard motor to my car, I got to hear an interview with Huey Lewis on a local radio talk show.

The interviewer asked Huey what he thought of the whole "downloading thing", and his answer was that it was "complicated", but that his son downloads stuff all the time (that's hearsay, you Feds, you leave Huey's kid alone!) and when he finds something he likes he buys the album. So Huey didn't really have a problem with it.

When the interviewer mentioned that he himself downloads a fair bit of music, but doesn't buy many CDs, Huey pointed out that people their age just never bought (or sold) much music anyway, relatively speaking... it's far and away a kids' market.

Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[darkov]

I think the important point to remember here is that the record companies are not playing fair. They do not want to licence their products for sale on the internet. Although it may not be illegal, or rather someone has not caught them out according to the law yet, they are basically trying to control the market.

It's up to us to put pressure on them to licence their music. A good way to do that is to swap MP3s. You might call it theft, but many of these companies are not exactly saints and in any David vs Goliath battles, dirty tricks are to go. in there arrogance, record companies forget that they only exist becuase of us, the consumers. By acting together we remind them of that fact.

Re:Easier to download anthrax plans that way

[Anonymous Coward]

We are living in a more restrictive world with each strangling treaty. Remember when the Red Chinese were the bad guys and the West were the good guys? Sentiment, from much of slashdot posts, follows the socialist philosophy that all inventions and performances belong the people and only the greedy enemies of the people act to restrict and profit from it (or something similar to that effect.)

The U.S. legal view of property is becoming the world view. Worse, business organizations such as RIAA and MPAA are driving these laws and treaties rather than the people the government allegedly represents.

International Law - Locations and Ramifications?

[nyquist_theorem]

First of all, for all of you asking "why Kazaa?", in case its not obvious yes, Kazaa is Dutch, not American. So logically it would be a court in the Netherlands that has to go after it. Napster, as most know, is as American as long stick bombing and apple pie. So it was pursued in an American court.

What is interesting in all of this is the international ramifications. What's to stop a file-swapping service from setting up in a small, easily-influenced island nation with lax laws on such things? Antigua and Barbuda [antiguafreezone.com], in the Caribbean, comes to mind (mostly because im in it at the moment) - low/non-existant taxes, a dedicated free trade zone, a FAT pipe back to the US and Europe, (the much-loved Casino-On-Net is here, for example), and a judicial system that is, well, not particularly likely to push through complex technology-based cases anytime soon. With enough other "legitimate" US-linked technology companies here (such as the casinos), any threat to simply unplug the island would be met with serious lobbying and financial pressure... And thus such companies as Kazaa would be in a more solid position to "sell out" - as is the logical outcome for these services: get big, get threatened, then sell out to a record company (Napster, MP3.com, et al).

As an interesting note, Antigua is building a call center that will house 800+ employees, with the express purpose of delivering outgoing telemarketing to the US and Canada. It's billed here as a wonderful project to provide "high tech" employment (really), with no thought given to how telemarketing is seen by Americans/Canadians. It will be very interesting to see how US telemarketing laws are applied to incoming international calls.

Are these file sharing services just going to hopscotch around the globe, then?

Re:Umm...

[dangermouse]

That's a nice argument, but even though a small percentage of downloaders actually do this, they are definately in the minority. You can't really base a decision like this on what some people do, rather how it going to be used most of the time.

Are they? That's not been my experience. A poll would be interesting. (Not a Slashdot poll, that would obviously be skewed to hell and back.)

Applying this to software or research and development for any organisation: Does this make it ok for warez kiddies to steal software just because they weren't going to buy it? Does it make it ok for small companies to steal technical secrets from big companies, because they weren't going to research them anyway? [Hint: The answer is no.]

Thanks for the hint. The condescension was both well-placed and well-executed. Wait, no it wasn't. You just missed the point.

I didn't cite Huey's kid by way of justification. The point, as I said in my first sentence, was that the RIAA is fighting an uphill battle against what really seems to be in its own best interest. Obviously they have the right to attempt to fight this thing, but it's really pretty stupid in light of the fact that downloadable music only seems to fuel record sales.

Have I bought every album containing a song I downloaded and liked? No, of course not. But I've bought more music overall because of my ability to first find and listen to it for free. There were interesting reports published in the last couple of years that showed record sales increasing relatively steadily, with a bump upward a little while after Napster became popular. You can treat that as rumor, since I don't have a link to said reports handy, but I think they did show up on Slashdot.

Re:Good

[PD]

You've got a point, but only partially. While it is true that we can't smoke pot now despite the civil disobedience of millions of people, it is also true that anybody of any race can sit at the front of the bus and the lunch counter at Woolworth's.

If they do shut Kazaa down...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it will be the fault of the millions of users who were too lazy to do anything. 27 million people have to count for something. 27 million people mean more to politicians than any corporate assocations, or at least they should.