Kazaa Offices Raided

rj writes "ZDNet Australia is reporting the Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) this morning raided the offices of Kazaa owners, Sharman Networks, along with P2P company Brilliant Digital Entertainment, and the homes of key executives. Background on prosecution of copyright music in Australia over P2P is also available."

It's about time

[MillionthMonkey]

At last, someone has finally gotten in trouble for bundling spyware in their products!

Obligatory reference

[jdifool]

-Hi, may I help you ?
-All your offices are belong to us*

*with Aussie strong accent, plz.

Regards,
jdif

No Biggie

[illuminata]

MIPI just got confused. They didn't realize that a file sharing network didn't include physical files.

Besides, with a name like MIPI, could you really stay mad at them for that long?

Nazis

[Omni Magnus]

I am guessing that throughout the world, the different recording associations got into a contest to see who could become the most Nazi in their tactics. Until now, RIAA had the lead. To counter this, the RIAA will probably round up all of the file traders into camps. This will allow them to win.

What you gonna do when they come for you?

[Channard]

Well, who's going to stop Billionares with cops?

Trillionaires with Mafia support? (I mean Mafia backing, not people who threaten to make you sleep with the fishes unless you reboot your PC before ringing)

Yet more bogus damages calculations

[darnok]

The ZDNet article points out that if all the "pirated" tracks in Australia were purchased for $A0.99, then the record companies would be $2b better off.

As of now, my understanding is that Apple sells tracks for $US0.99, and is in pretty close to a breakeven state for iTunes (this may have changed recently, as surely the sheer volume going through iTunes would cause them to move into profit at some point). Regardless, it seems that $US0.99 is pretty close to the breakeven point, and you'd assume the breakeven cost in Australia would be no lower than that given the population is so small - let's cut the record companies some slack and assume $US0.90 is the breakeven point for online music sales in Australia.

$A0.99 translates to $US0.76. Now, since it costs $US0.90 to provide a downloadable music track, Kazaa is actually *saving* the record companies $US0.14 per downloaded track. By my calculation, the 850,000 tracks downloaded via Kazaa haved saved Australian record companies $US119,000 in providing that service.

What's that? Bogus use of statistics, you say?...

It's just like the commercials.

[Gldm]

(shot of men in riot gear overturning desks, rifling through offices and smashing computers)

Voice in aussie accent: Search engine!

(shot of Fosters can)

Voice in aussie accent: Beer!

Dammit!

[chrispl]

And I just got WAY into Australian pop music! Now I'll never get my fix.

Re:Obligatory reference

[Yorrike]

I'm a Kiwi, but this should satisfy your lust for Austrlsainism:

a> G'day blue, wha's th' goss?
b> All ya baches, barbies and crocs are belong to us, mate.
a> S'truth?
b> S'truth. It's bonza, mate. You have no chance to survive, make yer time.
a> Crickey dick!

MY office is in no danger of being raided....

[letdownjournals]

... I'm using a Mac.

Wait...

Re:Obligatory reference

[lewp]

That's not a subpoena.
This is a subpoena!

Hmmm...

[MarkJensen]

Could this be considered a case of "putting the squeeze on the Sharman"?

Mr. Whipple will not be happy about this!

(Sorry, I resisted as long as I could...)

Re:Obligatory reference

[rock_climbing_guy]

Actually, I believe that what you meant to say was,

All you OFFICE(TM) are belong to us.

Filthy abusers of IP like you sicken me. How could you not recognize that that word belongs to MS.

Re:MIPI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone give a little background for us Americans on what the MIPI is

MIPI = Monopoly Infringement Protection Institution. You don't want to infringe upon the monopoly.

Obligatory Simpsons quote

[marsu_k]

Mobster 1: "I thought you said Troy McClure was dead!"
Fat Tony: "No, what I said was he sleeps with the fishes."

It is all about the money

[RY]

It just goes to prove that America is not alone.
Australia also has the best judicial system that money can buy.

.

First sentence of article

[Jeffv323]

"MIPI obtained an Anton Pilar order ? which allows a copyright holder to enter a premises to search for and seize material that breaches copyright without alerting the target through court proceedings ? yesterday from Justice Murray Wilcox, and began raiding premises in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria this morning searching for documents and electronic evidence to support its case against the peer-to-peer companies."

Holy run-on sentence, Batman! Jeez...

woo-ho!

[Anonymous Coward]

2 billion loss per day for some compressed
acoustic waves! mama-mia!

"more titts, i say!"

mewonders why the RIA (terrorist groups only have
three letters) isn't sueing the power companies
for supplying electricity to the network operators.

shutting down some power plants should do the trick!

time to backup that stuff and bury them somewhere
in the lawn. or for that matter, make a nice
geo-cache somewhere ...

good thing the "MY computer" that is running
P2P client is safely hidden in some dark ally in
bangkok and is being VPN remote desktop-ed from
my real home, puh!

Pay the Piper

[malia8888]

From one of the ZD Net articles:

and some studies have shown that file-sharing may actually contribute to greater expenditure by participants on legitimate music.

I wonder where these studies came from? Saying file-sharing encourages the purchase of legitimate music is like saying hookers encourage fidelity in marriage.:P

Re:Obligatory reference

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an Australian, but this should satisfy lust as a New Zealander:

*Baaaaaaaa!*

So long as we're getting into mindless stereotypes here. ;-)

Lets be petty

[Anonymous Coward]

We believe that during the raid proprietary code was seized which might allow the music industry to set up their own file sharing system. We therefore ask for an immediate raid on all the music industry premises and confiscation of all suspicious hardware for analysis.... Hey it works both ways.

Reaaaaaching for a joke.....

[Orion442]

NOBODY expects the US Patriot Act!!!....

...and now for something completely different... [comics.com]

Re:Legal?

[unitron]

"Collage students...love porn!"

I just had a mental image of a mobile Alexander Calder would never have had publicly shown.

Re:wait a second

[AKnightCowboy]

I understand raiding the offices but the homes to? This smells a lot like the US patriot act

In addition, hundreds of thousands of music files and terabytes worth of pirated DivX movies were confiscated on the RAID at the Sharman office. Kazaa is essentially shut down as there are no files available to be shared now that they're all in police custody. *rolls eyes*.

What's the point of raiding the offices of a software company who just makes the P2P client? They're not committing the crime!

Hasn't MIPI heard...

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Don't squeeze the Sharman

Re:Goodie, goodie, goodie!

[severed]

I am a big fan of the constitution, and freedom in general. Heck, I don't even hate p2p, even though some people pirate stuff that I've made on it. I believe in the marketplace, and that ultimately people will choose to support the production of stuff that they like.

However, why the big quote from the U.S. Constitution? This happened in Australia.

Can't you quote someting Australian? :-)

Raided?

[NetMasta10bt]

What sort of redundancy does their new office layout provide? Are there any significant speed gains with this enhancement?

[sorry been up for 24 hours rebuilding a damn E4500]

Tribute to Mr. Whipple

[Cygnus v1]

"Don't squeeze the Sharman!"

Re:Legal?

[nearlygod]

I can think of 2 things wrong with your post. 1. You can't count.

Re:MY office is in no danger of being raided....

[Anonymous Coward]

Rip. Mix. Burn. Hide.

Re:wait a second

[NormalVisual]

Sarcasm, it's what's for dinner. Guess you missed the dinner bell.

Re:Legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realise the music industry owned the copyrights to porn films as well. You learn something new every day.

Re:Huh.

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Here's how it would go down at my house:

{knock knock} {sound of door being bashed open} Hullo? I have an Anton Pillar order thingie and I'm here to sieze stuff...

{Blam, Blam, Blam}

Really? I have a variety of legal firearms all protected by the 2nd Ammendment and the right to protect my home and property. Now what was that about some sort of legal order?

Re:Try this in the US. 'specially in the south...

[geoffspear]

You believe in the law as the way to run the country, but you advocate murdering people who show up at your door with a court order? Uh, yeah.

Re:First sentence of article

[silicon not in the v]

Holy diagrammed sentence, Batman!
It's certainly complicated, and a fairly confusing one, but it is not a run-on sentence. I can break it down if you want, but the gist of it is:
MIPI obtained an Anton Pilar order [clauses], and began raiding premises [clauses].

Their only grammatical mistake is that they have a compound predicate, (MIPI obtained...and began raiding...) rather than a compound sentence, so there should not be a comma in there after "Wilcox".

Now let's watch the mod effect; the wrong information gets modded up, while the correct information doesn't.