Kazaa Sues Record Labels

dannyp writes "CNN is reporting that Kazaa is suing the record companies, claiming that they used an illegal client to log in to the P2P network - an interesting twist." The lawsuit also claims "...efforts to combat piracy on Kazaa violated terms for using the network."

Re:Legality

[HuffMeister]

There's some weird language in the DMCA that enables the RIAA to directly subpoena suspected infringers' information from their ISP. Supposedly, it only takes a court clerk signature... Not even a judge has to review the subpoena...

Re:A Solution from the Dark Side

[way2trivial]

read the kazaa lite eula, it's specified.

you may not use the service to collect personally identifiable information about users.

Just get informed.

[Pius II.]

You mean Morpheus. They were based on the FastTrack network and then changed to Gnutella. Using Gnucleus, IIRC.
Kazaa OTOH still use the FastTrack network. This network runs over centralized servers, so a third party client could indeed be "stealing" their resources.

Re:Suddenly

[SenorMooCow]

in the 2004 debates there had damn well better be some issues over this brought up

You should know there are no real issues brought up durring the debates. If there were we wouldn't have to deal with this idiot posing as president.

Re:case, no case

[DavidBrown]

i wonder if previous settlements can be overturned if it's proven that RIAA used illegal means to track offenders. after all, incriminating evidence is regularly thrown out of the criminal courts if it was obtained by unlawful search and seizure, through illegal wire taps, botched confessions, etc.

Not really. The "exclusionary rule" that prohibits the admission of illegally obtained evidence doesn't apply to civil cases. The trigger of the exclusionary rule is a violation of a person's constitutional rights by a state actor (law enforcement authorities). RIAA is not a state actor.

Weak laws

[KalvinB]

The EULA is the weaker law. If you wrote a virus that destroyed computers you couldn't sue someone under the DMCA for reverse engineering it to see what it does in order to track down who wrote it and to keep it off of systems. Damaging other people's property over rules your "right" to privacy.

You cannot use a weak law to protect yourself from a higher law.

The higher law is the laws of copyright. The weak law is the EULA. And it's no secret that illegal MP3's and everything else are being traded on P2P.

The is suffienct 3rd party evidence that laws are being broken on P2P to warrent any legal body having a look-see. You don't have to use Kazaa to know what's going on with it.

This is why EULA's only hold up when a crime isn't being committed. A EULA will never hold up in a case where it's being used to hide a crime.

Ben

Re:Suddenly

[homer_ca]

Oh there's a debate in government alright. Where were you when the Senate held hearings last week on the RIAA lawsuits? The RIAA might have Congress bought and paid for, but the file sharers still have sheer numbers on its side. When you have millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens engaging in illegal activity something has to give. You can't sue 50 million people each for $150,000 per song. The closest analogy in the past would be the AHRA of 1992 that decriminalized home taping.

Re:That argument didn't work for warez sites

[Pink_Robot]

What are you talking about?

Suing the record labels for not letting people get away with illegal activities involving the RIAA's property is just idiotic.

That's not what this is about as you can see without even reading the article.

And we all know about Kazaa Lite and I don't see them bitching about that.

Did you miss the whole thing with Google linking Kazaa Lite, K++ and such? And Kazaa going after them for it? Kazaa is pursuing a policy it has already begun: going after third party software using its network. The methods they are using (such as a DMCA take-down notice) may be questionable and their method of revenue generation may be questionable too, but that's not what this is about. The question that's really at the heart of this is to what extent the owner of a network can regulate the use of that network.

Re:HEHEH DMCA

[Nom du Keyboard]

They should encrypt the Kazaa network and sue the RIAA for DMCA violations...

They did. They pack it into never documented FastTrack TCP/IP packets.

Re:Suddenly

[Monkelectric]

Legal code and computer code have a lot in common

I know you're kidding, but there's a book about the subject written by slashdots patron saint, lawrence lessig, Code and Other Lws of Cyberspace [amazon.com]

I bought it when it came out and stayed up all night reading it... not groundbreaking material but alot to think about, and defiantley worth 12$

Re:Suddenly

[sinserve]

Yes, definetly. America shouldn't tollerate adulterers.

Re:When will the Drama End?

[Nihilanth]

a countersuit is a bit of a tactical decision...why consign yourself to be completely on the defensive? Why not be proactive?

Many of the people in this thread (i havent worked my way all the way down yet) will probably respond that they should consign themselves to the defensive posture because they're doing something "wrong" and know they're doing it.

In fact, since they're putting so much spirit into this, it is very likely that they beleive that they are doing something right, and that's an opinion I happen to share. For all intents and purposes, the "winner" of this pissing match is going to be decided in a courtroom, so litigation will obviously be a weapon of choice, but don't rule out lobbying, graft, and blowjobs. I mean, we don't really have a history of settling legal matters through combat (-our- legal matters, anyway..overseas we take a different approach obviously), so the courtroom would be a logical place for it to play out in our charming faux-democratic way of doing things.

Of course, if either side said "i dont have to engage in petty litigation because I -know- i'm right!", then they'll be eaten alive and walked all over in seconds.

As long as the popular opinion is that there's nothing wrong with downloading music over the internet (and there really isn't, thats a whole 'nother can of worms that i'm sure has been belaboured to death around here), then logically there should be no legal onus against it, since the perception of the majority of the warm bodies don't have a problem with it. If the state of the music industry declines as a result (like it could get any -worse-), then we'll only have ourselves to blame, just like the music industry has only themselves to blame for not taking advantage of this new medium and gunning it down instead. ::shrug::

Re:Suddenly

[thefirelane]

Except neither of those things are Rights [cornell.edu]. Be careful on your language.... people throw around that word to carelessly.

Even the other night, in the recall debate... Huffington was describing those who wanted to stop the drivers licenses for illegal immigrants as "wanting to stop their right to drive".... huh?


---Lane

Re:Doubt

[Pofy]

Ehhh, RIAA (in this case) are not the police. Huge difference. Imagine you have a "party", you even make an announcement, and you will do mass copying (by xerox machine or something) of books. Does that mean that a book ppublisher automatically should have some right to enter my home (assuming that is where the party is), just to see what is going on and who is there? What if I don't announce the party, I just hold it at times. Basically, should they always at any time have the right to come visiting and see if there is any copyright violation? Who else should be allowed to do so? I have written many things that are protected by copyright and I ber most people actually have. S suddenly everyeone should have entrance right everywere to see if any, how and who might be doing something wrong.

That, does not for obvious reasons work out. On the other hand, we have the law enforcement, police for example, that should handle such things. If you suspect illegal activities, contact the police and let them handle it.