Technical Blunder Wins the Day for Kazaa

[SlyckTom]

Just one mistake has cost the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) three months of unfettered public access to copyrighted works on the FastTrack network. Sharman Networks, in their attempt to build legitimacy, were pushing for an Audible Magic filter. The Australian recording industry was seeking a 3,000 word filter instead.

In order to settle these differences, the Australian court ordered two "conclaves." These conclaves were gatherings of technical personnel from Sharman Networks and the ARIA. No lawyers were present as Judge Wilcox wanted to avoid any kind of legalese.

The first meeting went very well, and both sides appeared close to coming to an agreement. Sharman Networks' stance on filtering copyrighted material with Audible Magic appeared to be gathering support of the ARIA's technical crew, but not with their lawyer, Mr. Michael Williams.

Distressed in the direction the meeting went and not favoring the Audible Magic solution, Mr. Williams pulled the plug on the second meeting. Quite simply, Mr. Williams ordered the music industry's technical crew to simply not show up. This meeting could have accomplished a tremendous amount, such as organizing Kazaa's filtering technology for the December 5th deadline.

However, Judge Wilcox was infuriated with the Australian music industry for violating the court's order.

"When I heard about it I was extremely angry about it, I can tell you that. I will try and not let that determine my attitude to what has to be decided today, but I have to struggle not to. If Mr Williams wanted to call off the attendance you should have done so in good time and notified everybody in good time. Not has a situation where a 9 o'clock on Monday morning everyone was looking around and saying, well what is happening. I think it also was quite inappropriate for nobody on your side to turn up."

Since the music industry did not show up to the second conclave, Judge Wilcox granted Sharman Networks a further stay until late February of 2006. Sharman will still have to work on filtering technology, as per the original ruling, but an amazing technical blunder by the Australian recording industry has prevented the immediate filtration of the FastTrack network.

[BasicTek]

LMAO @ Article. I love it.

Kazaa is like the energizer bunny it just keeps on going.

[moculon]

totally funny. keep fasttrack running and the focus off other stuff for a little longer.

only the recording industry could think they are in charge of court proceedings, not the judge!!!!

[Christopher]

Actually, it wasn't the recording industry, but their LAWYER.
Even laypeople know that what the judge says goes, no if's, and's, or but's, unless his order violates other law.
Using Audible Magic is the less restrictive option, but there is still a problem with that. Namely, it's vaporware churned out as realware. It doesn't live up to the expectations, and if someone just adds a little bit of silence to the front or back of the recording, Audible Magic doesn't recognize the file as being verboten.
Word filters also won't work. They just says something like "Jess...Simp.... latest..... album", and get past the word filter, since they don't use the artists full name.

[Mel_Smiley_VIP]

As long as they don't filter the porn! I hope Kazaa keeps rolling on because if it ever falls we are in for it. There will be no good place to park your pc.

[SlyckTom]

Actually, it wasn't the recording industry, but their LAWYER.

I thought I said that....?

[IceCube]

That is hilarious!

Kazaa is still the biggest p2p wonder of the world... in the context of: "How did it stay alive this whole time?"

I wonder if the lawyer would get fired over that (wouldn't surprise me in the least) since now Sharmen networks will stick around for the entire span of 2005 as well as a mainstream network without any form of copyright protection.
Anyone check the stats out? The population has dropped back down from 4 million to less then 2.5 million users. Gnutella has almost overtaken Fast Track again

[SlyckScratch]

Makes you wonder if the ARIA actually want Kazaa to succeed in any filtering attempt......

[IceCube]

We'll see if the lawyer keeps his job or not. There's no real telling what the ARIA is thinking at this point, but suffice to say, they violated a court order. As far as I can tell, the lawyer was the one that told the other ARIA associates to not show up, so they didn't.

[brengarne]

I think I remember something similar when I was 11 or 12.

Along the lines of "If you dont let me win I'm taking my bat and my ball and going home"

[Nick]

I think I remember something similar when I was 11 or 12.

It's called "throwing your toys out of your pram"

They're very lucky they didn't have contempt of court thrown at them. Still, leaves the way for Sharman to get a further extension later on.

[brengarne]

As far as I can tell, the lawyer was the one that told the other ARIA associates to not show up, so they didn't.

It is highly unlikely the laywer acted without the approval of the ARIA bosses, any laywer for such a case would be an experienced professional and fully aware of the probible results. People like that rarely screw up due to ignorence, and it would be virtually unheard of for someone at that level to act without the client being informed and approving.

The ARAI technical people might not have been involved in or aware of the decision but there would definately have been a detailed discussions between the laywer(s) and the ARIA Executives, and certainly involving the RIAA and others as this is a landmark case.

It appears that the ARIA et al. is not going to be satisfied with whatever they predict the decision will be, and THEY want more time to investigate.

Contriving a situation that causes a delay gives them more time to seek a better result without looking like that are asking for it.

[SlyckScratch]

The ARAI technical people might not have been involved in or aware of the decision but there would definately have been a detailed discussions between the laywer(s) and the ARIA Executives, and certainly involving the RIAA and others as this is a landmark case

There will be intense discussion about everything with everybody. These people are hard professionals and nothing will be left to chance. Mistakes can be made and some people can still act like idiots.

The ARIA have already decided if they want Kazaa to live or die. Whats the good of a meeting to sort things out if you don't want to sort anything out?

[irish]

very funny article kazaa - the p2p app that won't go out with a whimper

[tay_highfield]

Not that I use FastTrack anymore but this did make me laugh!

Can't help but feel the ARIA did it for a reason though. Surely not even they could be this stupid?

Only time will tell.

[Affliction]

Long live KaZaA! As long as it lives and the imbecillic users who still use it are there, the other networks and protocols are safer because the MP@@ & RI@@ are focusing on easy pickin's for they're lawsuit propaganda fraud they are pulling on the populous. The internet is free and I intend it to stay that way. if you want to watch a crappy cam of a movie as soon as it hits theaters, it's actually good for the @@'s out there as if you liked their crap you may buy it in a better format; otherwise it goes to the trash bin where it belongs!
I say let them bring on their DRM in full force; it only affects dumbass KazaA users who know nothing about computers anyway. Circumvention of bullcrap DRM gives me joy! RIP Elite Torrents!

[Wham]

Good article Slyck! Quite incredible. It only makes me stop and think that the entire music industry hasn't got a clue as to what they are doing.

I think the lawyers do. Lets face it, the longer this plays out the more money they make. Wow, the lawyers are laughing at everybody.

[Christopher]

Good article Slyck! Quite incredible. It only makes me stop and think that the entire music industry hasn't got a clue as to what they are doing.

I think the lawyers do. Lets face it, the longer this plays out the more money they make. Wow, the lawyers are laughing at everybody.

I'm studying to be a lawyer, and you do not want to do that. You do not want to have something be delayed endless times, and take a long time, because sooner or later the people you are working for will say "WTF's going on here?! This should have been settled by now. Let's do an end run around the lawyers and talk to these people ourselves."
It has happened before when lawyer have dragged their feet that their clients do an end-run around them, then take THEM to court for wasting the client's time.
Plus, nobody is going to hire you if you get a reputation for being the slowest lawyer in the world, unless you are also the winningest lawyer in the world.

[brengarne]

There is a Much Bigger Issue at play

The ARIA have already decided if they want Kazaa to live or die. Whats the good of a meeting to sort things out if you don't want to sort anything out?

ARIA and the cartels had a win of sorts getting the judgement that Kazza needs to install filtering.

HOWEVER, if a weak level of filtering is accepted in under the judgement then is sets a clear precident of what is required.

Thereafter - So long as a company is making a token effort to filter content, there is little justification for the ARIA (and perhaps by inference the RIAA, MPAA et al.) to take legal action against them, and FOR them that is a VERY bad thing.

Any form of weak filtering will immediately get bypassed in the community by some simple means and a company has no real motivation to overcome it so long as it is complying with what was determined as an acceptable level of filtering.

Perhaps what ARIA and the Laywers suddenly realized is that this judgement is likely to work against them in the long term.

[AussieMatt]

"Audible Magic sounds fantastic, but magic is often illusory"

Justice Murray Wilcox ,in response to the Kazza Lawyers when they announced they would rather use Audible Magic's digital fingerprinting technology to filter the network.

[SlyckScratch]

STATEMENT FROM SHARMAN NETWORKS

November 25, 2005

Record company lawyer shoots himself in the foot

The Australian Federal Court yesterday granted Kazaa a reprieve after hearing that the record companies' lawyers had walked away from the court-ordered technical process. (1)

During the hearing Justice Wilcox indicated that he was "extremely angry" with Mr Michael Williams' treatment of a Federal Court official overseeing the technical process.

Justice Wilcox indicated that Mr Williams had "shot himself in the foot" by aborting the court-ordered process.

A first technical meeting had been held with considerable success, with Kazaa seeing this as the first step towards establishing a business that would gain from the record companies the licenses it had always wanted.

Kazaa was granted an extension to deal with the technical issues until late February 2006, despite objections by the record companies.

The court also rejected, out of hand, an attempt by the record companies to obtain damages after their barrister indicated that he would be seeking $200 m.

A spokesperson for Sharman said the action of the record companies in rejecting the court ordered meeting reveals their true intention is not to foster legitimate business as envisaged by the court, but to shut down Kazaa and rid themselves improperly of a competitor.

As a result of yesterday's rejection by the Court of the record companies' submission, consumers will be able to enjoy the Kazaa experience at least until the appeal is held, in late February 2006.

For more information, please contact:

Julie Fenwick, ICON International Communications
+61 2 8235 7600 (work)
+61 423 174 424 (mobile)
julie.fenwick@iicpr.com

(1) The court in handing down its judgement on 5 September 2005 made a landmark ruling ensuring the survival of Kazaa by recognising that its legitimate business should be protected and afforded the opportunity of a time frame in which parties could agree to a protocol. This operating protocol was to be agreed between the parties. This would allow the respondents to adjust their operations so that they could continue.

[no_dammagE]

one problem I have with the logic of the dumb people (including our good old politicians) - where is the connection between the title and the content?!
CUT THEIR FUCKS OFF, BUT DELIVER ME THOSE PRIMADONNA MP3s I ALWAYS WANTED (just taken out of the head, take it as free mp3s! - just a filter test) AND I WANT MY WILLIAM RUBBY NAKED PICZ!!! </irony off></filter check off><echelon filterconcentration="100%">

I'm really FOR democracy and free world and against death penalty etc (although I respect most of different world views) and event then to be honest I would like to see: <insert profession> licence, idiot tests (both 4 times a year) - if both failed I request public stonage by angry people.

Why? Because then only people who are sure that they understand their profession will also attend for that field. It seems that too many wannabes are out there in the politics!

[volt]

Hi,

I'm a guy from Israel working as a lawyer and I think you may want to hear an idea that may save Sharman Networks:

If the Australian courts are mainly concerned with piracy in Australia then instead of installing a filtering software for copyrighted content, simply don't allow Austaralian surfers to use Kazza by letting Kazza check the IP of its users, so basically you filter the users instead of the content. The rest of the world would still be able to use Kazza like today and the Australian surfers can use a different P2P software.

Its a long shot because I am not familar with the Australian law, but if the Australian copyright laws are terrestrial then the courts should be satisfied with a solution that would prevent copyright violations in Australia only.

Please don't descard this email before consulting a lawyer/manager in Sharman Networks.

Thanks,

Itai Leshem, Tel-Aviv
ileshem@gmail.com

[Wham]

Won't work Volt because Australia is a free country.
It would be like stopping people in the U.S. from reading the NY Times. Now if it were China or Nort Korea you were talking about it would probably work great.

[Fez]

WHOOPS...!!!

HAHAHAHA!!!!!

Can we have these clowns shipped over to Hollywood and get them jobs...???

I am not a big Fastrack fan, but that is hilarious...good for them.