In September 2005, the ARIA claimed a great victory over Sharman Networks. Like General George Patton rolling into North Africa, the ARIA’s public relations campaign stormed through the online media with news of its success.

“The music industry recently scored a significant win in its battle against illegal internet downloading. In a landmark decision, which will have global repercussions, the Federal Court of Australia held that the owners and operators of the Kazaa file sharing network were liable for the millions of copyright infringements which occur daily through illegal free downloading of recordings via that network.”

The ARIA was not alone in its praise of the September ruling. The IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) also commended the ruling, stating “IFPI today welcomed a landmark court judgment establishing that the internet peer-to-peer operator Kazaa is illegal.”

Oddly enough, despite all the clamoring of victory, the ARIA decided to appeal the September 5th ruling – a strange move for an organization that was so publicly confident. It was also a strange move considering Michael Speck, director of the MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Investigations), stated on the steps of the Federal Courthouse the ARIA would not appeal. So what’s gone wrong?

Although the ARIA did have a positive experience on September 5th, their victory has slowly eroded. The ARIA lost on five of the seven points of the case, as articulated in Judge Murray Wilcox's decision. The ARIA did convince Judge Wilcox that Sharman Networks authorized copyright infringement, however the conspiracy and personal infringement charges were thrown out. With the word "failure" now being associated with the ARIA's efforts, they need those five points back.

The most glaring example of the ARIA's failure is that Sharman Networks, the FastTrack network and Kazaa Media Desktop all remain intact. FastTrack is no closer to becoming a filtered network today than it was last year, and Kazaa’s functionality remains unchanged. Since the ruling, the ARIA has been uncharacteristically quiet, with no press release or media interaction on their appeal.

It has become evident since September court proceedings have not favored the ARIA. The ARIA infuriated presiding Judge Murray Wilcox in November for not participating in the second concave meeting. The concaves were meetings designed for both the ARIA and Sharman Networks' technical crews to discuss the filtration of the Kazaa Media Desktop client. When the ARIA suddenly canceled the second meeting at the last minute, Judge Wilcox told the ARIA lawyer responsible for canceling the meeting that he “shot himself in the foot.” Judge Wilcox granted a stay to his original order until February 2006 for Sharman to work on a permanent filtering solution.