Australian Music Industry Goes After Kazaa

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com, Hong Kong

10 February 2004

It has emerged that investigators acting on behalf of Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) raided 12 locations across Australia in order to collect evidence against peer-to-peer file sharing network, Kazaa.

Permission was granted for the raids on Thursday, and following the probe, the record labels behind MIPI (Universal, Festival Mushroom Records, EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music Australia, and BMG Australia) announced that they will be launching a civil action against Kazaa, which is owned in Australia by Sharman Networks.

Speaking to the Australian media, MIPI general manager, Michael Speck observed that:

"This sends a very clear signal to internet pirates in Australia that the game is up."

However, Sharman Networks announced its intention to have the case set aside by the federal court, arguing in a statement that:

"This action appears to be an extraordinary waste of time, money and resources going over legal ground that has been well and truly covered in the US and Dutch courts over the past 18 months."

"This is a knee-jerk reaction by the recording industry to discredit Sharman Networks and the Kazaa software, following a number of recent court decisions around the world that have ruled against the entertainment industry's agenda to stamp out peer-to-peer technology."

The statement concluded by observing that:

"It is a gross misrepresentation of Sharman's business to suggest that the company in any way facilitates or encourages copyright infringement."

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