RJ5500
February 8th, 2004, 11:02 PM
Kazaa in court this week
February 9, 2004
IT could all be over soon for the file sharing network Kazaa, which had its offices raided last week and whose executives will appear in court this week.
Investigators raided Kazaa's Sydney office last Friday, collecting evidence about copyright infringement that will be presented in a Sydney court on tommorrow (Tuesday).
While the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been ferocious in their quest to stamp out illegal file-sharing, the local equivalent, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has appeared less than active in recent years, despite Kazaa operating out of Sydney for the last three years. That is, inactive up until yesterday.
The man behind the raid is Michael Speck, the head of ARIA's Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) unit. He explains how ARIA's position of power recently changed.
"We started an investigation six months ago and it was based on technical and physical changes in the infrastructure of Kazaa" he said.
"At that point it was becoming apparent that they had become an Australian operation infringing Australian copyright".
You see, although Kazaa has been based in Sydney for the last three years, it was only recently after internal changes that they became recognized legally as an Australian operation.
"Essentially there were physical changes to the resources and technical changes of the software that make it clear that what the Kazaa operation is doing is clear-cut infringement of copyright in Australia" Mr Speck said.
"We've actually over the last several years run a whole range of important strategic cases. The objective of those cases was to develop a safe and productive environment for music business and their consumers," he said. "As far as Kazaa is concerned this last six month period has changed their position."
ARIA/MIPI issued proceeding against Kazaa in the Australian Federal court under strict guidelines.
"It was a civil raid by way of Anton Pilar orders" Mr Speck said.
"On Thursday we went to the Federal court and we applied for orders to attend premises, to obtain documentary and electronic evidence that related to the Kazaa operation. "To do that, you have to show the court you have a case and a fear about the dissipation of evidence before the orders are issued. When the orders are issued they are on a very restricted basis.
"You are obliged to take an independent lawyer who reports directly to the court about the conduct of the search or any search process and also about what was located and taken. "On the team is also a music industry lawyer, a music industry investigator and a computer forensics expert. "By way of context, when you do these, you don't actually take anything away. You copy it. We started yesterday at about 8am and the very last group of investigators left the offices of Kazaa in the early hours of Saturday morning".
The raid not only took in Sharman's head office but also employees of the company, partners of the business, Universities and ISPs.
According to Mr Speck, they entered "the offices of the Kazaa operation, the home of Nikki Hemming, the chief executive of the Sharman organization, the home of Philip Moore, Kazaa's IT director, and Kevin Bermeister, the chief executive of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, the joint venture partners.
The three Universities were "Queensland, The University of NSW and Monash".The four ISPs were Telstra, Akamai, iHug and NTT.
"There are no allegations against the universities or ISPs" Mr Speck said.
"They simply because of the nature of their business contain evidence we believe is relevant against the Kazaa operation," he said.
Mr Speck expects action will be swift.
"We are back in court on Tuesday to report on the search" he says.
"Generally at that time, a timetable is set for the case to start and evidence to be put forward. It will be a relatively quick process".
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8627146%255E15306,00.html
February 9, 2004
IT could all be over soon for the file sharing network Kazaa, which had its offices raided last week and whose executives will appear in court this week.
Investigators raided Kazaa's Sydney office last Friday, collecting evidence about copyright infringement that will be presented in a Sydney court on tommorrow (Tuesday).
While the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been ferocious in their quest to stamp out illegal file-sharing, the local equivalent, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has appeared less than active in recent years, despite Kazaa operating out of Sydney for the last three years. That is, inactive up until yesterday.
The man behind the raid is Michael Speck, the head of ARIA's Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) unit. He explains how ARIA's position of power recently changed.
"We started an investigation six months ago and it was based on technical and physical changes in the infrastructure of Kazaa" he said.
"At that point it was becoming apparent that they had become an Australian operation infringing Australian copyright".
You see, although Kazaa has been based in Sydney for the last three years, it was only recently after internal changes that they became recognized legally as an Australian operation.
"Essentially there were physical changes to the resources and technical changes of the software that make it clear that what the Kazaa operation is doing is clear-cut infringement of copyright in Australia" Mr Speck said.
"We've actually over the last several years run a whole range of important strategic cases. The objective of those cases was to develop a safe and productive environment for music business and their consumers," he said. "As far as Kazaa is concerned this last six month period has changed their position."
ARIA/MIPI issued proceeding against Kazaa in the Australian Federal court under strict guidelines.
"It was a civil raid by way of Anton Pilar orders" Mr Speck said.
"On Thursday we went to the Federal court and we applied for orders to attend premises, to obtain documentary and electronic evidence that related to the Kazaa operation. "To do that, you have to show the court you have a case and a fear about the dissipation of evidence before the orders are issued. When the orders are issued they are on a very restricted basis.
"You are obliged to take an independent lawyer who reports directly to the court about the conduct of the search or any search process and also about what was located and taken. "On the team is also a music industry lawyer, a music industry investigator and a computer forensics expert. "By way of context, when you do these, you don't actually take anything away. You copy it. We started yesterday at about 8am and the very last group of investigators left the offices of Kazaa in the early hours of Saturday morning".
The raid not only took in Sharman's head office but also employees of the company, partners of the business, Universities and ISPs.
According to Mr Speck, they entered "the offices of the Kazaa operation, the home of Nikki Hemming, the chief executive of the Sharman organization, the home of Philip Moore, Kazaa's IT director, and Kevin Bermeister, the chief executive of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, the joint venture partners.
The three Universities were "Queensland, The University of NSW and Monash".The four ISPs were Telstra, Akamai, iHug and NTT.
"There are no allegations against the universities or ISPs" Mr Speck said.
"They simply because of the nature of their business contain evidence we believe is relevant against the Kazaa operation," he said.
Mr Speck expects action will be swift.
"We are back in court on Tuesday to report on the search" he says.
"Generally at that time, a timetable is set for the case to start and evidence to be put forward. It will be a relatively quick process".
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8627146%255E15306,00.html