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Music Industry Raids Offices of Kazaa in Australia

Posted on: Friday, 6 February 2004, 06:00 CST

By MIKE CORDER

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Investigators from the Australian recording industry raided the Sydney offices of Internet file-swapping network Kazaa on Friday in search of evidence to support allegations of copyright infringements.

The raid was conducted under a rarely used law, known as Anton Pillar, which allows litigants in civil copyright cases to gather evidence.

The Federal Court gave major Australian record labels permission to raid 12 premises in three states to collect evidence against Kazaa, said Michael Speck, general manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations. The group is owned by Universal, Festival Mushroom Records, EMI Music, Sony Music, Warner Music Australia and BMG Australia.

The raided sites included the office of Kazaa owner Sharman Networks, the homes of two of the company's executives, three Australian universities and Internet service providers.

Speck said the recording industry would launch a civil action against Kazaa in the Federal Court on Tuesday.

"This sends a very clear signal to Internet pirates in Australia that the game is up," he said.

In a statement, Sharman Networks said it was complying with the court orders, but was appealing them, saying they amounted to "a knee-jerk reaction by the recording industry to discredit Sharman Networks and the Kazaa software."

"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 U.S. and Dutch courts over the past 18 months," the statement said.

In December, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that Kazaa's makers cannot be held liable for copyright infringement of music or movies swapped on its free software. In the United States, a federal case against Kazaa is pending.

A U.S. judge has dismissed the entertainment industry's lawsuits against two rival file-sharing services, Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. An appeals court heard arguments in that case this week.

Sharman has denied it promotes copyright piracy, saying it has no control over what users do with its software.

Kazaa's Media Desktop software, one of several programs that let users swap music, movies and other computer files, has 3 million to 4 million users at any given time.

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