piracy...yar.

Victory For Music Industry on Piracy
Written by Simon Hayes, September 5, 2005 for the Austrialian IT

This article is about how Kazaa, a large music file-sharing company, was found guilty of letting users "download and swap" pirated music over the internet. Sunday's verdict "gave Kazaa two months to install filters to stop users [from] downloading pirated files." Kazaa was up against major record labels including Universal, EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and Festival Mushroom. Kazaa was targeted because it was not protecting copyrighted music and also because it ran advertisements that spoke to young users, implying that sharing pirated music files was "cool." Kazaa must now encourage users to participate in a program where they must pay to listen to copyrighted music if they want to survive as a company. Internet experts say that the music download industry "is the single biggest use of internet service provider sites," so the piracy issue is of huge importance to those financially invested in protecting copyrights, including record labels and musicians. The article also comments on how important this ruling is because it sets a precedent for other file sharing companies, with the Music Industry Piracy Investigations spokesman Michael Speck commenting "Now is the time to get legal, or get out of business." It is noteworthy that the record labels will not be building a case against individual users of Kazaa because they are more concerned with those who make it possible.