In Australia, Kazaa itself was sued once again. But they defended themselves by saying that their situation was similar to photocopiers being used to photocopy copyrighted material (hey, it's true. I photocopy pages from by biology textbook even though it's copywritten). Apparently, this can also hold out in American courts as well. Other free music distributors have gotten away with similar defences. Two such distributors, Grokster and Streamcast was sued by MGM Studios last year. Here's what was said by the judge during the case:
"Grokster and Steamcast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."
Judge Stephen Wilson, Central District of California U.S.D.C. 04/25/2003. MGM Studios Inc., et al. Plaintiffs, v. Grokster Ltd., et al. Defendants.
The reason why the music industry is so annoyed at Kazaa and companies similar to it is because they are losing money from record sales. Of course, it is obvious that the music industry brought this onto themselves due to the ridiculous prices for CD's. I mean, you'd be lucky if you found a CD that costs around $20 (about $15 American). Even if you do, it's either made by a crappy band, or had been out for months and is not popular any more.
Sony has even gone to that stage of pleading with music fans to stop using Kazaa. On some of their commercials, they used to put "piracy steals from artists" or words to that effect. Of course, no one is going to be sentimental towards some heartless corporation like that!
To sum up. The music industry are the ones who are stealing from us with their expensive CD's. I recommend Kazaa to everybody. It's a better program than Morpheus or Winamp, and is certainly better to those dodgy file sharing programs that you can get off download.com. I believe it's the best free music distributor out there. If you currently use Kazaa, don't stop due to intimidation by the ghoulish music industry. I use it with pride and dignity, and so should you.
Written on the 5th of March, 2004
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