Kazaa Sues Record Labels
 

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/6849062.htm

Kazaa's owners turn tables, file copyright suit against record labels




LOS ANGELES (AP) - Turning the tables on record labels, makers of the most popular file-sharing network are suing entertainment companies for copyright infringement.

Sharman Networks, the company behind the Kazaa file-sharing software, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday accusing the entertainment companies of using unauthorized versions of its software in their efforts to snoop out users.

Sharman said the companies used Kazaa Lite, an ad-less replica of its software, to get onto the network. The lawsuit also claims efforts to combat piracy on Kazaa violated terms for using the network. Entertainment companies have offered bogus versions of copyright works and sent online messages to users.

Sharman's lawsuit also revives its previous allegation that the entertainment companies violated antitrust laws by stopping Sharman and its partner from distributing authorized copies of music and movies through Kazaa.

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson rejected those claims in July but last week allowed Sharman to try again.

The Recording Industry Association of America called Sharman's ``newfound admiration for the importance of copyright law'' ironic and ``self-serving.''

Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group declined comment on Sharman's latest lawsuit.

Earlier this month, recording companies sued 261 music fans, claiming they were illegally distributing hundreds of digital song files apiece over the Internet. The industry trolled file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and downloaded song files from users' computers.

Once the industry determined a downloaded song file was a copyright work, they issued subpoenas to Internet access providers to find out who was behind the account used to log onto the file-sharing network.

Dame the tables are turning!

:thumbsup

Hay EscortBiz, Going to Albright's place this weekend?

might dont know for sure anything at the moment

It's funny how the recording industry can see that it is ironic and self-serving for Kazaa to find sudden respect for copyright laws but they see no irony or self-srvice in their own willingness to ignore those same laws to protect their own copyrighted interests.

It's like selling drugs to fund D.A.R.E.

SpaceAce

Last night the new David Mattews solo CD was released. It's a two disk CD. My wife bought two copies, since we tend to fight over anything Dave Matthews-ish. My wife was rather surprised to get this two disk CD for $11 on the first day of it's release.

Thanks to computers anyone can now burn disks, so we all now it costs nothing to produce these CDs. Newsweek recently quoted it costs $1.32 to produce a CD, and $1.84 to produce a a double CD. This includes delivery to the store. And they are selling them at $18 a pop. Bullshit.

I don't download music myself, and I have 600 CDs sitting on two racks within ten feet of my computer here in my home office. I'm tired of paying $18 for a fucking CD when I know it costs them $1.32.

it relaly doesnt matter though cuz kazaa is teh sux and all there music is fucked

Thats not a reasonable argument. Everyone sells everything at a profit, if the RIAA isn't completely stupid they have long ago determined what the increase in sales by lowering prices would do for profits, versus keeping profits higher and obviously having fewer sales. And if they haven't well they are bunch of idiots who deserve to have their over priced product (for the most part) repeatedly stolen.

Learn to search better :1orglaugh

Watch "Cribs" and see if that industry is hurting.

This country is sue happy. Only ones going to really benefit from all this litigation are the lawyers.

:1orglaugh

thats a good idea, sue them before they sue you.

Nice to see the big guys get hit once in a while. Knock themdown a few pegs I wonder what damage they'll claim from them for using cracked software and what kind of message are they relayin sayoing you can't d/l copyrighted stuff yet they using a cracked vresion of a copyrigthed software???:winkwink:

I'm not trying to make an argument here - I don't download music myself. I"m trying to make a point. The record labels have finally figured out that their consumers aren't happy with the prices they are charging - and the end result is my double CD was cheap on the day it was released.

Every company, more or less, sells products with a markup. But when it costs the record labels $1.32 to get the finished product into the store and are charging $18 for it, something is wrong.

Is anyone noticing a pattern here? People are getting busted using Kazaa. Kazaa has obvious spyware. Kazaa Lite is a hacked version designed to block the RIAA and undermine Kazaa's spyware.

In another article the owners of Kazaa were telling people not to use Kazaa Lite because of "malicious and suspicious programming".

Somehow Kazaa has never been sued by the RIAA.

And now they're trying to say the RIAA is catching people through Kazaa Lite, the version of the software that actually blocks the RIAA. They're trying to scare into using the normal Kazaa so they can bust us.

Fuck that, I'll stick with Kazaa Lite.

being from a big company, and having just posting about all the workers you had to pay etc, you should know about overhead. please rethink your statement. you think they dont pay for advertising, flights, studio time, guest apperances, producers, artists, etc etc?

Even after that the price is not at all fair.

Where are you guys buying CDs for $18? I never pay more than $11-13. I know Sam Goody sells them for $18. I buy mine at Target. Maybe some of you are pissed off at the wrong people.

Paying $11 for a CD is very reasonable. How much do you think the stores pay for the CD? Maybe $7-9? Let's say $8 for the hell of it. The artists get $1. It takes $1.50 to print and ship the CD. Now does that $1.50 cover marketing, music videos, failed contracts (bad acts), studio time, producers, etc. Probably not. That seems like quite a bit to fit into $1.50.

So we have $8, take away $2.50, now there's $5.50 to cover everything else and make a profit. I don't think that's too unreasonable.

RocHard just yesterday you were going into detail about what it REALLY costs to run a good sized paysite operation... don't you think the music industry has similar expenses?

and you know exactly what the price is right? they only sell the cds for somewhere around $10.... not $18. theres no such thing as an unfair price on something you dont have to buy. its not like its food. if you dont want to buy it you dont have to.

The economic concept here is MARGINAL COST. The marginal cost of making a CD is $1.32. That doesn't make $1.32 (or $1.50 or $2.00) a fair price.

The marginal cost of one membership to a porn site is zero or virtually zero. The $19.95 monthly fee takes into account production costs, talent costs, etc. (similar to the costs of creating a recording).

echo echo echo

This is such a great comparison it needs to be repeated.

Ok, so they have a $16+ profit margin per unit sold. How much of a per unit profit margin do you have on your sites?

So, if someone wants to see your content and feels you charge too much to see it, they should be able to just get that content for free?

Have you even been in the music business or understand the economics of it? You not only have advertising and promotional costs but do you know how much your local music stores charges you to have a better dsiplay for your CD so you can sell mroe of them? How about other promotional costs, litigation costs, etc.

I loathe the RIAA for their tactics and wonder where this fine money will really go (the artists that were wronged or themselves, their lawyers, etc.).

On average it takes $2-3 million to get a record out, in stores and turned into a hit.

I just hate the argument that because someone can't afford something that they deserve to have it anyways (for free). And this isn't directed specifically at you RocHard, I've been invoved in quite a few different board discussions about it the last month or so ;-))

Just imagine if porn surfers felt we charged too much for memberships and decided they still wanted access to all of our content for free just because we charge too much. Oops, it's happening isn't it? Shrinking profit margins suck no matter what the industry.

Ummm...

Interesting idea, probabl a pile of BS but an idea non the less...

Given that one of the things int his Kazaa suit is about using their system to find copyrighted materials which is something against their TOS i presume, how could this be used against Acacia :Graucho

Something like in the warning page, you may not access this site in order to find streaming media to launch a law suit or some shit like that.

Probably wouldnt work but i bet it would put the bejeebers into Acacia if it were done the correct way ;)

who wants to bet on where kazaa and or the RIAA will be in a year from now with this suit stuff