After judge R. Orobio de Castro probibited the spread of the KaZaA software in januari 2002, the Court in Amsterdam decided two months later that the software was in fact legal. The Court decided that offering the software for download of the filesharing software did not break any copyright law.
The Dutch BUMA/Stemra, a foundation to protect the intrests of artists in the Netherlands decided to appeal the decision with the High Court in the Netherlands and the High Court has now ruled that KaZaA is legal and the developers of the software can't be held responsible for any illegal activities that might take place on the KaZaA network.
However, the High Court has not ruled about the question if users of the software are allowed to share copyrighted materials using KaZaA and the laywer of KaZaA expect that the Dutch music industry will now like in the United States, start procedures to test the law about this subject.
The Dutch Entertaiment industry also warns users, altough the the ruling declares the software legal, it doesn't declare the activities of its users legal. And we all know that there is all kind of illegal activity possible.
Source: Webwereld.nl
