Court orders Kazaa to block given search terms by Dec 5th

November 27, 2005

After a
recent federal court ruling on Kazaa, Sharman Networks is required to update
their file sharing software such that it will block search terms based on a list
of artist and song names supplied by the record labels. Sharman has up
until the 5th of December to apply this change and the filter must be a
non-optional feature. The software must also be capable of having its
filter list updated within 48 hours of Sharman receiving an updated list of
search terms to block from the record labels.

In an aim to get existing consumers to update their
clients, the court also ordered to change KMD's website to put as much pressure
as possible on Kazaa users to get the latest version. At present, the
record labels have a list of 10,000 keywords that they want blocked from Kazaa's
search tool.

The Sharman parties' legal team wanted to get the
court to allow them to use Audible Magic, which would be more effective than keyword
filtering since it blocks transfers based on comparing the acoustics of music as
it is being transferred against a known database of blacklisted songs.
Unfortunately, as they wanted to extend the filter requirement date to March to
implement the addition of Audible Magic's technology, the record labels claimed
the technology is ineffective and this alternative was rejected by
court. Thanks to GristyMcFisty for
letting us know
about the following news:

popular
artists whose songs are to be blocked from being illegally distributed on
the peer-to-peer network Kazaa following Federal Court orders yesterday.

Justice Murray Wilcox has ordered the owner of Kazaa, Sharman
Networks, to modify the file-sharing software to block a list of search
terms -- primarily artist and song names -- to be supplied by the record
companies. Justice Wilcox's order follows the record companies' court
victory in September against individuals and organisations associated with
Kazaa.

The court has ordered Sharman to release a new version
of Kazaa by 5 December that includes a non-optional keyword filter,
restricting users' ability to illegally access and swap copyright
music.

The record companies may also update the list of
search terms every two weeks. Once Sharman receives the updated list, it
has 48 hours to act on the changes.

Justice Wilcox also ordered in a hearing yesterday
that dialogue boxes appear on the Kazaa Web site "to place maximum
pressure on KMD [Kazaa Media Desktop] users to obtain the updated
release".

The full article can be read here.

It is interesting to see the record labels wanting Kazaa
to implement a keyword filtering system, since this method failed to prevent the
original Napster from
being shutdown, not to mention the shutdown of AudioGalaxy, which also enforced keyword
filtering. However, as the majority of former Kazaa users have moved
to other networks such as Gnutella and eDonkey, chances are that keyword
filtering is going to have very little effect on overall P2P sharing.

Feel free to discuss about Kazaa and alternative file
sharing networks on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues
forum.

Source: ZDNet Australia