Kazaa Owners Launch Defense In Case

The owners of file-swapping giant Kazaa are claiming that their software doesn't differ from video recorders, as they launched their defense in a landmark music piracy case.

Lawyer Tony Meagher was outlining his defense strategy on the second day of a civil case in which the Australian recording industry is suing Kazaa’s owners for widespread copyright infringements bythe global network’s estimated 100 million members.

Kazaa members download 3 billion files each month, record industry lawyers said Monday. Those files can include songs, movies and other copyrighted material.

Meagher cited a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which said electronics giant Sony wasn’t liable when people used its Betamax videocassette recorder to copy movies illegally because the technology had significant uses that did not violate copyrights.

The same case was cited in August when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that two other leading file-swapping networks, Grokster and StreamCast, are not legally liable for the songs, movies and other copyright works their users swap online.

Read more at USAToday

Source: Associated Press