ST, July 28, 2006
Kazaa in $160m settlement over illegal downloads
LONDON - THE music and movie industries have reached a legal
settlement with their long-time antagonist Kazaa, one of the
world's best known file-sharing networks and a once-popular source
of illicit downloads.
Under the terms of the deal, Kazaa's owner Sharman Networks will
pay the world's four major music companies - Universal Music, Sony
BMG, EMI and Warner Music - more than US$100 million (S$158.8
million) and commit to going legitimate, according to the
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (Ifpi).
'There are very substantial damages being paid - in excess of
US$100 million - and Kazaa will go legal immediately. They've had
time to prepare for this,' said Ifpi chairman and chief executive
John Kennedy.
The Motion Picture Association of America said Sharman 'will
continue operations while employing new technologies to prevent
unauthorised distribution of copyrighted works on its
system'.
Two suits were settled as part of the agreement: one in Australia,
where a judge had already ruled that the company breached
copyright; and another in California, in which Kazaa creators
Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis were named as co-defendants.
Both men, who sold Kazaa to Sharman in 2002, later went on to
create the popular Internet telephony software Skype, which they
sold to eBay last year for an initial US$2.6 billion in cash and
stock.
The music industry has pursued an aggressive legal strategy in its
attempts to curb Internet piracy, filing lawsuits against
file-sharing companies like Kazaa and Grokster, as well as
individual users who uploaded copyrighted material.
REUTERS 
