Kazaa Download Legal
Kazaa Download Legal
April 25, 2003
Kazaa download ruled legal by Court in LA!!!
From: Kazaa download ruled legal by Court in LA!!!
A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie studios' lawsuit against the two companies.
In an almost complete reversal of previous victories for the record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast--parent of the Morpheus software--and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software. The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software distributed by Sharman Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment industry.
"Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends," Wilson wrote in his opinion, released Friday. "Grokster and StreamCast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."
According to Federal District Judge Stephen Wilson:
It didn't matter that the companies were aware generally of copyright infringement happening using their software, Wilson added--they would have to know of specific instances of infringement and be able to do something about it, to be liable for those users' actions.
That stands in stark contrast to an earlier ruling against file-swapping company Aimster, in which the judge explicitly said the file-trading company did not need to know about individual acts of copyright infringement as they were happening to be held liable for the illegal activity.
