Kazaa Network Next Target Of RIAA

October 4, 2001 - 9:00pm

In a memo composed by the legal team of the Recording Industry Association of America, leaked to dotcom scoop, the RIAA's plans to attack peer to peer networks are made clear. The first targets of the RIAA will be FastTrack, the developer of the Kazaa peer to peer networks, Music City who run the Morpheus system and Grockster.

FastTrack is the Netherlands based software company that developed the software code library used to create the KaZaA peer-to-peer networks. KaZaA was the first application to use the FastTrack code. FastTrack later licensed its code to MusicCity (MusicCity dubbed its system Morpheus) and Grockster. The principals behind FastTrack are Niklas Zennstrom and Janis Friis- - Two young technology developers who are primarily interested in the development of their technology and who have privately funded their operation. MusicCity is being run by Steve Griffin, but with heavy influence by Timberline Venture Partners, the independently managed Northwest Affiliate of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Timberline owns 65% of MusicCity and is very involved in running the company.

It is clear from the memo that the RIAA will attempt to prosecute FastTrack on vicarious infringement charges, which means that the company is not doing enough to stop illegal file transfers. However, in a document, such as the leaked memo, in which the most common phrase is "we do not know how it works", it becomes clear that proving the existence of supervision of the network will be difficult.

The whole process, including the apparent leak of the memo, seems to indicate an attempt by the RIAA to intimidate FastTrack in order to settle out of court with them.
If FastTrack has the resources and decides to fight back, then the RIAA will have a very difficult and long battle ahead of them, but one which they are determined to pursue.

(A link to the full memo is available from the download section of this article.)

Comments

Kazaa Network Next Target Of RIAA

OK. nobody panic. i remeber when they went after napster, all hell broke loose. but more started to pop up. and as long as they go after the traders one by one, it will never work. by the time they figure out how to shut down morpheus, a new and better service will have emerged.

Kazaa Network Next Target Of RIAA

I doubt that they will be able to truly stop morpheus (MusicCity's shit) cuz even if they prosecute and actually put forth an order to stop production of the base software it will always be passed underground. And like dan said, they can't f**king prosecute 20 million users and rising! I just hope FastTrack has the legal clout to get out of this unscathed.

Kazaa Network Next Target Of RIAA

Im not certain but i think since most of the morpheus support is in europe the riaa may have some trouble since they cant touch morpheus since its not in their jurisdiction which covers only the usa. Oh they can threaten and make nasty remarks but sadly for them they can not lay a finger without cutting shit load of diplomatic tape which im sure they wont due to america's current little war.

Kazaa Network Next Target Of RIAA

I think riaa should think seriously of supporting this industry insteed of fighting it, It's no use, like we all c what happened when they try 2 close napster, many smart people out there and millions of users like this way of sharing files, so what ever they (riaa and all the #$@! copy right $#!) do, they'll lose money, and time...and a new stronger methods will appear!

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