In the Recording Industry Association of America’s war against music file pirates, one targeted software distributor is striking back.
Sharman Networks, distributor of popular file sharing software Kazaa, filed an amended counterclaim on Sept. 23 in the U.S. District Court of California against snooping entertainment companies.
The federal countersuit claims that certain entertainment companies accessed the Kazaa network with an unauthorized version of the free software, known as Kazaa Lite, to look for user information. In their hunt for music file pirates, the entertainment companies allegedly violated Kazaa’s copyright by using a replica of Kazaa devoid of advertisements, which are Sharman’s chief source of revenue.
“We take little pleasure in moving this next step to place the spotlight on the entertainment industry’s behavior,” Sharman Networks CEO Nikki Hemming said in an e-mail.
The Kazaa Media Desktop software is the leading peer-to-peer application that allows users to search, download, organize and interact with a variety of file types.
Senior Roger Gerke used the desktop for about a month before he lost his patience with the software’s advertisements.
“I didn’t like using Kazaa because of the constant pop-ups,” he said.
Although he has never tried Kazaa Lite, Gerke said some of his friends have used the pop-up-free version to avoid advertisement distractions. Another annoyance that Gerke found while using Kazaa stemmed from promising music files that stopped short.
“The song would be fine for the first 20 seconds,” he said. “Then it would just be gone.”
Gerke’s experience involves another issue that Kazaa addressed in the counterclaim. Kazaa accuses the entertainment companies of sharing bogus versions of copyrighted works and sending instant messages to harass users, both of which violate the terms for using the network.
Although Gerke stopped downloading music files through Kazaa, he is also frustrated with the weak quality of mass-produced music CDs.
“If I buy a CD for $15 and it gets scratched, I want to know why record companies won’t give me a new one,” he said.
Sharman claims it wants to provide legal music files to music consumers like Gerke, but executives at Vivendi Universal’s Universal Music Group and AOL Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Music Group refused to permit their copyrighted songs to be distributed through Sharman’s partner, Altnet Inc., according to the countersuit.
“The industry has lost its way, choosing a path of endless litigation rather than accepting a solution to copyright infringement that is available now and a technology that is inexorable,” Hemming said.
Universal and Warner have declined to comment on the issue.
RIAA spokeswoman Amanda Collins refused to directly answer any of the Emerald’s questions about the countersuit. Instead, she provided an official RIAA comment.
“Sharman’s newfound admiration for the importance of copyright law is ironic to say the least,” she said. “Too bad this self-serving respect stops at its headquarters’ door and doesn’t extend to preventing the rampant piracy on its networks or lifting a finger to educate its users about the consequences of illegal file sharing.”