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
