Australian court rules against Kazaa
Sharman Networks and related parties been found liable today in Australia for authorizing the infringement of copyrights by users of Kazaa and entering into a common design to carry out such authorization. The ruling in Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd. v. Sharman License Holdings Ltd. is published here.
According to the Court:
"Section 101 of the Australian Copyright Act provides that copyright is infringed by a person who, not being the owner of the copyright and without the license of the copyright owner, authorizes another to do in Australia an infringing act."
The Court pointed to the following facts to support its conclusion:
1) Sharman was aware of infringing use of Kazaa, and its end user license and disclaimers were ineffective;
2) Sharman failed to use available technological measures to prevent infringement, and its financial interest was to the contrary; and
3) Sharman promoted a "revolution" campaign that may have encouraged young people to infringe copyrights.
The Court ordered injunctive relief, putting off damages for another hearing. The Court said that Sharman could comply with the injunction and continue to operate Kazaa by either:
(i) instituting key-word filtering that excludes the plaintiffs' copyrighted works, using technology mutually agreed by the parties and approved by the Court; or
(ii) limiting search results for plaintiff's works to licensed works and excluding provision of such works.
Parties liable for infringement include Sharman Networks Ltd., LEF Interactive Pty Ltd., Nicola Anne Hemming, Altnet, Inc., Brilliant Digital Entertainment, Inc. and Kevin Glen Bermeister.
Via Rik Lambers at CoCo.
Cathy Kirkman is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California. Her practice focuses on intellectual