delete everything! burn your files!

February 6, 2004 8:28 AM

Oh snap, things for Kazaa and the parent company just took a turn for the worst as an Australian court served the company with a "search and seize" order. I'm guessing that's like a search warrant in the US, where the authorities have free reign to go through your stuff looking for evidence linked to a crime. Surprising that this happened as a result of no apparent court case, but who knows if it will cause any long term damage.
posted by mathowie (22 comments total)

Apparently "The names of Sharman's investors and board members are locked away in Vanuatu, a republic that bills itself as an asylum whose "strict code of secrecy" is "useful in any number of circumstances where the confidentiality of ownership, or control, want to be preserved." I would imagine they are smart enough not to have anything incriminating in their Australian offices, but you never know...
posted by shoepal at 8:35 AM on February 6, 2004

(source of that quote.)
posted by shoepal at 8:36 AM on February 6, 2004

Register Story. What I don't get is that, according to this story, the Australian version of the RIAA was granted the right to stage this raid themselves by the court. Is this really legal in Australia? No matter how much influence they might have, letting a private lobbying and industry association take actions that are supposed to be executed by a law enforcement agency seems to be a bad idea.
posted by deadcowdan at 8:54 AM on February 6, 2004

Is the Crocodile Hunter involved somehow?
posted by Brilliantcrank at 9:05 AM on February 6, 2004

An Anton Pillar order allows a copyright holder to enter a premises to search for and seize material that breaches copyright, or at least make copies of it to use for evidence. Importantly, the party being searched is given no warning of the intended raid, and therefore cannot delete any copyright infringing material. Or put forward an argument to the court as to why they shouldn't be raided. [from zdnet australia]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:16 AM on February 6, 2004

oh snap?
posted by quonsar at 9:42 AM on February 6, 2004

fo shizzle.
posted by xmutex at 9:49 AM on February 6, 2004

dag.
posted by 40 Watt at 10:20 AM on February 6, 2004

Feh.
Download WASTE, invite some friends, and start your own encrypted file sharing network. I've been using it for several months and it's great. Any profit driven file sharing network will continue to draw fire to it's owners and users.
posted by 2sheets at 10:27 AM on February 6, 2004

Waste is nice, but don't even try telling everyone here the average joe can figure that shit out.
posted by angry modem at 10:38 AM on February 6, 2004

What I don't get is that, according to this story, the Australian version of the RIAA was granted the right to stage this raid themselves by the court. Is this really legal in Australia?

Check out stories of the BSA (Business Software Alliance) in the USA, as well as stories about search and seizures performed by Scientologists in the USA.

Apparently it's legal here too.
posted by Lafe at 11:20 AM on February 6, 2004

oh SNAP!
posted by Peter H at 2:05 PM on February 6, 2004

The "BSA raids" were performed by law enforcement agencies, not by the BSA, with a warrant. I can't imagine Scientology's searches were any different, seeing as how they still exist, which they wouldn't if they tried to search someone's dwelling or place of business on their own.
posted by kindall at 2:23 PM on February 6, 2004

oh snap!
posted by joedan at 3:27 PM on February 6, 2004

Waste is nice, but don't even try telling everyone here the average joe can figure that shit out.

Maybe I'm just grumpy from too much programming, but screw the average joe. This shit is hard to make - let it be hard to use. A higher barrier to entry will keep a lot of the Britney/Busted crap from clogging up the network as well.

I better just stop now as I feel a long rant coming on about how it was better in '79 and '80 when people made cool software and gave it away for free, blah, blah, blah . . .
posted by bashos_frog at 3:43 PM on February 6, 2004

What's Busted? Suddenly I feel less cool.
posted by kevspace at 5:15 PM on February 6, 2004

I may be mistaken, but I don't think that this matters in the tiniest. The Fasttrack network will carry on operating thanks to the massive, widespread proliferation of alternate clients (which are still available, if you but look around a bit (zeropaid for example)), I think. The genie is out of the bottle. The company itself has been evil since not long after the get-go, with their spyware and crap, and if you've been using an 'official' client all this time, well, you've got bigger worries.

Means very little, this, to file sharers. As for the legality of the whole thing, well, I simply don't care. YMMV.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:35 PM on February 6, 2004

The genie is out of the bottle.

I don't think so. Sure the gnutella genie is out of the bottle, same with WASTE and DC++, but Kazaa still depends on a central server. The only reason they've been around for so long is that they're not located in the U.S.

WASTE seems okay, but encryption without anonymity isn't all that useful, like Carnivore couldn't see what I'm trading but it could see who I'm trading with. I would say it's only a notch more secure than sharing a FTP server with friends.
posted by bobo123 at 5:56 PM on February 6, 2004

Kazaa still depends on a central server

Are you certain of that? I thought differently, but perhaps I was wrong. It's been know to happen.

I don't really care, as I use bittorrent for my daily needs these days.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:39 PM on February 6, 2004

+n
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:39 PM on February 6, 2004

In response to kindall:

The "BSA raids" were performed by law enforcement agencies, not by the BSA, with a warrant.

Law enforcement agents are present, but the investigation is typically carried out by BSA agents. For instance, check this Business Week account of a BSA raid. Particularly, "Armed with a court order, investigators from the Washington trade group Business Software Alliance kicked employees off their computers. Then, with U.S. marshals at their sides, they rummaged through the machines in search of stolen goods, using a program that compiles information on installed software."

The Scientologist raids I alluded to follow a very similar pattern.

So, yes a court has to issue a warrant. Yes there are law enforcement officers present. But mostly the raids themselves are carried out by the complaining parties. Even in the USA.

It strikes me as something to be somewhat distressed over.
posted by Lafe at 9:49 PM on February 6, 2004

I actually had two job interviews with them (LEF Interactive) in their Sydney office a few months ago. Nice group of people and the job I was up for was fantastic. I remember asking their technical guy what he thought about the company's long-term sustainability. He was like, "Well, you've heard about the lawsuits we got served with last year... and so now we've countersued... and basically the whole thing will be tied up in the courts for years to come. Don't worry about it. The business has a sound plan for the next five years and it's not going anywhere."

Guess he was wrong.

The other amusing part of the interview was when I asked if they closely monitored their employees' Internet usage (like my current job does). He was like, "Awww, hell no. You can do whatever you like. Well, except for one thing. Don't use Kazaa to download any copyrighted music. You can download our competitors' clients, you know, for "research", but don't do anything illegal with Kazaa." Point taken.

I'd actually been feeling pretty bad that I didn't get the job (they backed out on the decision to create the position). Not anymore!
posted by web-goddess at 2:58 PM on February 7, 2004