KaZaA is not infringing copyright, says Dutch court
, 02/04/2002
The Court of Appeals in Amsterdam has ruled that users of file-sharing service KaZaA may be infringing copyright – but the company is not. In November 2001, the District Court of Amsterdam found KaZaA BV liable for copyright infringement and ordered it to take measures to stop future infringements.
KaZaA launched in 2000 at a time when Napster was popular. Napster was subsequently forced to suspend its service in the face of legal battles. KaZaA allows users to download free peer-to-peer (P2P) software which can be used to swap music, images and movie files over the internet. To date, tens of million of copies of its software have been downloaded.
The Court of Appeals ruled at the end of last week that:
“KaZaA rightfully appeals the ruling of the District Court, where it stated that as a preliminary issue KaZaA acts contrary to copyright law. In so far as any infringing use is being made by the means of KaZaA, these acts are committed by its users, not by KaZaA.”
The court added: “It is not correct that […] KaZaA's computer program may exclusively be used for downloading copyrighted works.”
The company is claiming that this ruling means that, at least in the Netherlands, developers of technology cannot be held liable for what others do with it.” Users of the KaZaA software are able to share files via the internet, including copyrighted files. Accordingly, music copyright organisation Buma/Stemra sued KaZaA BV for copyright infringement.
The company acknowledged that “the practical meaning of the ruling for KaZaA BV remains to be seen.” As a result of the earlier judgment of November 2001, KaZaA BV says it "was forced to sell its most important business assets" to an Australian company. The Australian company now running the KaZaA.com site has not been sued - yet.
The Dutch company’s CEO, Niklas Zennstrom, said on Thursday: “I have received this verdict with mixed feelings. Surely, it comes too late for KaZaA BV. Hopefully, organisations such as Buma/Stemra will come to their senses and stop these legal battles against peer-to-peer file sharing technologies”