Piracy fighters raid Kazaa offices

[Julio Franco]

A music industry group on Friday raided the Australian offices of peer-to-peer companies Sharman Networks and Brilliant Digital Entertainment, along with the homes of key executives and several Internet service providers.

Music Industry Piracy Investigations obtained a so-called Anton Pilar order Thursday from Justice Murray Wilcox, and began raiding premises in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria on Friday searching for documents and electronic evidence to support its case against the peer-to-peer companies. The order allows a copyright holder to enter premises to search for and seize material that breaches copyright, without alerting the target through court proceedings.

Read more: CNet News.

 

[Phantasm66]

How many people out there with their broadband connections download at least one movie per day?!?!!?

Do you know that Kazaa Lite is even still being developed underground, and its called Kazaa Lite Resurrection, or something?

What's coming next.... a P2P file trading virus? Bittorrent search engines as powerful as google?

You have to admit, after all of this stupid fuss, everyone everywhere still seems to be trading movies and songs.

 

[acidosmosis]

There are many large underground servers for trading files. It is kept pretty quiet but just for an idea of how large it is I'll tell you this. There are literally 1000's upon thousands of servers just in use by one group. Those servers each have around an average of 3000 users sharing between about 10GB-150GB each. By sitting in one server you can get almost any file you want quickly and easily. It's nothing like Kazaa either, it is moderated and the rules are enforced so there are no fakers, cheaters, slot blockers, disconnectors, etc.

As long as the Internet is around we will get our files.

 

[Tarkus]

I think you guys missed the major scary point of the article.

Let me get this straight.... An Australian judge has given a green light to a private, corporate, militia to conduct searches and seizures? IF they ever tried that in America somebody would get shot.

 

[snowman]

i dont think they could do that in america. wouldnt that infringe upon our rights?

 

[videobruce]

Under Valenti, Bush, and Gates you have NO rights!
Just as you didn't under mindless coyboy Reagan!

 

[scotiawhiskers]

They'll run into problems sooner or later - if they keep trying to lockup or prosecute everyone who does file sharing (Me? surely not!) they'll end up with crippled economies. Take too many people out of the loop and the economy starts to fall apart. Anyway I reckon they'll look at the American attitude to drugs and law enforcement and see that they'll bankrupt their countries over less than they make in tax on the corporations. Mass movements do work and I don't think they've got the resources to kill this.

 

[nerdGUY]

It could happen in America...

Un warranted searches and seizures are completely OK under the Homeland Security Act.. All you have to do is point to someone and yell "terrorist" loud enough and he's sure to be arrested and have everything he's ever touched impounded.

Obviously I'm exagerrating a bit, but the way the laws are written, just the suspicion of being a terrorist can warrant all those things of being done. Which means if we ever get another Senator McCarthy who has friends in the RIAA, they could mention people to be suspected of terrorism so that their homes and businesses could be raided as a cover for finding their suposed copyright infringement and at the same time keep them put away practically indefintely.

It sounds far-fetched but its very feasible.