Kazaa Can Track Users, Trial Witness Says

As an Australian court considers whether Kazaa's parent company should be forced to pay damages for the file sharing that goes on over its peer-to-peer (P2P) network, questions persist about the effectiveness of the music industry's enforcement efforts.

Today, the Federal Court in Sydney heard from Leon Sterling, chairman of Software Innovation and Engineering for the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering in the University of Melbourne.

He said that Sharman Networks should be able to track who is using its Kazaa software and what they are doing.

Details Unclear

In other words, Sharman should be able to stop piracy or at least report it to the music industry.

Sterling appeared as a witness for the music industry. On cross examination, he acknowledged that he didn't know how long it would take to develop such technology or how expensive it would be.

Last week, as the trial opened, Sharman Networks attorney Anthony Meagher said there was no technology sophisticated enough to distinguish between licensed and unlicensed music on the network.

Buyers and Sharers

Universal Music Australia, EMI, Sony/BMG, Warner, Festival Mushroom and 25 other recording companies are suing Sharman Networks in civil court claiming that it created the software knowing it would be used to pirate music and even encouraged that use. The court said that it would not shut the service down, but Sharman could be forced to pay millions in damages.

Regardless, the question remains as to whether fighting music listeners and individual P2P networks is a good approach?

According to John Barrett, director of research for Parks Associates, 15 percent of people who never use peer-to-peer networks buy music, while 40 percent of people who use such networks also buy music.

This suggests that people who are interested enough to seek out music to share are also interested enough to buy it. "It's one and the same group," Barrett told TechNewsWorld.

Never Stop

"What I think is happening is that they're just pushing it farther underground," he said the music industry's efforts to squelch the P2P networks.

"They're never going to stop piracy. It's been around forever. I think they know that. Even with legal services and all the copyright protection, it's ridiculously easy to get around. They're kidding themselves and hoping no one will notice."

Bigger Issues

The underlying problem for the music industry has to do with a lot more than P2P networks. Barrett said research shows that 60 percent of people who say they go to a P2P network monthly also say they don't download anything.

Finding what you're looking for and getting a high-quality copy of it are difficult and can be time-consuming, he said.

"The problem is that [the music industry's] revenue model is being completely undermined," he said. In the past, music companies have sold the same songs and albums over and over again by releasing them on movie soundtracks, as greatest hits collections and on new media with better sound quality.

"Just by going digital completely undermines that," Barrett said. "You're never going to upgrade your entire collection, never going to buy a greatest hits album, you can burn your own greatest hits CD."