Kazaa Sues The Hollywood Conspiracy

from the no,-conspiracy,-just-shortsighted-uncreative-greedy-lawyers dept

Back in July, an antitrust lawsuit filed by Kazaa owner Sharman Networks against the entertainment industry was thrown out after the judge said Sharman couldn't show how the entertainment industry had harmed them. Now, Kazaa has sent their lawyers back to the drawing board, and they've come up with a second anti-trust lawsuit that they say answers the questions that made the judge toss out the first one. This time, they're accusing the entertainment industry of a grand conspiracy against them. They say that entertainment execs expressed interest in Kazaa, only to back off, and later use that info in lawsuits. It still seems like this case is a longshot. I don't think there's any real "conspiracy" against Kazaa. I think it's shortsighted and self-destructive, but it's no conspiracy. It's outright hatred from a bunch of lawyers and entertainment execs who don't realize that they're doing their best to kill a fantastic distribution system that was just handed to them while trying desperately to hang onto an obsolete business model. Update: More details on this one. It turns out that, of all things, part of the lawsuit says that Hollywood is guilty of copyright infringement for using Kazaa Lite to get on their network. Also, they claim that by uploading fake files and messaging their users, the studios have violated Sharman's terms of service. I find it hard to believe these arguments will get them very far.

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