The music industry has reached a legal settlement with veteran antagonist Kazaa, one of the world's best known file-sharing networks and a longtime source of illicit music and movie downloads.
Under the terms of the deal, Kazaa owner Sharman Networks will pay the world's four major music companies--Universal Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group and Warner Music--more than $100 million and commit to immediately going legal, the international recording industry organization IFPI said.
'There are very substantial damages being paid--in excess of $100 million--and Kazaa will go legal immediately. They've had time to prepare for this,' IFPI Chairman and Chief Executive John Kennedy said.
The music industry has pursued an aggressive legal strategy in its attempts to curb Internet piracy, filing lawsuits against file-sharing companies like Kazaa and Grokster, as well as individual users who uploaded copyrighted material.
Meanwhile, legitimate music services like Apple Computer's iTunes have become wildly popular, offering legal alternatives to illicit file sharing.
In June 2005, file-sharing services such as Grokster and StreamCast were dealt a major setback when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they could be held liable for copyright piracy taking place over their networks. | source: Tech News on ZDNet
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