Kazaa payment exposed in copyright trial
The lawyer for a company allegedly associated with Sharman, Altnet, had asked the court to make the order in relation to documents originally seized last year under civil search orders. However, Jocelyn Wilks saw her request that media organisations and music industry parties -- including the industry's piracy investigations unit and its head, Michael Speck -- be barred from viewing the documents rejected by Federal Court Justice Murray Wilcox.
Justice Wilcox said "either the documents were confidential, or they were not".
Wilks had said that Altnet was now in a position of commercial competition with the record companies because they were supplying music online and therefore should not have access to Altnet documents containing technical specifications.
"With respect to whether a technical document is current or not doesn't necessarily mean that it may not still contain confidential or commercially sensitive information. I should also say that the applicants are now in the position of being commercial competitors of our client," Wilks said.
She added that the record companies were in competition with Altnet in that they are "developing similar sorts of technology and putting music on line". However, the claim was rejected by Richard Cobden, counsel for the record companies.
One of the documents for which a request for confidentiality was rejected yesterday was the sale and purchase of Kazaa BV by Sharman Networks Limited. According to the document, Sharman paid â,¬600,000 (around AU$1 million) to buy the operation in 2002.
Sharman cousel Tony Meagher argued that the contract should not be made public, especially the clause stating how much Sharman paid for the acquisition of Kazaa BV.
However, Justice Wilcox said "If perhaps the contract was not yet completed, so that there may be some worry about somebody else in the market coming in and causing problems, I would agree with you. But this is a sale that took place some three years ago and it's been long since completed and the money, presumably, has been long since paid."
Justice Wilcox declined to make public further parts of invoice documents sent by former Sharman lawyers Phillips Fox to the Sharman companies.
Closing addresses for the case will start on March 22.