Kazaa shrugs off court order
In a decision last month, Judge Orobio de Castro told the network to block customers from trading illegal files by Dec. 13 or pay a $45,000 a day fine. As of now, however, the service has not altered its business practices, company attorney Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm said Thursday. The service was developed by Netherlands-based FastTrack.
Kazaa faces suits in both the Netherlands and the United States, where it was sued along with Grokster and MusicCity by the record industry and Hollywood studios.
Copyright holders have so far been successful in shutting down peer-to-peer companies, most notably Napster, which popularized the concept. A federal judge ordered the company late last year to filter copyright material from its network, effectively forcing the service to close while it develops the necessary technology. The company plans to reopen next year as a subscription service using fully licensed material. --Jasper Koning, Special to ZDNet News