Kazaa to appeal data seizure order ruling

Kazaa owner Sharman Networks today said the company will appeal against an Australian Federal judge's ruling that information seizure orders granted to the music industry last month be allowed to stand.

The P2P purveyor damned Judge Murray Wilcox's original decision to grant the orders as "an improper exercise of the jurisdiction of the court".

On 6 February, Kazaa's Australian HQ and a number of other Internet businesses' premises were raided by Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), an organisation sponsored by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The raids were authorised by the court, which granted MIPI's request for a series of Anton Piller orders permitting the data-acquisition manoeuvres.

At a 10 February hearing, Kazaa's lawyers asked Judge Murray Wilcox to overturn the Anton Piller orders. The Kazaa legal team claimed that MIPI had not provided the judge with all the pertinent background information when the organisation had applied for the orders.

This past Monday, however, Judge Murray Wilcox dismissed Kazaa's request.

Today, Kazaa accused the judge of failing "to consider the non-disclosure by the record industry and the lack of evidence of possession by Sharman of incriminating evidence, and the fact that there was no real possibility of destruction of evidence."

Judge Wilcox also "failed to consider the relevance of the US and Netherlands proceedings, and in particular the judgements of both courts, which found that the owners and operators of Kazaa and other P2P applications had no means of control over the activities of users", the company said, in a statement.

Last year, both the US and Dutch courts ruled that P2P software suppliers could not be held liable for illegal activities conducted by their users. ®

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