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"Now we don't know what to do... Should we go door-to-door and ask people to stop using the software?"
——Alberdingk Thijm, KaZaA counsel

KAZAA GETS KA-BONGED

Swapco In Dutch Oven After Judge's Shutdown Order
A Dutch judge has ordered free file-swappery KaZaA to disable its P2P apparatus and pay steep fines, it was reported today.

Currently one of the most popular sources of unauthorized music on the Net, KaZaA has been cited in numerous reports as a big player in illicit digital-music trafficking (see hitsdailydouble.com story, 11/6). Judge R. Orobio de Castro, reviewing a suit filed by artists', writers'and publishers' rep Buma/Stemra, declared the swapco must shut down its file-sharing machinery within two weeks or pony up the equivalent of $40,000 per day in penalties—though, admittedly, they'd only be paying that Monopoly money that's used in the Netherlands.

Complying with the judge's order may not be so simple, however. KaZaA, unlike Napster but like Gnutella and other rapidly adopted applications, has no central server; instead, users essentially go directly to other computers (well, really, other "nodes," but that's a whole other, really boring article) and search one another's share folders.

The application (like fellow P2P apps Grokster and Morpheus) uses the network of Amsterdam company Fast Track BV, which is currently being sued by the RIAA, MPAA, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Army Reserve. Well, the first two, anyway (see hitsdailydouble.com story, Oct. 3). If Fast Track can be defeated in court—which seems entirely possible—P2P programs like KaZaA will have to find a new way to connect users. For the time being, though, the software's creators are in a tight spot.

"Now we don't know what to do," despaired KaZaA counsel Alberdingk Thijm, who will also be fined for having excessive consonants in his name, to IDG News Service. "Should we go door-to-door and ask people to stop using the software?" Thijm insists that once the software is out in the online community, it can't be stopped.

Guess y'all shoulda thought of that before, huh?

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