Kazaa Owner Cheers File-Swapping Decision

[Nambe]

The Associated Press

The distributor of file- swapping giant Kazaa welcomed a U.S. court's ruling that two of its rivals are not legally liable for the songs, movies and other copyright works shared online by their users.

Among other reasons for its landmark ruling Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. were not responsible because they don't have central servers pointing users to copyright material.

Nikki Hemming chief executive officer of Sharman Networks, the Sydney-based company that distributes the immensely popular Kazaa peer-to-peer, or P2P, software hailed the ruling Friday as "a fantastic result for the peer-to-peer community. This ruling reinforces similar decisions in other courts around the world that P2P is legal."

She called on the entertainment industry to "stop litigating and start partnering with us. Legislation is not the answer, commercialization of P2P is." ..