Search terms on Kazaa to be blocked

by admin November 25, 2005 at 1:50 pm

Eminem, Madonna and Kylie Minogue are just some of the popular artists whose songs are to be blocked from being illegally distributed on the peer-to-peer network Kazaa following Federal Court orders yesterday.

Justice Murray Wilcox has ordered the owner of Kazaa, Sharman Networks, to modify the file-sharing software to block a list of search terms — primarily artist and song names — to be supplied by the record companies. Justice Wilcox’s order follows the record companies’ court victory in September against individuals and organisations associated with Kazaa.

The court has ordered Sharman to release a new version of Kazaa by 5 December that includes a non-optional keyword filter, restricting users’ ability to illegally access and swap copyright music.

The record companies may also update the list of search terms every two weeks. Once Sharman receives the updated list, it has 48 hours to act on the changes.

Justice Wilcox also ordered in a hearing yesterday that dialogue boxes appear on the Kazaa Web site “to place maximum pressure on KMD [Kazaa Media Desktop] users to obtain the updated release”.

Full story: ZDNet Australia