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Kazaa Loses Court Case, But Will Appeal

ZDNet Australia: The music industry is claiming a win against Kazaa with the decision of Australian judge Justice Murray Wilcox. It's not an absolute win -- Wilcox threw out a number of charges and respondents -- but Kazaa has two months to makes some changes so it can remain in operation. According to ZDNet Australia, the judge ruled Kazaa had to include "non-optional keyword filter technology" in current versions of the software received by new users, in future versions of the software and exert "maximum pressure" on existing users to upgrade to a new version containing the technology, or that the Altnet search software -- called TopSearch -- is restricted to providing lists of non copyright-infringing works.
OK, the filters are a good idea, but how would they work? Will there be a central body that has digital fingerprints of copyrighted song and each file is compared against them? Record labels will claim that puts the onus on them to prevent copyright infringement -- at least, that's what publishing houses claim about Google's statement it would allow them to opt-out of having their books scanned. There are filter technologies but the general consensus is that people will find a way around them, although the more steps there are the less people who will bother. Still, maybe the record labels will finally allow their files onto p2p programs...after all, the real reason their sales are going down is because they don't offer the public what it wants. (from The Mind Trap)