Sparring begins in Kazaa trial

If Sharman Networks can bar people proliferating child porn, then it should do the same for those sharing unlicensed songs, according to the music industry's lead attorney.

Kazaa's porn policy states that it has a "no-tolerance policy with respect to child pornography and other obscene material" and that it has the right to "permanently bar" people and their computers from accessing Kazaa and other Kazaa services, Tony Bannon, the music industry's lead attorney, said during the second day of the Australian trial against the Kazaa file-sharing system.

However, Sharman Networks counsel Anthony Meagher said the company is not in a position to filter the music being downloaded because the technology required is not sophisticated enough to discriminate sufficiently between licensed and unlicensed music.

"There have been attempts to filter unlawful downloading of music, but it failed. The filter knocks out material which is lawful to exchange but contains any of the words being filtered," Meagher said in a Sydney courtroom.

He told the court that filtering would also knock out other content that is not audio but contains similar keywords.

The trial is one of the latest attempts of the music industry to shut down Kazaa.

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