Witness assaults Kazaa filter claims

Overriding severe objections from Sharman Networks, an Australian judge allowed an antipiracy company to testify at a trial against the owners of peer-to-peer software Kazaa.

Tom Mizzone, vice president of data services at New York-based MediaSentry, told the Sydney court on Thursday that his company is able to identify Australian users of Kazaa software by tracking IP addresses.

Mizzone said the IP addresses allocated for Internet service providers in Australia can be traced through the "scanners" his company uses to track down sound recordings and user information within the Kazaa system.

He added that MediaSentry is also able to detect the copyright-infringing music files made available for download in the Kazaa system's shared folders. Mizzone told the court that his company is doing what any ordinary user of the Kazaa system is able to do. Aside from detecting files, he said, they can also communicate with the users via instant messaging.

Mizzone's statement is critical to the music industry's claim that Sharman Networks can use the Kazaa software to identify people who are downloading copyright-infringing materials and communicate with them at the same time.

Sharman Networks and other respondents in the trial have maintained that they are not able to control what Kazaa users do with the software and that trials of filtering have failed in the past.

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