Slipping through the net

Having failed miserably to nail down one-to-one music file-sharing network provider Kazaa, a desperate American recording industry is seeking to turn the heat on the former's users.

The Recording Industry Association of America (riaa) had earlier forced the first music-sharing network Napster, to shut up shop. It has now embarked on a massive manhunt for Kazaa users who act as conduits for the network. But unlike Napster, Kazaa does not have central servers to process millions of file-sharing requests sent out daily on the network. Instead, its users act as the conduits.

Clever as it seems, Kazaa is owned by Australia-based Sharman Networks, registered in the tiny South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. This ensures that Kazaa is safely outside the legal purview of the us courts. On October 7, 2002. riaa pleaded in the us federal court to force Internet service provider (isp) Verizon to divulge names of those who act as conduits for Kazaa. Verizon -- one the largest isps in the us -- is, however, resisting the move on grounds of having to intrude upon its customer's privacy. It says that it is merely acting as a 'conduit' for the file-swapping they are engaged in.