Hearing set Monday in Kazaa suit
Reuters, 12.01.02, 6:23 PM ET

http://www.forbes.com/work/newswire/...rtr810085.html

LOS ANGELES, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Lawyers for the music and movie industries gathered on Sunday ahead of a hearing in a copyright infringement case against popular file-sharing services, Kazaa, Grokster and Morpheus MusicCity, now named Streamcast, industry trade group officials said.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles will hear summary judgment oral arguments in the case brought by the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Music Publishers' Association against the music services. The suit was first filed in October 2001.

The hearing would come about a week after another proceeding was called to determine whether foreign-based Sharman Networks, the parent company of Kazaa, should also be named in the suit. The judge has yet to decide on that matter.

In court documents, the film and music groups have argued that the defendants' conduct is no different than Napster, the granddaddy of file-sharing services, except they have made more money.

On Friday, a bankruptcy court approved the sale of the assets of Napster to CD-burning software maker Roxio Inc. (nasdaq: ROXI - news - people). Napster was shut down in July 2001 as a result of a similar lawsuit.

Lawyers for Kazaa and Morpheus have maintained that they are different from Napster namely because of their inability to monitor user activity.

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What kind of chance do these P2P networks have against an organization that can get sailors busted for music in a time of war.