If You Have a Contaminated P2P Network Program on Your Computer You Have Violated US Copyright Laws - Landmark Case in Arizona
"This landmark case means that anyone who has contaminated P2P network programs on his computer is committing copyright infringement, since the only reason to have them installed is to make copyrighted files available to all other P2P users," said Pasquale Giordano, President/COO, SafeMedia Corporation
Boca Raton, Fla. & Hollywood, Calif. (Billboard Publicity Wire) August 29, 2007 -- "This precedent setting ruling by Judge Neil V. Wake will provide the legal foundation for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to more aggressively stop individuals from distributing unauthorized copyrighted music over Peer-to-Peer networks," said CEO & Chairman Safwat Fahmy SafeMedia Corp., Boca Raton, Fl.
"This landmark case means that anyone who has P2P programs on their computer, which connect to a contaminated P2P network (even without downloading files) is committing copyright infringement since the only reason to have the programs is to make copyrighted files available to all other users," said Pasquale Giordano, president & COO, SafeMedia Corp.
SafeMedia is the leading provider of P2P Disaggregator (P2PD) technology. P2PD is the only technology that completely isolates and stops contaminated P2P networks even if they use encrypted transmissions.
The latest court victory involves the case Atlantic v. Howell, where Judge Wake, in a summary judgment, shot down the Howell's arguments and handed the RIAA $40,500 in statutory damages, $350 in court costs, and a permanent injunction against future copyright infringement by the Howells.
"Several cases suggest that users commit direct copyright infringement by employing Kazaa ( a contaminated P2P program) to make their collections of copyrighted sound recordings available to all other users," Judge Wake wrote, naming three other cases as well as Howell's deposition in which he admitted ownership of the software in question.
Recent studies and Congressional hearings have shown that contaminated P2P network users often do not realize they are involuntarily sharing their files with the world. A March 2007 United States Patent & Trademark Office report, which analyzed Kazaa, LimeWire, BearShare, eDonkey, and Morpheus discovered that all five "repeatedly tricked users into uploading infringing files inadvertently."
In another RIAA lawsuit, Elektra v. Santangelo (http://info.riaalawsuits.us/documents.htm#Elektra_v_Santangelo), AOL has been enjoined as a third party defendant and sued for $1 million. The lawsuit against AOL is based on information and belief that, AOL failed to use its controls to prevent illegal downloading (from Contaminated P2P networks) of copyrighted music, even though it had the information, superior knowledge, ability, skill, techniques, tools, power and authority to prevent such downloading.
"We believe universities and campuses across the country will take notice," said CEO Safwat Fahmy, SafeMedia Corp. "A university, based on the AOL lawsuit may be found liable for allowing the infringing conduct of staff and/or students where the university has provided access to the equipment used to carry out the infringing conduct and not taken reasonable steps to ensure that their network infrastructure is not used to infringe copyrighted material."
"SafeMedia provides the only solution on the market guaranteed by a hold harmless agreement from any lawsuits related to copyright infringement on a network where their products are properly installed," said President Giordano. "We have successfully installed our technology on a Florida University campus, and we have several universities from New York to California, who are making plans to purchase our solution. Universities are beginning to understand that 'they have a legal responsibility to permanently solve the problem of copyright infringement.'"
"If each campus installed our technology at each department, including the libraries and wireless networks, they would never have to worry about the RIAA," explained Fahmy. "Our P2PD technology embedded in Clouseau™ is the only cost effective scaleable complete solution that prevents all illegal downloading; encrypted and non-encrypted; from contaminated P2P networks; Clouseau™ never invades user privacy and allows legal P2P such as open source bit torrent files and all other Internet traffic to pass unencumbered at network speeds."
SafeMedia's P2PD technology is embedded in DSL and Cable modems in the home or work environment or as a standalone subnet appliance. The strategy of subnet implementation eliminates any network latency; control darknets between subnets and reduce exposure to backbone failure. "The end result is a safer, faster Internet experience for all users and a network that consumes less bandwidth," explained Giordano.
Editors: For more information about SafeMedia Corp.'s new product line visit: www.SafeMedia.com.
For media interviews contact: George McQuade, at MAYO Communications, 818-340-5300 or
818-618-9229 or PR @ MayoCommunications.com.
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