Dutch Court Backs Software Maker KaZaA

A Dutch appeals court ruled that the maker of computer software that lets people download music, movies and other copyright-protected material isn’t liable for copyright infringement.

The court overturned a judgment against KaZaA, which was convicted in November of violating copyright law. Because the shared files contain copyright-protected material, KaZaA was ordered to block users from downloading songs.

But the Amsterdam appellate court quashed the ruling, saying that the users of KaZaA’s Media Desktop software were responsible for the copyright infringement, and not the maker or distributor of the computer program.

It also said that the KaZaA program wasn’t exclusively designed to download copyright protected works.

Court officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.

KaZaA called the ruling “an important victory” over music copyright organizations that lodged the case in the Netherlands.