Thursday, March 18, 2004 Posted: 3:16 PM EST (2016 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- There's a new legal battle over Kazaa -- and this time it has nothing to do with swapping copyrighted music online.
A native of Romania is filing suit and he claims that he wrote the source code to the popular file-sharing software. In addition to seeking the rights to the software, Fabian Toader is seeking $25 million dollars in compensation. Toader claims he wrote the computer code for Kazaa in 2000 while working in Romania on a freelance basis for Kazaa. The company then sold the rights to the software in 2002 to Sharman Networks.
Toader claims he never signed a contract with Kazaa and, under U.S. and Romanian copyright laws, he is the owner of the program, not Sharman Networks. A spokesman for Sharman says the lawsuit is little more than what he calls "Toader's most recent shakedown effort."
Sharman has been the target of lawsuits and from entertainment companies bent on shutting down its operation. The record labels and movie studios say illegal file sharing has cost millions of dollars in lost sales.
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- There's a new legal battle over Kazaa -- and this time it has nothing to do with swapping copyrighted music online.
A native of Romania is filing suit and he claims that he wrote the source code to the popular file-sharing software. In addition to seeking the rights to the software, Fabian Toader is seeking $25 million dollars in compensation. Toader claims he wrote the computer code for Kazaa in 2000 while working in Romania on a freelance basis for Kazaa. The company then sold the rights to the software in 2002 to Sharman Networks.
Toader claims he never signed a contract with Kazaa and, under U.S. and Romanian copyright laws, he is the owner of the program, not Sharman Networks. A spokesman for Sharman says the lawsuit is little more than what he calls "Toader's most recent shakedown effort."
Sharman has been the target of lawsuits and from entertainment companies bent on shutting down its operation. The record labels and movie studios say illegal file sharing has cost millions of dollars in lost sales.