Petteri Pyyny
16 May 2002 15:07
Highly unlikely alliance formed between KaZaA, the notorious P2P software company (owned by Australian Sharman Networks), and American telecom giant Verizon (former Bell Atlantic) is determined to force Washington to change one of the biggest issues surrounding digital media and rights to it.
Companies are pushing Congress to force record companies and other media owners for something that's dubbed as "compulsory licensing". Currently the situation is that unless company's specific needs for content aren't covered by existing contracts (like radio royalties), company has to negotiate with each and every content owner separately to get the content and set the price for the content.
Now KaZaA and Verizon are pushing something that would change this, forcing companies to license and forcing Copyright Office or someone else to set the royalty rates for each and every use there is for the content.
Verizon's main concern is probably the fact that P2P networks are one of the main things that pull users towards broadband connections which are Verizon's bread/butter business at the moment.