Kazaa users beware, the latest move by anti-piracy bodies involves striking at the very key words you use to search for downloadable music. In an effort to quell downloading of specific artist's songs, courts have ordered Kazaa to impose a filter on certain key words, in an effort to stop them even appearing in the search tool.
The list of terms, which will contain up to 3,000 words, is to be drawn up in the following days, and upon completion, Sharman Networks will have 48 hours to implement it.
You would think the music industry would be jumping for joy at winning such a victory, but you'd be mistaken. Legal representatives for the record companies have a considerably more robust list of 10,000 names that they wish to put forward, claiming the 3,000 long list is "woefully inadequate".
Whatever they may think, the multi-billion dollar question regarding this whole batch of changes is, how effective will they be? In a world full of internet talk, how hard is it really to change Radiohead to Rad1ohead. Given time, music traders will develop codes, simple changes that will bypass the filter, and soon we'll be back where we started.
You'll have to do better than that record executives.
