Sued By RIAA, Kazaa User Now Sues Kazaa

December 8, 2006

Remember those Recording Institute of America lawsuits against music file-sharing service Kazaa's individual customers.

Well, some might say that turnabout is fair play.

In Chicago, Catherine Lewan, a former Kazaa customer who was sued by and then settled with the RIAA, is leading a class-action lawsuit against Kazaa's owner, Sharman Networks.

The complaint, filed within Lewan v. Sharman, U.S.Dist. Ct., N.D. Ill 06-cv-6736, alleges that Kazaa:

Deceptively marketed its product as allowing "free downloads;"
Designed the software in such a manner as to create a shared files folder and make that folder available to anyone using Kazaa, while at the same time failing to make the user aware that it had done, and
Surreptitiously installed "spyware" on users' computers which made the shared files folder accessible to the Kazaa network even after the user had removed the Kazaa software from his or her computer.

Perhaps not directly related to the merits of this case, I have to wonder if Ms. Lewan's lawsuit is at least partially motivated by the fact that she was sued while she was a Kazaa customer. You know, "you made your service so alluring that I couldn't resist."