Home -> Law Blog Directory -> State Law Blogs -> Showmeblawgs

State Law

: Showmeblawgs

By stan_sipple

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirms defendant's conviction for noticing other Kazaa peer-to-peer users when he posted the availability of downloadable files containing child pornography. 071991P.pdf 01/17/2008 United States v. Walter Sewell

U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 07-1991 U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri - St. Joseph [PUBLISHED] [Wollman, Author, with John R. Gibson and Benton, Circuit
Judges]
Criminal case - criminal law. Indictment charging defendant with using the peer-to-peer program Kazaa to distribute child pornography stated an offense under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2251(d)(1)(A), and the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to dismiss for failure to state an offense; in the context of the Kazaa program, placing a file in a shared
folder with descriptive text is clearly an offer to distribute the file.
"Kazaa?s purpose is to allow users to download each other?s files, and the purpose of the descriptive fields is to alert interested users to the content of downloadable files. A keyword search of descriptive fields in Kazaa does not download the file. The search simply creates a list of downloadable files that contain the keyword in the file?s descriptive fields. This list then displays the full descriptive fields for each listed file. Based on the notice the searcher has now been given regarding what other users are offering, the searcher can then choose to
download the child pornography to his computer. In the context of the Kazaa program, placing a file in a shared folder with descriptive text is clearly an offer to distribute the file. To fit this situation within the Tenth Circuit?s apt analogy, see United States v. Shaffer,
472 F.3d 1219, 22-24 (10th Cir. 2007), a Kazaa file?s descriptive fields are like a roadside sign to a self-serve gas station at which the owner need not be present to distribute fuel to passing motorists

Full post as published by Showmeblawgs on February 07, 2008 (boomark / email).