Fight Over Web Copies In Music Goes Global By AMY HARMON. Having vanquished the music swapping service Napster in court, the entertainment industry is facing a formidable obstacle in pursuing its major successor, KaZaA: geography. Sharman Networks, the distributor of the program, is incorporated in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu and managed from Australia. Its computer servers are in Denmark and the source code for its software was last seen in Estonia. KaZaA's original developers, who still control the underlying technology, are thought to be living in the Netherlands - although entertainment lawyers seeking to have them charged with violating United States copyright law have been unable to find them. What KaZaA has in the United States are users - millions of them - downloading copyrighted music, television shows and movies 24 hours a day. How effective are United States laws against a company that enters the country only virtually? The answer is about to unfold in a Los Angeles courtroom. A group of recording and motion picture companies has asked a U- S- federal judge to find the custodians of KaZaA liable for copyright infringement and financially benefiting from it. If the group wins, it plans to demand an injunction. Sharman would then have to stop distributing KaZaA or alter the program to block copyrighted material, which it says is not possible. Sharman asked the court to dismiss the case, asserting that because the company bas no assets or significant business dealings in the United States, the court has no jurisdiction over it. Moreover, the company said, because the Internet does not recognize territorial boundaries, anything Sharman does with KaZaA at the behest of a judge in Los Angeles would affect 60 million users in over 150 countries. Arguments are scheduled for Nov- 10. "What they're asking is for a court to export the strictures of U- S- copyright law worldwide," said Roderick G- Dorman, a lawyer for Sharman. "That's not permitted. These are questions of sovereignty that legislatures and diplomats need to decide." None of the entities being sued in association with KaZaA distribute copyrighted material themselves. Instead, the software enables millions of people to search for files on each other's personal computers when they are connected to the Internet. When a KaZaA user types the name of an artist or title into a search box, a list of matching files that other users have placed in a "shared" folder on their hard drives appears on the screen. The user can then click on an item to download a copy. Under the copyright law of most countries, people who use software like KaZaA to download copyrighted material from each other would almost certainly be liable for infringement. The conflict is over whether software that makes it easy for people to break the law is itself a copyright violation. "The question is whether there is liability in .making it possible to infringe," said Jane C. Ginsburg, who teaches international copyright law at Columbia University. "If there are genuine markets for the software in different countries, it could be very difficult to figure out which law to apply." In the Napster case, a court in San Francisco found that the company was likely to be held liable for violating United States copyright law. Napster has since filed for bankruptcy and'has been defunct for more than a year. An appeals court in the Netherlands, however, ruled earlier this year that it was legal to distribute the KaZaA software there. "Insofar as there are acts that are relevant to copyright, such acts are performed by those who use the computer program and not by KaZaA," the court's ruling says. That case, is being appealed in the Netherlands, but music industry lawyers say it has little bearing on the KaZaA case in Los Angeles. The global reach of the Internet, they say, does not take away the right of the United States to enforce its laws when they have an impact on its citizens, within its borders. "The copyright industries around the world are not going to stand still and let other companies build businesses off the sweat of their brow simply because they're wiilling to set up shop in some other country," said Matt Oppenheim, a lawyer for the Recording Industry Association of America.