'Don't abandon us!' - pleads Sharman cto Morle
We're still waiting for a response from Altnet, Sharman Networks' Kazaa partner, so we can follow up on important, perhaps even vital, privacy issues we raised in Kazaa Plus -v- Kazaa NonPlus.
And while we wait, Sharman is a great place packed with cool people who really like p2p and who'd never dream of doing anything nasty, says cto Phil Morle.
Or words to that effect.
Because Sharman is now trying to repair some of the damage caused the RIAA-inspired DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) violation notices it fired off the same week it sent out puff pieces on its so-called ad-free version of Kazaa (see Kazaa Plus -v- Kazaa NonPlus).
A 'Gosh golly' PR shot from Morle crafted specifically to give the impression that Sharman (and by default, Kazaa) is full of groovy kids just trying to have fun is now doing the rounds online. It's addressed to Slyck, one of the longest-lived p2p sites and the place a lot of people visit to find out what's happening with the various apps and networks.
Naturally, Kazaa Lite featured on Slyck and it, together with Google and a number of other sites, was, in consequence, the recipient of a DMCA notice.
"[...] we were served with this notice ordering the removal of links to 2 Kazaa Lite related websites namely http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/ mirror.htm#klitekpp210b2e and http://doa2.host.sk/," says Slyck on its web site, going on that Slyck complied.
Said Ray Hoffman, Website owner and administrator: "Slyck has recently been issued a DMCA complaint by Sharman Networks, the company that makes the Kazaa Media Desktop software. The complaint states that we are to remove the links to certain pages that are infringing on their copyrights. We were supplied no proof that these pages actually have been found by legal means to be guilty of infringement. We have decided to remove these links while we seek legal council as to this matter.
"We are saddened that a company that used to be friendly to the P2P world has grown too large and greedy and now seeks to manipulate any avenue to gain it's monetary goals. Slyck.com feels that actions taken on behalf of Sharman Networks are directly opposed to the benefit of the P2P community and we can no longer support the Kazaa Media Desktop."
Saddened but not surprised, we'd bet, since Kazaa went Korporate quite a while back.
Having threatened Slyck, through Morle's letter, Sharman is now trying to make the file sharing community, large numbers of whom now think Kazaa is something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe, believe the people over at the K-shop are all good sticks, really.
"I regret that I have not been able to have a more open dialogue with the Slyck community whilst I've been working on Kazaa, and I hope that you understand that this is because of the complexities of the current legal challenges we face and not from a lack of respect for the p2p community," says Morle.
"There are 22 people who work for Sharman here in Sydney. Each day these people come into work with a single mission - to make sure that peer to peer is here forever. To achieve this goal we have an enormous commitment to two main groups of people: KMD users and content owners."
He also says Sharman will:
Continue to deliver the most powerful peer to peer technology on the market. This kind of development takes time and at the moment we're closer to delivering the next generation of p2p than ever before.
Make the application as safe as possible, protecting users from viruses, accidental sharing and minors from inappropriate files.
He doesn't mention the gaping privacy holes in Altet's product, on which the new, 'free' Kazaa depends.
Anyway, he goes on, "For content owners, we need to prove our business model and strong belief that peer to peer is not a problem but a solution that can create whole new markets [for Sharman] in the same way other new technologies (such as piano rolls, radio, cinema, TV, video and cable) have done in the past. P2P is not just about massive cost savings in digital distribution, but is also a powerful technology for cultural ideas to spread quickly, introducing new music, movies, games to large and niche markets alike very quickly and effectively. This is, of course, a huge discussion and people may well disagree until we establish the substantial viability of this technology. We have an opportunity to demonstrate that it is the case - and we will.
"We do all this while defending ourselves against an extremely distracting and expensive legal case."
But what of K-Lite, "and other mods to our software"?
Says Morle, "These applications are:
Anti-p2p. The ones that concern me most are the various 'Participation Level Hacks'. Participation Level was created to strengthen the very concept of P2P. Some users responded by hacking the software so that they did not need to give in order to take. This, in my view, is the most anti-p2p manoeuvre I have seen. Each PL Hack out there just diminishes the P2P experience for others. There are similar issues with 'Download Accelerators' that lets users with hacked versions use more than their fair share of network resources. Again, each one of these that is out there diminishes the experience for others. P2P is a two way street.
Unstable. These applications hack the software, not at the source code level, but by performing dangerous modifications, often while various values are in memory. This software crashes frequently and creates instabilities on a user's computer. Often users then try to re-install the certified Kazaa Media Desktop to find they can't because registry settings and host files have been mangled without respect for the user's PC.
Short-sighted. As long as these applications remove the capacity for Kazaa to display licensed content to its users, it is helping to prolong the legal ambiguities of p2p. Is this what you really want? Have you listened to some of the bands that release their stuff through Altnet? The more you guys interact with this stuff, the faster we will prove the model.
Often sold by Scam Artists. Do a search for Kazaa and go to one of the many sponsored links. Imagine you are a p2p novice and navigate these sites. On many of these sites, people are being misled into paying for free applications and in many cases believe that they are buying these applications from Sharman or that the applications are real Kazaa Media Desktops. We know this because we get their email complaints. This damages the users' view of p2p generally. We are sensitive to the issue of adware and understand that not all users want adware on their system. First let me say this: Adware is not spyware. KMD does not include spyware. We believe adware is a reasonable component of our relationship with users ensuring we have a business to support the next generation of p2p, and to make sure that and can pay for the innovations you will see to come and making sure legally, commercially and technically, p2p is here to stay.
In the meanwhile, "Sharman Networks is a fantastic place to work with a team so committed to users and content owners that I think you would be quite surprised if you came by our office in Sydney," he says. "It saddens us that our motivations are disparaged and questioned by those who do not understand our story, but it is part of the landscape right now and we accept this, remaining firmly on our course as a legitimate p2p company with the goal of promoting and defending p2p for everyone's benefit.
"Much of what we've been working on since starting our work with Kazaa is only just coming to fruition after a year and half. I hope that you will not abandon us, but learn to trust that we are moving mountains across difficult terrain to make sure that p2p is here forever."
Great stuff, albeit a trifle odourous.
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