It has had to overcome perceptions put forth by its opponents, that “it is nothing more than a front for Kazaa,” because seed funding was contributed by Kazaa’s distributor Sharman Networks.

This incorrect charge has been planted on the Hill, broadcast to the press, and disseminated in the marketplace – to discredit the DCIA, distract the trade association from its genuine focus on developing commercial solutions, and discourage companies from joining the DCIA to fulfill its mission.

On one hand, major music labels, emboldened by their power to close down Napster, have continued to pursue a strategy to boycott P2P technology, enlisting the support of major movie studios, rather than engaging in collaborative development of solutions or licensing their content. On the other hand, unaffiliated P2P software suppliers have resisted supporting anti-copyright-infringement initiatives in favor of perpetuating the status quo.

Related to this, prospective Members engaged in pre-existing litigation against DCIA Member(s) and/or other prospective Members have declined to join on advice of counsel that to do so would jeopardize the outcome of pending court proceedings.

DCIA’s Membership nevertheless has steadily grown, reflecting balanced representation from the three key industry sectors identified in its Charter and which comprise the DCIA’s Membership Structure: Content, Operations, and Platform Groups.

Members are listed alphabetically with links to their sites on the Join page at http://www.dcia.info, which is maintained with up-to-date Membership information.

Current category breakdowns of the DCIA’s first fifteen (15) Members and comprised of five (5) per Group, are:

Content – BlueMaze Entertainment, Go-Kart Records, INTENT MediaWorks, One Love Channel, Trymedia Systems;

Operations – Altnet, Groskster, Seamless P2P, Shared Media Licensing, Sharman Networks;

Platform – Claria Corporation, Clickshare Service, Digital Containers, Predixis, Relatable.

Recruitment efforts seek to maintain balance among Content, Operations, and Platform Groups as the DCIA continues to develop a critical mass of participants.
The DCIA represents the expansion of commerce, in lieu of litigation and legislative conflict, at the intersection of these three Groups.

The highest priority is given to attracting Members based on what they can uniquely offer the forming distributed computing industry in terms of viable business solutions. It is certainly not the case that a relationship of any kind with Sharman Networks is a pre-requisite for Membership.

Many more Members are in the process of being actively recruited to continue the trade association’s balanced and solution-focused expansion.

Amazing how much stuff is on IRC channels these days.