Kazaa: trademark troubles
p2pnet.net News:- These days, little is going right for Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa and the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) ‘trade group’.
It has failed in its attempts to climb into bed with the entertainment industry and recent studies indicate Kazaa is fast falling by the wayside as a major p2p file sharing application.
Now Sharman License Holdings can’t use the Sign of the Green K under the European Community Trademark (CTMR) system, writes Jan Libbenga in The Register here, pointing out that a CTM is valid in all participating EU nations.
"Kazaa may even have to change its name in Germany," says Libbenga, going on that FastTrack, which originally developed Kazaa but sold the rights to Sharman, had already lost a trademark dispute against Germany’s SpeedWare Software GmbH, "which claims that in the German language the name Kazaa is phonetically similar to Casa, the trademark it uses for (database) search software".
The Register story says FastTrack lodged Kazaa with the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) in 2000 but, "SpeedWare Software GmbH (now Nemetschek CREM Solutions) vigorously opposed the trademark Kazaa on the grounds that confusion could arise because the marks are phonetically the same and "the goods/services are identical or similar."
Obviously, Sharman disagreed, says Libbenga: "The second syllable of Casa starts with the letter ’s’, while the mark applied for Kazaa contains the quite unusual letter ‘z’, Sharman argued. Moreover, the double letter ‘a’ is atypical in the German language. From a phonetic point of view, Casa is pronounced as the Spanish word ‘casa’, with the emphasis on the first syllable ‘ca’ and a soft and short sound for the second syllable. The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, however, came to the conclusion that the trade marks indeed are phonetically similar in the German language."
It’s also phonetically similar to a UK expression – "I’m off to the khazi" (used when one’s stomach disagrees with one after eating an explosive curry, for example).
Be that as it may, now that FastTrack/Sharman has lost its appeal against the decision, "the company may now have to reregister its brand name individually in each member state," adds the report.
"More importantly, it can expect opposition from Nemetschek CREM Solutions in German."
June 16th, 2004 at 2:53 am
Strategically, from its July 2003 inception, the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) has had to overcome opposition to its basic mission of fostering commercial development of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing and more advanced distributed computing applications for legitimate purposes.
It has had to overcome perceptions put forth by its opponents, that âit is nothing more than a front for Kazaa,â because seed funding was contributed by Kazaaâs distributor Sharman Networks.
This incorrect charge has been planted on the Hill, broadcast to the press, and disseminated in the marketplace â 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.
DCIAâs Membership nevertheless has steadily grown, reflecting balanced representation from the three key industry sectors identified in its Charter and which comprise the DCIAâs 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 DCIAâs first fifteen (15) Members and comprised of five (5) per Group, are:
Content â BlueMaze Entertainment, Go-Kart Records, INTENT MediaWorks, One Love Channel, Trymedia Systems;
Operations â Altnet, Groskster, Seamless P2P, Shared Media Licensing, Sharman Networks;
Platform â 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 associationâs balanced and solution-focused expansion.