Kazaa, the RIAA and Jammie Thomas
p2pnet news view RIAA | P2P:- Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) and their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) can be quite properly described as hate organisations.
They hate anything which even looks remotely like competition.
They hate independents and independence.
They hate anything which interferes with what they see as their God-given right to control how, and by whom, music is distributed online.
They even hate the people who keep them in drugs and booze and who pay their bills.
But there’s one commercial outfit that’s central to the vast majority of the RIAA hate lawsuits, but which has nonetheless escaped virtually unscathed: Australia’s Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, the P2P file sharing application used by almost every RIAA victim.
Currently, the highest profile Kazaa case centres on Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota mother ordered to pay the corporate music industry almost a quarter of a million dollars for allegedly infringing music copyrights.
Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA thought they’d finally scored when judge Michael Davis told jurors that simply making songs available in a shared folder written to her computer hard drive by Kazaa amounted to infringement, even if actual distribution hadn’t been proved.
Davis has since admitted his instructions were wrong and as things stand, the RIAA is desperately trying to salvage the only case it’s ever managed to bring to court.
Meanwhile, thousands of people continue to use the application.
“Its presence in these cases is ubiquitous,” says Ray Beckerman, the New York lawyer who runs Recording Industry vs The People, the famous online archive of RIAA cases and associated documents, and who himself represents people singled out as RIAA targets.
“It’s shameful.”
The question is – when will Sharman Networks share the same fate as the people who, having used its software, wound up on the wrong end of a lawsuit?
‘95% of the cases have to do with Kazaa’
Sharman Networks, Kazaa’s owner, boasts it’s ‘Fast, safe’.
Fast it may be, but safe it isn’t, as many thousands of people who’ve used it in all innocence have found to their cost. They’re named in RIAA subpoenas with threats of court cases they can’t possibly afford to adequately defend hanging over their heads.
There are no statistics detailing exactly how many Big 4 victims were identified because they were using Kazaa. But it’s safe to bet the vast bulk would fall into that category.
“Anecdotally, I would guess that 95% of the cases have to do with Kazaa,” Beckerman told p2pnet. “It’s rather suspicious.
“Kazaa made a deal for itself which left its customers to hang in the wind.”
He’s referring to the agreement to secretly settle a class action brought against Kazaa owner Sharman Networks by former user Catherine Lewan.
However, before the deal was struck — and it included, presumably, a requirement that details wouldn’t be disclosed — a court document outlining her claim had already been made public. Named in it are »»»
Sharman Networks Ltd aka
Sharman Networks Ltd, Sharman License Holdings Ltd, Geoffrey R.Gee, Global Nominees and Credit Facilities Ltd
Kazaa designed its software, “in such a manner as to create a shared files folder and make that folder available to anyone using Kazaa, while at the same time failing to make the user aware that it had done so,” said Lewan, going on »»»
The Sharman Defendants marketed KaZaA as the P2P service that allowed individuals to share files.
The Sharman Defendants deceptively marketed the KaZaA Product as allowing ‘free’ downloads.
The Sharman Defendants deceptively marketed the use of the KaZaA Product as legal.
The Sharman Defendants deceptively knew that most users of the KaZaA Product would use the KaZaA Product to catalog and store digital copies of copyrighted sound recordings and films.
The Sharman Defendants encouraged, invited and solicited such conduct from the public, its customers, and users of the KaZaA Product.
Kazaa FastTrack network
Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis and Priit Kasesalu launched the Kazaa FastTrack network through their Dutch firm, Consumer Empowerment, aka Kazaa BV, in March, 2001, soon after Napster, which had paved the way for online music distribution, was shut down by the corporate music companies who, instead of embracing peer-to-peer as the means of distributing products in the 21st digital century, fearfully condemned it.
Napster had used centralised servers to hold lists of systems plugged into the network, together with their files.
What made it peer-to-peer was: traffic moved directly computer to computer, allowing users to share with each other quickly and efficiently.
Kazaa BV — decentralised – and KaZaA.com were bought by Australia’s Sharman Networks for an undisclosed sum.
It became one of the first – if not the first – software applications to arrive on users’ systems loaded to the gills with spyware and other forms of badware. It was impossible for the average person to remove it without expert help.
“The company seemingly came out of nowhere,” said CNET News at the time, going on:
“After a silent first month, Sharman has emerged as a key player in an increasingly bizarre triangle with Morpheus’ parent company, StreamCast Networks, and Kazaa BV, in which accusations of unpaid bills, user-poaching and technical sabotage are flying back and forth.”
Morpheus had the users — millions of them — and Kazaa had the network. The two arrived at what was supposed to have been a mutually beneficial deal, but it fell through and Kazaa ultimately cut Morpheus out of the loop, accusing it of having failed to pay licensing fees.
The dispute lead to a long and bitter legal battle.
Australian watchdogs
Initially, Sharman’s only contact with the outside world was through a press agent in California, “who would not comment on the company,”said CNET, adding:
“The management at Sharman also raises questions. Nikki Hemming (right), the CEO, was formerly chief executive of failed Sydney theme park ‘Sega World’. ‘Sega World’ had been billed as Australia’s first indoor theme park, with a massive facility, but customers did not appear, and the business flopped.
“Hemming’s move to buy KaZaA has caught the attention of Australian watchdogs. The Australian Performing Right Association Limited (APRA), which monitors that country’s copyrights for musicians has begun to investigate Sharman.”
What made you decide to buy Kazaa? – CNET asked Hemming in another story. “What are your plans for Sharman?”
“I’ve been around the technology of entertainment for quite a bit of time,” she answered. “Basically, the opportunity was initially put to me by (Brilliant Digital Entertainment CEO) Kevin Bermeister, who I’d known for quite awhile.”
Under Hemming, Kazaa purported to be one with P2P community. But in fact, it cynically did everything it could to persuade the corporate music industry to pick it up as a distribution vehicle.
Not all incidentally, associate company Altnet was simultaneously trying to make its way in the corporate entertainment world as the supplier of a DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control application.
However, the companies shunned Sharman and Kazaa and eventually launched a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against them in Australia with Michael Speck, the ex-detective sergeant who used to run the Big Four’s Australian MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Investigations) but who the last we heard was working for Altnet, leading the way.
In 2005, “Will Mark Dyne Step Forward as Owner of Sharman, FastTrack?” – asked an Online Reporter headline, going on »»»
Speculation continues about who is the ultimate owner of Sharman Networks and who actually owns the FastTrack network that Sharman’s Kazaa software uses for file swapping.
The latest rumbling is that a shadowy figure named Mark Dyne (right) owns both Sharman the company and FastTrack the network. Mark Dyne was once a partner in the —- operation with Kevin Burmeister who operates Brilliant Digital and Altnet and is a defendant in the Sydney trial against Sharman Networks.
Nikki Hemming calls herself the Sharman CEO but there have been suspicions that another power pulls Hemming’s strings because of Sharman’s complex legal incorporation in the remote South Sea island of Vanuatu.
Sharman lawyers have fought tooth-and-nail in the Sydney case to keep hidden the actual identity of Sharman’s owner. Dyne’s public facing these days seems to be his California-based companies EuroCapital and EuroPlay.
Dyne owns over 25 million shares of Bermeister’s Brilliant Digital and was issued eight million options for his service as Brilliant’s CEO. The US-based Brilliant was formed by merging the Australian-based Brilliant Interactive Ideas and Sega Australia New Developments.” [Our paragraph breaks.]
Nuisance score well into the red
Ultimately, Sharman ’settled’ with the corporate music industry for a reported $115 million and Kazaa made the transition from one side of the tracks to the other to become an approved corporate good guy, with Hemming still at the controls, and NO SPYWARE displayed prominently on its Net ad.
But that’s not the way it is, says McAfee SiteAdvisor, although it must be said its services aren’t of the best.
With a nuisance score well into the red, “Kazaa (kazaa_setup.exe) installed the following programs on our PC,” says McAfee, to wit:
- Adware-RXBar Search Threat Library
- Adware-Instafinder Search Threat Library
- Adware-Need2Find Search Threat Library
- Adware-P2PNet Search Threat Library (othing to do with p2pnet.net)
- Adware-TopSearch Search Threat Library
- Adware-Altnet Search Threat Library
- Adware-FlashGet Search Threat Library
- Adware-BDE Search Threat Library
McAfee goes on, “When we installed and ran Kazaa (kazaa_setup.exe), the following network servers which may may be associated with spyware, adware, or other unwanted programs were contacted.
64.93.77.208
instafinder.com
r.instafinder.com
qklinkserver.com
tss.altnet.com
“When we installed and ran Kazaa (kazaa_setup.exe), the following network servers were contacted.
64.93.77.208
instafinder.com
barcfg.need2find.com
r.instafinder.com
qklinkserver.com
tss.altnet.com
24-205-175-95.dhcp.wsco.ca.charter.com
c-24-23-2-85.hsd1.mn.comcast.net
cable-84-44-252-55.netcologne.de
cm18196.red91-117.mundo-r.com
cetn-04-0641.dsl.iowatelecom.net
static-17-12-224-77.ipcom.comunitel.net
a207093.upc-a.chello.nl
VA1-RAS-2-u-0019.du.onolab.com
ool-4355e615.dyn.optonline.net
cpe-24-195-106-40.nycap.res.rr.com
static-62-233-185-82.devs.futuro.pl
165.194.147.211
20129078172.user.veloxzone.com.br
rommel.gate.uni-erlangen.de
‘Kazaa … misleadingly advertises itself as spywarefree’
If McAfee’s SiteAdvisor might leave something to be desired, you can’t say the same about StopBadware.org.
It’s coordinated by Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and supported by companies including AOL, Google, Lenovo, PayPal, Trend Micro and VeriSign, and Consumer Reports WebWatch serves as an unpaid special advisor.
StopBadware.org is directed by Harvard Law School professors and Berkman Center for Internet & Society co-directors Jonathan Zittrain and John Palfrey, with the support of a policy-oriented advisory board and a technical working group, which is composed of top experts in the field like Internet pioneers Esther Dyson and Vint Cerf.
So it’s opinions are gold and Kazaa has been continually on its BadWare list since at least 2006.
Now, in 2008, StopBadware states unequivocally, “We find that Kazaa is badware because it misleadingly advertises itself as spywarefree, does not completely remove all components during the uninstall process, interferes with computer use, and makes undisclosed modifications to other software,” says StopBadware, going on:
- One bundled application cannot be closed. (Interferes with Computer Use)
- Claims to have “no spyware”, but is bundled with software that is considered spyware. (Deceptive Installation)
- Fails to uninstall certain executables and system components. (Unacceptable Uninstallation)
- Adds new links to the Windows Desktop. (Modifies Other Software)
- Changes the default 404 and DNS error pages in Internet Explorer (Modifies Other Software)
- Installs programs that modify Internet Explorer (Deceptive installation, Modifies other software)
High-security peer-to-peer network
Meanwhile, said an August, 2006, p2pnet story »»»
1) Bermeister heralds his plan for world Consumer Control on a page hosted by no lesser body than Big Four ‘trade’ organization the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industries) ;
2) Speck joins Altnet, claiming “I’d be working away from my moral position if I didn’t support a technology that I believe is a quantum leap forward … against unauthorised infringing activity,” says ZDNet Australia.
3) With indecent haste after Sharman’s ‘defeat’ by the cartels, BDE disinters a plan first mooted in 2003 under which Kazaa and Altnet jointly released a bundle of file-swapping software apps, complete with a new “high-security peer-to-peer network and a program that will pay users to be a part of it,” as CNET News wrote at the time.
“Bermeister was instrumental in creating the modern version of Kazaa, introducing Sharman Networks CEO Nicola Hemming to the original creators of Kazaa in the Netherlands,” it said. “Hemming’s original plan for the file-swapping service was long intertwined with Bermeister’s vision of using it to distribute authorized conent [sic], although Bermeister denies being one of Sharman’s as-yet-undisclosed investors.
“The Altnet CEO has spent a year talking to executives at the large content companies and claims to have won some friendly ears among new media executives. However, concerns about litigation and Kazaa’s ultimate legality blocked any deals.”
Not any more.
Altnet says its Global File Registry, “stands ready to provide online content management and protection for all responsible participants in the digital marketplace”.
And the company’s newest employee, Michael Speck, states, “Global File Registry will improve online distribution channels for content owners, while empowering consumers by increasing the number of legitimate access points to the content they choose.”
Empowering consumers? Not while Sharman and the cartels are on the earth.
According to Altnet [read Sharman], Global File Registry is the cornerstone of its, “online content protection and digital crime prevention” strategy. “Developed by experts in online distribution, content protection and anti piracy activity, Global File Registry (GFR) is a giant leap forward for content owners and law enforcement agencies to control piracy and criminal activity on the Internet,”
Anti-piracy?
“GFR is a consolidator of infringing file intelligence, enabling co-operating participants to electronically defend the legal rights of copyright owners and law enforcement authorities without impacting the privacy of users,” says Altnet, going on, “GFR leverages the Altnet TrueNames patent portfolio by locating TrueNames (unique identifiers) in a centralized database so that known infringing files can be acted upon.”
TruenNames was once described by Freenet creator Ian Clarke as a lame duck.
GFR will work its magic by “protecting” users from “inadvertent or spontaneous criminal or civil digital infringements” by “preventing downloading of known illicit files”.
This is extremely interesting given that most of the approximately 19,000 men, women and children currently being victimized by the Big Four’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) were Kazaa users. And many of them say they had no idea that, when they were using Kazaa, they were also enabling the “inadvertent or spontaneous criminal or civil digital infringements” because they hadn’t closed off the Kazaa download directory.
And they hadn’t done that, they say, because Sharman/Kazaa failed to provide clear information that this was essential to prevent inadvertent infringement. Nor did Sharman/Kazaa provide clear, easily understandable instructions on how to take the directory offline.
Be that as it may, even with the corporate entertainment cartels implicitly backing Sharman and Altnet’s most recent lame duck, GFR, the chances of it and/or and Kazaa suddenly gaining credibility are zero.
And with Sharman and its friends now close to the cartels, which have been single-mindedly attacking their own customers, we haven’t seen reports, anywhere, of what will happen to the huge amount of personal and other information Kazaa holds on its users and former users.
Kazaa in 2008
Said Catherine Lewan’s now disenfranchised court document »»»
To use the KaZaA Product, an individual user would download the KaZaA software and install it on their computer.
The user could then use the KaZaA Product to catalog files on the individual’s computer. These files would be contained within a ’share folder’.
To increase the sound recordings and films available on the KaZaA network, the Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to create the shared folder and make the share folder accessible to anyone using the KaZaA software on the KaZaA network. They did so such that neither the KaZaA software nor the individual user’s computer would inform the user that this had occurred.
In other words, the Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to share the contents of the individual users ’share folder’ without letting the user of the KaZaA software know that he or she made such content available to others on the KaZaA network.
Further on, the class action document says »»»
The Sharman defendants designed the KaZaA software to install a number of additional programmes (’spyware’) on an individual user’s computer for nefarious purposes. They did so such that neither the KaZaA software nor the individual user’s computer would inform the user had this had occurred.
The spyware employed by the KaZaA software affected computers adversely.
The Sharman Defendants designed the KaZaA software to be nearly impossible to fully eradicate from a user’s computer. [Our emphasis.] Consequently, an individual’s shared folder would remain accessible to the KaZaA Network after the KaZaA software had been removed from the individual’s computer.
By automatically sharing files in the shared folder, KaZaA exposed its users to claims of copyright infringement by making such files accessible to other users of the KaZaA network to download.
The Sharman Defendants knew and continue to know that the use of the KaZaA Product exposes its users to claims of copyright infringement.
Kevin Bermeister – the ’secret weapon’
Sharman can never suffer the anguish experienced by 40,000 or so American men women and children who became RIAA victims because they’d used Kazaa.
But fair play demands the company and its executives in some way be held accountable.
Meanwhile, “Financed by a controversial Sydney businessman, the Israeli computer game designer Yaron Dotan will this month launch what he believes could be the war to end all wars in the Middle East,” says the Sydney Morning Herald, going on:
“Set in the Palestinian territory of Gaza in the year 2040, the game is called Rising Eagle – Gaza and simulates an infantry battle between the elite Israeli Golani Brigade and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Or, as Mr Dotan prefers to call them, ‘the Waffen SS of today’.”
The key to future success, the story has Dotan saying, “is that high quality games can be produced in Israel at a fraction of what it would cost in the US or Europe.
“The other secret weapon, he said, is the company’s financial backer – the Sydney businessman Kevin Burmeister [sic], who made a fortune during the 1980s and 1990s through his company Sega-OziSoft and was Australia’s biggest distributor of video games titles. In recent years Mr Burmeister has made news as the man behind the internet song-swapping program Kazaa, which made him the target of several lawsuits brought by the global music industry.”
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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October 17th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
“Ultimately, Sharman ’settled’ with the corporate music industry for a reported $115 million”
I don’t get this.
if the corporate music industry already got $115 million, did this not cover them for ALL their damages? How can they sue the users for the same damages?
October 17th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Don’t you pay attention to what they say?
They’ve lost billions, not millions, to all those file-sharing students and grannies and 12-year-olds and dead people and, and …….
Geez!
Cheers!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Sherman Networks should’ve learned from RIAA’s past. Settle into agreement with the RIAA, and the RIAA will only screw you over more.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I was one of the early adopters of kazaa and morpheus in the months following the downfall of napster. I knew their was something fishy about it. I recall the old pentium 3 slowing down while using that junk. Its just sad that some people have yet to be informed about torrents etc and some continue to jump on the kazaa bandwagon and end up getting litigated. Kazaa activities are simply to easy to track.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
it is old news that kazaa is badware and badnews
October 17th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
^^ Very true, but people are still using it. K-Lite was good, though.
Cheers!
October 17th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Good news: people are being sued for being idiots (using KaZaA).
Bad news: they’re being sued by pure evil.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:27 am
“Good news: people are being sued for being idiots (using KaZaA).”
No, people are being sued because of greed. It has nothing to do with if you’ve ever used Kazaa or any other P2P software. There are innocent people who have been sued.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Good news the RIAA/MPAA parasites will be exterminated soon since we detected them!
Good ridance!
Finally an healthier society!
October 18th, 2008 at 4:15 am
The RIAA/MPAA is at least 3 year behind. Kazaa is obsolete!
October 18th, 2008 at 7:17 am
The solution is simple; Don’t use file-sharing networks to download RIAA music, or anything new/popular, as those are the things the anti-piracy oranizations will be watching for. Only use them to download older stuff that is no longer considered current. Use file hosting sites like Rapidshare or Usenet newsgroups to download anything new/popular. Both are, in my opinion, completely safe to download from. There’s really no way you can be monitored by any outside agency and even if they could tell what you’re downloading, downloading is not “unauthorized distribution”, so they would have no grounds to sue you. Technically, they could probably sue you for the cost of buying said product, but I highly doubt that they’d go to the trouble and expense for a single infringing copy.
Not only that, but file hosting sites simply need a standard web browser and there is a wide variety of stable, reliable software that works with Usenet newsgroups, so there’s no need to worry about having to use malware-infested programs.