Has Sharman Networks sold Kazaa?
p2pnet news view P2P:- If a report in the Wall Street Journal is accurate, Australia’s Sharman Networks no longer owns Kazaa.
“Kazaa, which is now owned by Brilliant Digital Entertainment, said on its Web site that users can stream DRM files on their computers using Windows Media Audio, meaning it can`t be shared or streamed onto a portable MP3 player,” writes Marisa Taylor.
“Technology developer Kevin Bermeister (left), who was part of the original Kazaa and is now with Brilliant Digital, expressed confidence in the new service, saying that music lovers were embracing legal downloads and streaming, rather than the pirated file-sharing of the past,” she says.
Kazaa and DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control?
That makes sense.
But one wonders if the report of Kazaa’s move to BDE is reliable.
The WSJ says he’s “now with Brilliant Digital”. But not only has Bermeister been with BDE since Year One, he launched it.
The confusion is, however, understandable.
“Keven Bermeister and Michael Speck (right) were on opposite sides of the courtroom at one point,” said Pulse2 last year, going on, “Bermeister was being sued for millions of dollars for being one of the founders of KaZaa with co-founder Nikki Hemming. Michael Speck, the head of the Music Industry Piracy Investigation was behind the lawsuit against Bermeister. But in a rather ironic twist of events, Speck and Bermeister have decided to start a new company together.
“The new company is called Brilliant Digital Entertainment. Brilliant Digital Entertainment will be selling access to a GlobalFileRegistry (GFR). GFR is a solution for anti-piracy companies to deter copyright content from spreading across social networks and search engines.”
But the ” new company … called Brilliant Digital Entertainment” was in fact started by Bermeister in the mid 1990s.
So does BDE now own Kazaa, the P2P file sharing application which masqueraded as a friend of the P2P community, at the same time trying, and failing, to forge business links with the anti-P2P entertainment cartels?
The last we heard, Kazaa (trying to raise itself from the dead) was still owned by Sharman Networks, and under, ‘What is the connection between Sharman Networks and Brilliant Digital Entertainment (BDE)?’ – Sharman explains »»»
As an owner of Altnet, BDE partners with Sharman Networks to provide the Digitally Rights Managed (DRM) solution to the Kazaa Media Desktop. BDE is a key partner who provides services to Sharman Networks, including acting as a representative for sales and marketing in the United States.
And »»»
Sharman Networks partnered with Altnet, a subsidiary of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, to create a solution to monetize peer-to-peer technology.
Monetize P2P, eh?
“You have to give it to Kazaa owner Sharman Networks and associates Brilliant Digital Entertainment and Altnet: they`ll try anything to turn their TrueNames DRM app into hard cash,” said p2pnet in 2005.
TrueNames is the DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control application once described by FreeNet’’s Ian Clarke as a lame duck.
Altnet’s latest move, p2pnet went on, “is revealed in a circular they`ve sent to various p2p firms including BearShare, Limewire, MashBoxx and Shareaza, that we know of at the moment,” continuing »»»
It says, among other things:
I write on behalf of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, Inc. (BDE) and Altnet, Inc. (Altnet), the exclusive licensees for use in peer-to-peer computing of U.S. Patent No. 5,978,791, entitled Data Processing System Using Substantially Unique Identifiers to Identify Data Items, Whereby Identical Data Items Have the Same Identifiers (the `791 Patent) and U.S. Patent No. 6,415,280 B1 entitled Identifying and Requesting Data In Network Using Identifiers Which Are Based On Contents of Data (the `280 Patent) (collectively the Data Distribution Patents).
It goes on »»»
Based upon our investigation, we believe that other peer-to-peer applications, including applications offered by your company, use the technology claimed in the Data Distribution Patents for identifying, accessing, and distributing data items between computers. Accordingly, we believe that your company requires a license from BDE and Altnet to continue practicing the `791 and `280 Patents with your company`s peer-to-peer application.
Result? Nada.
Meanwhile, the WSJ got part of it right.
Bloggers, “scoffed at the new Kazaa`s ability to compete with other subscription-based services that offer customers the same thing for less,” it says, adding:
“For example, Napster relaunched in May with an offer of unlimited streaming from its library of 7 million files for $5 per month. Microsoft`s Zune offers its users unlimited streaming for $15 a month, and Rhapsody gives listeners two different unlimited plans that are priced at $12.99 and $14.99.
Given the competition that Kazaa is up against, we don`t see a bright future for the service, it has ReadWriteWeb`s Frederic Lardinois saying.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Wall Street Journal – Pirate Bay, Kazaa Try Legal Relaunches, July 22, 2009
Pulse2 – Kevin Bermeister and Michael Speck Partnering On Brilliant Digital Entertainment, October 29, 2008
GlobalFileRegistry – Kazaa owner`s DRM plan, August 4, 2006
raise itself from the dead – Sharman Networks dissinters Kazaa, July 21, 2009
p2pnet – Altnet `extortion` attempt, January 10, 2005
lame duck – Altnet`s lame-duck patent, November 15, 2003
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July 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
The story of why there’s this convoluted, fractured ownership structure behind Kazaa has its roots in the crippling lawsuits the cartels launched against the two co-founders in the early 2000s. Rather than sitting still and serving as target practice, they got in gear and spun out pieces of the tech to several interconnected, offshore entities – basically a textbook example of using smart corporate structure to limit personal liability from frivolous, punitive civil litigation. Wired ran an excellent summary article on the overall structure years ago – a structure that succeeded in shielding most all the actual human beings involved in this project from any direct impact from the weaponized lawsuits of the oligarchs.
Now, after that round of battles is done, you’re just seeing the echoes of the old structures and the old splits between tech and operations that were set up earlier. Ironically, it’s much easier to set up such structures than it is to decommission them. I can hunt up the Wired article if anyone is curious – it’s posted in our internal company forum as we’ve used it to educate new staffers in our company on some of the basic principals of international tech administration.