Rosso attacks Sharman’s DCIA
Sharman Networks’ DCIA (Distributed Computing Industry Association) is a “phony front organization operated by a rube,” former Grokster president Wayne Rosso told p2pnet in an exclusive interview.
“The DCIA has no portfolio whateover and yet has the unmitigated nerve to hold itself out as a representative of the p2p industry,” he said.
Kazaa-owner Sharman is a music industry wannabe whose game plan is to get alongside the major labels anyway it can.
Sharman presents its DCIA as an authoritative p2p trade group source and gullible reporters sometimes carry DCIA statements, together with quotes from its ‘chief executive’ Marty Lafferty, in much the same way that they report RIAA statements as if they’re from a credible source.
“I feel I can speak speak out,” says Rosso, who refers to anything to do with Sharman as KaShAl (Kazaa, Sharman, Altnet). “I went and bought a few shares in Brilliant – and I’ve lost money on it.”
Rosso now runs the Spanish p2p company Optisoft, owner of Blubster (Manolito P2P) created by Madrid’s Pablo Soto and a member of P2P United, the only trade group representing the mainstream commercial p2p community.
P2P United’s other members are BearShare (FreePeers, Inc), Limewire (LimeWire, LLC), Grokster (Grokster Ltd), eDonkey2000 (MetaMachine Inc) and Morpheus (Streamcast Networks Inc).
Rosso says P2P United members want to separate themselves from any idea that they may be in some way involved with the DCIA, or that it represents them in any way.
“The rest of the industry is bound and determined to come up with a workable solution [to file sharing],” he goes on. “We’ve got some good ideas and we’re working with high profile academics to really come up with a thoughtful solution. And we’re getting somewhere.
“But the DCIA is an absolute joke. These people certainly don’t speak for me and my colleagues in the p2p business.”
Rosso says the only way sanity can be brought to the situation is if congress learns the truth.
“They’ve been lied to and misinformed by the RIAA, and now we have the DCIA who are stooges of the RIAA, and proud of it,” he told p2pnet.
“The rest of us have no problem showing up in a congressman’s office and looking them square in the eye and telling the truth. But the DCIA represents a company whose owners are hiding out in some country fresh off the USA watch list.
“It’s bad enough that we have the RIAA lying to congress. Now we have the DCIA perpetuating their own myth. They represent evertything we’re trying to negate on Capitol Hill.
“Frankly, the word has to get out that we want nothing to do with these people.”
With Kazaa in the shadows as Morpheus and Grokster take on Hollywood, Altnet parent Brilliant Digital hovers on the edge of survival having been delisted by the SEC for failing to meet minimum stock market financial requirements.
And one of Big Music’s private police forces has raided Sharman Networks and Brilliant Digital Entertainment , as well as Monash University, the University of Queensland, the University of New South Wales and four ISPs.
In the meanwhile, in its efforts to curry favour with Big Music, it’s flaunting a 1999 patent it says can identify p2p files using a “hash,” or digital fingerprint based on the the file’s contents.
However, as Freenet creator Ian Clarke says here, “the bottom line is that someone managed to persuade Altnet that the Truenames Patent was worth something (one imagines that this was right after Altnet’s successful purchase of London’s Tower Bridge and a large selection of invisible clothing).
“Assuming that those Altnet threatens with their lame duck patent put up even the slightest bit of resistence, the patent won’t stand, and Altnet will be left looking like the enemies of consumers, innovation, and competition, once again a pariah within a P2P community that should be working together against its common foes.”
February 6th, 2004 at 9:01 pm
I like this part:
Rosso now runs the Spanish p2p company.
But he critcises the DCIA by saying they “represent a company whose owners are hiding out in some country fresh off the USA watch list”
Pot, Meet Kettle.
Oh, and I read that Grokster and eDonkey/Overnet are Altnet affiliates…so who does Rosso really speak for? Sounds like his club is getting smaller and DCIAs is getting bigger. Sour grapes?
February 6th, 2004 at 9:14 pm
Wayne, it’s amazing that you have been relegated to talking with some obscure website such as P2P net that has more typos in its articles that I am convinced it’s run by a 12 year old boy. We all know you were fired from Brilliant Digital and this is all sour grapes. Get a life, stop drinking so much soda and loose some fucking weight.
February 6th, 2004 at 9:29 pm
Yr rite. We gujt to wadge thoz tipos
February 12th, 2004 at 5:05 am
>> come up with a workable solution [to file sharing]
WTF are they talking about? The only soloution is this: leave the bloody thing alone and get lost.