StreamCast sues Skype
p2p news / p2pnet: Morpheus owner StreamCast Networks is using the RICO Act to sue eBay’s Skype Technologies SA.
RICO is short for Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization.
StreamCast has laid RICO charges against Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis and BlueMoon OU, said to have been responsible for much of Skype’s development work.
“As has been reported, StreamCast Networks, the developer and distributor of Morpheus P2P file search and sharing software, has filed a lawsuit against Skype and the other named defendants alleging violations of the Racketeer Infuenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and other claims,” says StreamCast lawyer Charles Baker.
Zennstrom and Friis were the brains behind the Kazaa technology and are said to still have background links to the p2p application, which, after being bought by Vanuatu-based Sharman Networks, effectively introduced spyware to the Net.
Kazaa is now as much despised by former users, many of whom were ultimately sued by the RIAA, as it is by the Big Four record labels.
Does this represent the culmination of a bitter dispute between Morpheus and Kazaa which began in 2002?
Be that as it may, “I am unable to expand upon that at this time other than to say that the complaint speaks for itself,” says Baker.
“We will not be providing copies of the Complaint to the media.”
Also See:
bitter dispute – Kazaa, Morpheus legal case collapsing, May 24, 2002






March 28th, 2006 at 4:02 am
“We will not be providing copies of the Complaint to the media.”
Excuse me, but when you file a lawsuit in court, the complaint becomes a public document and automatically enters the public domain. Is this going to be the next slimy trick of the IP industry? Slapping copyright notices on lawsuits filed against alleged infringers in an effort to suppress further bad PR? Nice try…..
March 28th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
No, filing the complaint is the media activity. A licencee complaining about the cost of the licence…must be the internet reolution