Kazaa: the fat lady hasn’t sung yet
p2pnet.net News:- It looks as though p2pnet owes Australia’s Sharman Networks an apology.
Because the company been trying to get into bed with the corporate entertainment cartels for years, we assumed that when it announced a file sharing ’settlement”, it had achieved its aim for what was probably considerably less than the reported $115 million. The rest was nought but window dressing, we’d surmised.
However, two things appear to have put paid to that idea.
Firstly, “Lawyers for the recording industry and two senior Sharman Networks and Altnet executives will try to reach a settlement to the last round of the Kazaa legal action today, months after the bulk of the litigation was settled for $US115 million ($153 million),” says The Australian, going on:
“Sharman Networks, which runs the Kazaa filesharing system, settled the music piracy case with the record companies back in July, but action continues against Sharman chief technology officer Phil Morle, and Anthony Rose, chief technology officer of the company’s US business partner Altnet.”
And secondly, we now understand Sharman paid the full $115M ’settlement’ fee very soon after the agreement was announced.
“The recording industry is seeking undertakings and costs from the two,” says the story. “The music industry appealed against Justice Wilcox’s decision late last year to dismiss with costs the case against Mr Morle and Mr Rose, and the parties did not reach an agreement when the action against Sharman was settled.
Rose is quoted as saying, “It came as a shock to discover that rather than paying the money that they were ordered by the court to pay me (in legal costs), the Australian music industry lawyers now want money from me. As part of the global settlement with the music companies, Sharman and Altnet paid the music companies more than $150 million. One would have thought that this would have covered their legal bills.”
But when push comes to shove, “Ultimately, this is all a local sideshow,” he states, according to The Australian.
“Altnet and the music companies are now working together globally as partners, and we are preparing for the next generation of our licensed content distribution business.”
They are indeed. As we reported in August:
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) [ex-Kazaa persecutor Michael] 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 …” and,
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 …”
Meanwhile, The Australian quotes a record label spokeswoman is as saying, “Anthony Rose and Phil Morle elected not to be part of the negotiated settlement with the record companies and Kazaa. The record companies are seeking a restraint on Mr Rose and Mr Morle not to infringe copyright. This is the same restraint agreed to by the other parties.”
[We're still wondering what'll happen to the millions of Kazaa user names and other personal details and those of the other formerly independent companies such as eDonkey and BearShare which have been 'asbsorbed' by the cartel after settling with them?]
Also See:
we assumed – Kazaa, MPAA alliance, July 27, 2006
The Australian – Kazaa: hope for a final ruling, September 19, 2006
are indeed – Kazaa owner’s DRM plan, August 4, 2006
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September 21st, 2006 at 2:58 am
how very unlike you John as a professional libeller and defamer to twist the Autstralian newspaper story to have one more swipe at people who didn’t pay for advertising. Clearly your bravado can’t be stupidity, did you get your assets shifted into a trust or something?