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Kazaa Conundrum -- The Plot Thickens
Robotech_Master writes "The ever continuing Kazaa controversy just keeps getting better. This article on Wired highlights Brilliant Digital Entertainment, the company that brokered Kazaa's sale to the Australian firm, and indicates that the RIAA is investigating them."
So that whenever they refer to me in the press articles I'd always be lauded for my intellectual acheivements! :D
(e.g. When the two ran into legal trouble at home and in the United States, Brilliant Digital CEO Kevin Bermeister, set up a meeting with Nikki Hemming, CEO of Australian's Sharman Networks venture firm.)
Thanks,
--
Matt
When the various file-sharing networks can't even get along. Morpheus is down already!
It seems like the piracy industry is falling to the same problems the RIAA did - greed.
Surprisingly, the article doesn't touch upon the implication on the www.musiccity.com (Morpheus) website that the Kazaa folks had something to do with the DOS attack.
I guess Kazaa is too busy with other lawsuits to worry about a slander case.
(BTW, the previously posted spyware remedies for Grokster work with Kazaa as well).
You can go to Add/Remove programs and kill it, but in true crapware tradition it doesn't actually delete the files. Go into the system folder and you'll find a bunch of DLLs prefixed with 'bde', both DLLs and EXEs. Delete them. (make sure you don't kill anything that belongs to the Borland Database Engine if you have it installed - check the DLL versions). There are two EXEs with fuzzy green icons.
Next, under the windows folder there will be a directory called 'BDE', IIRC. Delete that too.
Finally, go into the registry and look for the 'bde' and 'brilliant' strings. After verifying that they're not something else, delete those too.
The removal doesn't seem to affect the kazaa client at all.
The more star systems will slip through its fingers.
(+1 Bad Starwars Reference)
The RIAA is 'investigating' this company? Regardless of Brilliant Digital Entertainment's ethics or motives, the RIAA is not a governmental body and is acting like it has the power of subpeona.
All this is going to do is create new Morpheuses. Sure, they went to Gnutella rather than FT, but ended up contributing source back to the Gnutella project. It may be mostly GUI source, but User Interface is something that most open source projects are usually a little lacking in. I haven't looked at the source yet, but maybe they added one or two improvements into the way Gnutella files are transmitted that will now make it into other open source filesharing projects.
By forcing their 'enemies' underground, the RIAA is cutting off its own fingers.
Three cheers for Nullsoft for creating an unstoppable monster! Three cheers for all the people who've built and expanded upon Gnutella ever since, including Morpheus.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
From m-w.com:
Main Entry: [2] ape
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): aped; aping
Date: 1632
: to copy closely but often clumsily and ineptly
synonym see COPY
.sig: file not found
Call me old fashioned, but I always thought that music might belong to people that created, for example, maybe.... The artists?
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
yeah
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Download the acclaimed Ad Aware program here. It searches your registry and all your drives for running and installed spyware programs. It works great.
Brilliant Digital and Sharman have common employees. There is a definite financial link between the two. Look at the whois for sharmannetworks.com, and note the owner -- Phil Morle. Now, look at his site, creations.morle.com, and check out his employer.
Now that you're on the Brilliant Digital site, check out their 'Anti-Piracy Statement':
BDE has embedded proprietary encryption technology capable of tracking all copyright infringements.
Combine that with their known partners -- Time Warner among them -- and you have a possible international conspiracy...
Now we know why the RIAA wanted laws changed to allow them to hack p2p networks. Of course, they never did get it passed....
Fast Track associated spyware can still be removed by several utilities. Rather than hunting down each .DLL, you should simply download and run one of the utilities (which will clean out your system registry as well as .DLL and executables).
One good place for information is here, and a good utility by Lavasoft is available here.
I have not yet installed the new Morpheus client, but a report I read said that at least the latest Kazaa client is still installing these, even with the checkboxes for installing Gator, etc., left empty.
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
--The Sphinx
Why does it have to be affordable? I can't just fiddle with a $50,000 Sun box because I'm curious (unless I happen to have legitimate access to one or went out and cracked into or simply stole one). I'd like to drive a Porshe, but I drive a Honda instead since that's what I can afford.
There's no reason why someone has to make their products affordable to you. Photoshop sells pretty well at its current price. If you can't afford it there are alternatives, both in the form of cheaper programs that do less (PaintShop Pro comes to mind) as well as in open source alternatives (gimp). I'm sure that the kind people at Adobe have considered the fact that they could sell more licenses if they sold Photoshop for $50, but I'm also pretty sure that they think they wouldn't make as much money that way (which is something that they should be allowed to do).
Gee, how can the average person who wants to drive a ferrari afford $300,000 for the car? Your stealing. Just because it's easy doesn't make it right. Oh, and people do actually buy the software. Adobe makes a pretty nice living, no thanks to idiots like you.
Sharman Network/Brilliant Digital/KaZaA have finally responded to accusations that they were behind the attack on Morpheus. In an interview with the LA Times a spokeswomen for KaZaA, Kelly Larabee, said the company had nothing to do with Morpheus' network problems adding that we have no reason to have them go away. We'd rather them stay on FastTrack.
E-music has such great talent. Here's their top sellers:
1 Creedence Clearwater Revival
2 Carlin, George
3 Evans, Bill
4 Reinhardt, Django
5 Academy Of St. Martin-In-The-Fields Under Neville Marriner
6 Monk, Thelonious
7 Armstrong, Louis
8 Acosta, George
9 Bad Religion
10 They Might Be Giants (TMBG)
I'm not saying these aren't great, but you get the feeling that not everything is available on their service.
On the other hand, Stacey Kent is free on MP3.com, and is perhaps the best singer in the world - try "You are There".
-
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
for proving that your "P2P" network really is centrally controlled. That was quite a stunt, kicking all those Morpheus users off, then trying to lure them back into the network to use Kazaa.
I really hope the majority of people see right through this, choose Morpheus(and therefore gnutella), and I hope this gets fast track shut down.
Its not true P2P if someone can flip a switch and cut everyone off. P2P is supposed to have no central control so when these programs become illegal(and there's no doubt they will shut them down if they can) they will live on because the network will still be there, and hopefully the project will also still be there living on in some enlightened country without industry sponsored politicians and the DMCA.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
The new Morpheus is assumed to have spyware and tracking built into it, right? Well... It's GPL'd and the source code is available... So... _IS_ there tracking?
On a related note, how do we know that the source code available is actually the same that was used to compile the binary version available for download?
The difference is that your next job probably won't rely on you driving a Porsche in the past or not. However, Photoshop skills are marketable, and could land you a job. It's the old catch 22; you can't get a job without knowing the software, and you can't afford the software without a job.
Stop your whining. If you want to talk about photoshop as a tool and "photoshop skills" as a marketable job skill, make an applicable analogy -- a high-powered car doesn't cut it.
Instead, think about getting a job as a carpenter. You have to know how to use the tools, but you can't afford to go out and get yourself a top-of-the-line DeWalt table saw for $1300. Instead all you can afford is a crappy used $200 table saw. Will the skills you acquire using the crappy saw transfer to the DeWalt? You betcha.
Like another poster mentioned, acquiring skills is an *investment*. Defer and/or neglect self-investment at your own peril.
From a business perspective, Adobe has positioned Photoshop as the "Cadillac" in their category. This is a pricing strategy. There are other pricing strategies available, but Adobe has chosen this one. If you're in the store with money to burn and a desire for quality, you're most likely going to pick the product that is higher priced -- this is generally associated with higher quality. This is the behavior that those who use this pricing strategy (eg Adobe) are counting on.
The Daily Build
Music is not software, you can't give it away... especially when it technically belongs to someone else.
Especially nothing.
You CAN give music away, EXCEPT when it belongs to someone else.
Don't tell me you really believe I can't record a song and give it to anyone I damn well please... If it's my song, or if the copyright owner wants it to be free, then I can give it away all I want.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig