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."

Comments

The more the RIAA tightens its grip...

[Bonker]

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.

Brilliant Digital controls Kazaa, tracks piracy.

[Templar]

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....

Re:Make it affordable

[joe52]

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).

Re:Kazaa and Spyware

[DmitriA]

Don't remove it. Replace cd_clint.dll (Cydoor's spyware) that's in your Windows system directory with your own DLL that exports the same functions but does not do anything when they are called.

Here is the source for a replacement DLL (shamelessly stolen from someone who didn't bother to leave his name in the source):

#include <windows.h>

extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) int ServiceShow(int,int,int,HWND,int,int,int,int, int,void*,void*);
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) int ServiceClose(int,HWND,void*);
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) void ChannelRead(int AdwrCode, char* ChannelIn, int Resv1,int Resv2);
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) void ChannelWrite(int AdwrCode, char* ChannelOut, int Resv1, int Resv2);
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) void DescWrite(int BitStart, int BitLen, int Val, int Resv1, int Resv2);

void ChannelWrite(int AdwrCode, char* ChannelOut, int Resv1, int Resv2)
{
// Nothing to do here.
}

void ChannelRead(int AdwrCode, char* ChannelIn, int Resv1,int Resv2)
{
// Nothing to do here.
}

int ServiceShow(int AdwrCode, int LoctNum, int LoctIndx, HWND hWnd, int X, int Y, int LenX, int LenY, int Mode, void *General1, void *General2)
{
// Return true to tell the host application the call succeeded.
return 1;
}

int ServiceClose(int LoctIndx, HWND hWnd, void* General2)
{
// Return true to tell the host application the call succeeded.
return 1;
}

void DescWrite(int BitStart, int BitLen, int Val, int Resv1, int Resv2)
{
// Nichts zu tun
}

int WINAPI DllEntryPoint(HINSTANCE hinst, unsigned long reason, void*)
{
return 1;
}