Kazaa Admits to Morpheus Shutdown

An Anonymous Coward writes: "KaZaa yesterday admitted to CNET that it was behind the shutout of Morpheus from the FastTrack network. Their reason? The company didn't pay its bills. Still, there has to be more to it than that for KaZaa to cut them off so quickly and unexpectedly, especially since a P2P network's power lies in the size of its audience. There is some weird cat-and-mouse play going on here that can only be damaging to both sides in the upcoming trial against the RIAA and MPAA in California."

Comments

Was it quick?

[Hacksaw]

Do we really know how long Morpheus has been in arrears with KaZaa? Maybe it's been months. If KaZaa is professional, they wouldn't be telling everyone and their cousin that Morpheus is being a deadbeat. It would be harder for Morpheus to pay if they start losing customers due to a bad rep.

All about the bling-bling

[liquidsin]

"MusicCity (also known as StreamCast Networks) has failed to pay any amounts due to Kazaa BV under the parties' license agreement"

How will the RIAA / MPAA / Software industry look upon this, with Kazaa adimitting to making money off of their copyrights? (I know that's flawed logic, but the RI/MPAA cares not for your 'logic') Kazaa just admitted that they're in this for the cash. Sure, it's just a license to software that can be used to trade *anything* (not just copyrighted material), but they just admitted that they can and do control who gets on the network AND that they're making cash off of it. They just drew the bullseye on their own forehead.

Re:Their future

[Rogerborg]

• Mopheus, who is now using the restamped Gnucleus software, is on a true P2P network, and it would be next to impossible to shut them down.

Here's the danger.

• It can easily be shown that most Kazaa traffic is copyrighted material. They need to use the Sony VCR defence that there are non-infringing uses and avoid falling into the Napster trap of admitting control over the network.
• They've flat out blown it on the second point, and are completely boned. Morpheus on the Kazaa network was doomed. They were going to get found guilty of contributory infringement for sure.
• Now they're on Gnutella. With the same users, doing the same activities.

Can you see the way this would look to a court? Picture a restaurant where mobsters meet, cleaning their guns and jawing about how many cops they've whacked. The restaurant owners hear that the FBI are filming the restaurant, ready to make a bust. So then they put on blindfolds and earplugs and say "Oh, but now we don't know what our customers are doing. I think we've got a large party of nuns in tonight, I can't really tell with this stuff on."

Pretty weak defence? I think so. And the nasty-nasty is that now Morpheus is just another Gnutella client, so if Morpheus does go down, why should any client - or specifically any client developer - be let off. Because they're not making money, I hear you say. Because it's just like making copies for friends and family. It's fair use.

No it damn well isn't. If I hear one more Slashdotter claim that personal/friends/family copies are "fair use", I will quite seriously bust a gut. Here are the allowable purposes for making a copy of a copyrighted work: (1) criticism and comment, (2) parody and satire, (3) scholarship and research, (4) news reporting and (5) teaching. Don't argue this with me, quote a specific case of a court saying that copies for friends and family are OK. Any judge that drew the line in the sand and said that Gnutella was OK because it's not commercial would have the MPAA/RIAA would asking for his or her head on a plate, and I'm not talking rhetorically.

Morpheus joining the Gnutella network is the best move possible for Morpheus - and the worst move possible for Gnutella. This one is going to get ugly.