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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."
Why does everything corporate have to be this big conspiracy? If a company wasn't paying its bills is it really all that surrising that they were shut down?
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by shutting down morpheus, they just admitted that they have control over their network and users. now they're screwed in terms of legal defense. meanwhile, morpheus switches to gnutella and will probably survive the onslaught.
how ironic...
Somewhere on this page I have hidden my signature.
Kazaa is just a minute away from getting completely shut down. They've just admitted to the RIAA that it is possible to shut somebody out of their (nasty) proprietary network... putting them into the same boat as Napster, as far as a Judge will be concerned with them.
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.
I suspect that Morpheus will be around long after Kazaa is a footnote.
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
"Your honor, we publically stated that we cut them off for non-payment but the _real_ reason we terminated their feed into our systems is because they refused to respect the rights of copyright holders. And doggone it, we just can't abide by that!"
See also: AOL vs. Aimster...
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
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 the technology in the world won't hide your lack of vision, talent, or understanding.
I was part of the working group for the next generatiopn of Gnutella about 1 1/2 years ago, and I thought that we came to the conclusion that Gnutella couldn't support itself once it became too big. The 2^n problem.
When was Gnutella brought back? Anything new change in terms of the P2P scheme?
--- RFC 1149 Compliant.
... it looks like they stand in a circle!
Why pay for a software license when you can just share the goods for nothing? Kazaa just doesn't get it!
----- Indecision is the key to flexibility.
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.
From Kazaa's homepage:
"Morpheus users - Come on over to our place"
Kazaa has spyware, that's where their money come from. For them, any increase on the number of people using their program is good, and NOT using Morpheus.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Kazaa / Grokster / whatever "upgraded" the software last week to REQUIRE installation of the Cydoor spyware junk. Morpheus has always committed to "no spyware."
There is a solution for those wanting to use Grokster but not have the Cydoor crap:
http://www.cexx.org/cydoor.htm
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
forma3
I believe Kaaza shot themself in the foot.
They showed to thr RIAA that they control the network in some way (they can shut it down and manipulate some registry settings) (even if they may not be able to control content right now).
They tried to make people switch from a competitor software which was more popular in a very aggresive way. (I for one downloaded Kaaza after the shutdown... However I'm back on Morpheus now). People will not like this.
Now if Morpheus is able to reclaim it' users (it should be easy because they do include spyware), the FastTrack network will be amputated millions of users.
It's good for Morpheus... If they survive a lost (if they loose)against the RIAA, their network is now completely decentralized (thank' to gnutella). Which is a good thing against further lawsuit. However, in the same event, Kaaza and Grokster will loose their network and will have to build a new one on another protocol.
It's a win-win for Gnutella... Whatever the outcome of the lawsuit... Many more millions of users on the network.
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.
do not read this line twice.
giFT is an open source ft client, and they're also developing the openFT network that they hope will become the new standard for p2p file trading. It's loosely based on the FastTrack network used by kazaa but it's all open sourced.
do not read this line twice.
Note the "any". You don't need rocket science to work out that you can only give people the benefit of the doubt for so long before deciding that you're being scammed and are never going to see one penny. Ironic, nes pas, that Kazaa kick of Morpheous for freeloading on their work and IP, when the vast majority of Kazaa's income is coming from serving ads to people making copies of copyrighted material (self included, I'm not being pejorative)?
Who there, conspiracy theorists. The "setting" is question is probably just the "bool bClientIsAuthorised" flag based on the reply from the Kazaa authentication servers. There's nothing sinister going on here. This is the way the Kazaa network is supposed to work (now). Authorised clients paying for connection to the Kazaa authentication servers. Since they went authentication to throw off giFT, Kazaa has been a client-server/P2P hybrid. Maybe Morpheus didn't get that, but I'm sure the giFT team can explain it to them.
Translation: "Those bastards actually make you pay to play! I mean, they expect us to hold up our end of the contract as well as them holding up theirs. What's with that?"
Sure, or you could have subpoena'd the giFT team to tell you that... ;-)
What you absolutely must understand is that Morpheus is a commercial service. The "100% spyware free!" boast was a marketing plot. They thought they could make money off of freeloaders (like me, remember?). Trouble is, Kazaa had the same idea, and Kazaa own the keys to that particular part of the Magic Kingdom.
Now Morpehsu is going to try and make money off of Gnutella. Well, here's a pretty pickle. Does the Gnutella network want a for-profit service in there, attracting the ire of the MPAA and their bought politicians (and judges who, lest we forget, have an eye on promotion to the Supremes, and can tell which way the political winds are shifting)? I doubt it. Can Gnutella do anything about it? Of course not. They can't pull a Kazaa and block Morpheus, either by force majeur or through obscurity.
Screw who said what to who between Kazaa and Morpheus. That's yesterday's news, it was doubtless all about the bottom line, and given the characters of the organisations in question (proprietary, commercial, legally dubious), we simply can't expect anything like honest answers from anybody. It's "Morpheus versus Gnutella", or "Morpheus with Gnutella" that's the issue now. This is shaping up to be the first big test of how well open source can survive in a hostile environment, with layer upon layer of juicy morality quandaries to pick over.
Is it wrong for Morpheus to "freeload" off of Gnutella? But they're license compliant, and they bring a whole lot of content with them. And the whole Gnutella network is - de facto - already about freeloading. But making profit off of it just fuels the MPAA/RIAA's law-buying machine...
This one is going to run and run. I for one am going to settle down with some popcorn and enjoy the (truly) free show. ;-)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
--
Damn the Emperor!
Kazaa, et al DOES NOT have control over the network. The only thing they control is the authentication mechanism. Once you're authenticated, you have complete, unfettered access to the network and Kazaa has no control over what you do/don't share.
With Napster, it was different since Napster *did* control what files were/weren't shared. With fast track, however, all they can control is whether or not you get on the network. So (and IANAL) as long as they can show that there are legitimate uses for the fast track network, I will be surprised if they get shut down.
To liken it to the Betamax court case that everyone likes to toss around, Sony had control over whether or not you could buy a VCR, but once you owned that VCR, Sony had no control over what you could or couldn't record.
Gentoo Linux http://gentoo.org/
Other than not contacting John Marshall (or Swabby, main Gnucleus developer), what evil have they done? They do provide the source code, and when installing the new Preview Edition, even the GPL itself is presented.
I think they were suddenly disconnected from Fastrack and had to move so fast to not lose their userbase base of millions, that quick, but sadly, badly done, actions had to be taken.
Give them another week to clarify things, first for them, later for the community. I can only imagine the big mess that's currently happening on Morpheus offices... I don't think that bashing will help now.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Face it people, name it Morpheus, name it Kazaa, name it something else.
What shuts such network down?
It's the money, always.
Who is pissed off in the end?
The user, always.
So, what is the solution to all this?
Gnutella, always.
I know, my post sounds something like a troll, but please, think about it.
Let's all migrate to gnutella, fire up you favourite client and let's start sharing.
We will se how gnutella scales, how it evolves. I think if we all pull over to the only true p2p architecture, we will shut out the MPAA the RIAA and all other stuff that bothers us.
Yes, maybe people with 56k modems won't be very happy with this. But to speak in the words of a modern time, the collateral damage is everywhere.
And as time goes on, everybody is going to be on a better connection.
So, let's shape up, put your middle finger in the air and use gnutella...
Just my 0.02
Damn my mod points to hell, I've got to respond here. By putting their client in the GPL, anyone can take their software and make changes to it, as long as the source is posted, right?
This means a company like Morpheus can do *exactly* what they're doing right now: take a GPL client, re-brand it, and post it up on the web. They have the source there on their page. They are not breaking any rules at all. They don't have to notify the Gnucleus people. They don't have to keep it ad-free. They can add spy-ware to the installer if they choose (although Morpheus has a no-spyware policy). By putting your software in the GPL, you run the risk of somebody doing this.
Now, I'm not saying that it doesn't suck for the Gnucleus people. I'd be ticked off too if somebody did that to me. I'm just saying that quite technically, there's nothing wrong here.
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
"And if pigs can fly, and I can ride one, and they fly me to hell, and it just froze over, and we all have ice cream..."
I really need to stop reading Slashdot while on codeiene.....
OK, deep breaths. They are 100% compliant with the GPL license, as I think the reporting debacle on here showed. Do we say that every commercial X/GNU/Linux distro "rips off" Linus, and GNU and KDE/Gnome and a whole load of other developers? No, we say that they promote them, bring them to a wider audience, support and develop them, and contribute their revenues back to the whole.
So let's give Morpheus enough rope to hang themselves. If they spend their ad money developing the client, and if they keep releasing source, and if they don't bring an assload of hurt to the whole project, then they'll be providing the same service as a commercial linux distro.
Do I think that'll happen? No, based on their past behaviour, I think they'll fork off a version that will refuse to serve content to other Gnutella clients while still leeching from them, flat out refuse to release the source, and bring the Men In Black to the party. But let's give them a little time to prove their guilt please.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It may not be fair use, but it may also not be copyright infringement. In fact, it's a grey area. According to ChillingEffect.org, deciding whether something is fair use or not involves (among other things):
So it could be argued that limited copying for personal use provides negligible impact on the overall market, and is therefore fair use. It could also be argued the other way, but it's certainly not as black and white as you make it seem.And if it is copyright infringement, the owner of the copyright may not be entitled to any remuneration:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/504.html
A reasonable discussion of Fair Use, with considerably more thought and insight than the parent post is available here:
http://www.arl.org/scomm/copyright/uses.html
Gentoo Linux http://gentoo.org/
It's OK, it's only an idea, not an actual fact. All Kazaa are doing is refusing to authenticate Morpheus clients. The "setting deep in your machine" that gets set is the flag in the client that reminds it that it's been told to get lost.
Always consider the source. Morpheus is a for-profit organisation that's (allegedly but credibly) refused to honour its contract with Kazaa. There's a perfect innoculous translation of their rant against Kazaa that matches the facts. You don't have to buy their FUD, unless you really, really want to.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You know, conservative Senator from Utah, former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee? I believe he even helped write the DMCA.
Go look up Hilary Rosen's Senate testimony regarding Napster, and read the exchange between them. Orrin says basically "is it fair use if I make a copy for my wife to play in her car?" Rosen hems and haws, and Hatch says something to the effect of "It is."
Now, sharing anonymously over a network is a whole different ball of wax, and that's what's got the RIAA and MPAA in a tizzy.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
This is not true at all. They DO control the network precisely because they control the authentication. The only clients that are allowed to log on the network are the clients that license FastTrack's code, and they have full control over that code (see big fat agreement to license FastTrack's code).
The proof: FastTrack doesn't allow people to share MP3's encoded above 128kbps. How ? Because the restriction is encoded in their library, which is used by the clients they control.
GiFT is another example. All FastTrack had to do to shut down GiFT forever was to boost up its protocol version number and change the authentication mechanism. They definitely have control over their network, which is precisely why they'll loose the legal battle.
My biggest hope, is that GiFT and OpenFT will eventually take over as a true Open-Source alternative to the FastTrack network: a completely decentralized 2-layered network which will become the true successor of Gnutella.
DZM
There is no clause in fair use, there never has been one, that allows fair use for anything other than: (1) criticism and comment, (2) parody and satire, (3) scholarship and research, (4) news reporting and (5) teaching. To qualify for consideration under the fair use defence, your use must fall into these categories. You don't even get to argue the "negligible impact" until you've shown that you qualify. There is no case zero. There is no case six. Personal/friends/family use is not one of the five cases.
Bull. You completely misinterpret the "such as" wording of the law. According to 17 USC 101, "The terms 'including' and 'such as' are illustrative and not limitative" (emphasis by yerricde). The fair use law (17 USC 107) opens by stating: "the fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright" (emphasis by yerricde). Nowhere does it limit what may be considered as fair use. It then goes on to list the four factors that figure into a fair use defense. The judge in a fair use case must base her decision primarily (if not solely) on those factors. This non-limitation of fair use explains why the Sony v. Universal decision "contradicts [your] black and white stance a little."
Additionally, your CBS v. DNC quote may pose an argument against encryption of non-subscription broadcast television.
Will I retire or break 10K?