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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.
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.
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
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/
Here's the danger.
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.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
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'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...
It absolutely is not, and none of your references even suggest otherwise. I'll just assert that flat out, because I doubt that most readers will bother reading either of our references, and it bothers me to see this fantasy reenforced here yet again, because it gives a false sense of security, that our personal activities are protected and sacrosanct.
Look, I'll spell it out again, shall I? 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.
Betting nobody would read it, huh? This is a very brief document that deals with protection of existing library fair use, which is firmly in the realm of "scholarship and research" and/or "teaching". But enough from me, let's quote verbatim from your reference, with no editing:
OK, thanks for making my point. No mention of personal use. Personal use, friends and family copies, this is fiction, not fact.
If you're going to argue legalities, you have to learn to quote case law. I'm going to help you out a bit by posting a synopsis of the Supreme Court decision in Sony v. Universal Studios 464 U.S. 417 (1984), a.k.a. "the Betamax case" aka the "Sony Decision" judgement. Note that it contradicts my black and white stance a little, but note also that it qualifies that very carefully, and that it references earlier case law:
OK, your turn. Find a case that extends the defence of a single and temporary copy, entirely within the home, to make it even remotely relevant to making permanent copies for the use of friends and family, or even for personal use. You can't, because no such source exists, no matter how hard you wish for it, and however hard you wish that future judgements are going to be based on the wish list of libraries, the fact is that future judgements will be based on past judgements. Find the case law that supports making permanent copies of non-broadcast material for yourself, or for friends or family.
Incidentally, this is very much On Topic. If it comes to the crunch, Gnutella - rather Gnutella developers - are just as boned as Kazaa, because neither of them can (I contend) show that they even qualify for consideration for fair use protection. The financial argument is irrelevant, because they won't be able to show grounds for even making it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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?
IANAL, so instead of arguing the point, I present this post as a list of expert opinions which contradict Rogerborg's position.
According to the EFF, this list of fair use activities is "not to be construed as exclusive or limiting in any way."Current national security advisor Condoleezza Rice authored a paper on fair use in 1988, in which she states "The concept of fair use is necessarily somewhat vague when discussed in the abstract. Its application depends critically on the particular facts of the individual situation. Neither the case law nor the statutory law provides bright lines concerning which uses are fair and which are not."
As mentioned in the previous post, the Sony vs. Universal City Studios Case contradicts Rogerborg's black-and-white interpretation of section 107, as it defines time-shifting television programs as fair use.
Previous case law has held that the following are fair uses of copyrighted materials:
Making personal backups of software.
Time-shifting television programs.
Format-shifting.
Compilation creation ("mix tapes")
Rebroadcasting radio in a business.
In short, a wide body of experts seem to disagree with the viewpoint espoused by Rogerborg. I exhort you to consider this when reading his posts. I further ask that you consider that he was willing to defend his viewpoint so vehemently in spite of the contradictory expert viewpoints readily available.