Kazaa: Happy In the Global Legal Briarpatch

Steve0987 writes "The Washington Post has an article on the entertainment industry's atempts to close down the file-sharing system Kazaa. I agree that copyrighted material shouldn't be freely distributed from an ethical standpoint. However, the entertainment industry has been acting in an arbitrary manner trying to impede anything remotely impinging on their industry. Go Kazaa."

Comments

Re:Just in case...

[liquidsin]

hmmm...P2P sharing of articles to defend against the slashdot effect. It's about time KaZaA got a legitimate use ;)

But seriously, since /. is so reluctant to set up a cache to protect the sites they link, how about a distributed /. client? Sits in your tray, checks slashdot for updates every couple minutes, and if it finds any new links on the front page, grabs them and stores them on your harddrive. Then some sort of link system on the sidebar of the mainpage ("view the cache at http://slashdot.org/p2pcache?articleID=whatever") that links us all together.

Re:Wow, I'm actually one of the first 20 posters..

[sinnyin]

Yes, regular kazaa has spyware in it. But you can download a spyware-free hack of kazaa here. Most people in-the-know use this. It also removes the popup ads, etc.

Anyone else find it strange?

[Anonymous Coward]

That the article makes casual mention that the programmers who wrote the original Kazaa are now working on a new program with built-in DRM, for a company called Altnet? Sound familiar? It seems this Washington Post correspondant didn't bother to investigate how Altnet is linked to Sharman Networks... Altnet is virtually Sharman Networks...

Civil Desobedience

[famazza]

Is a way to protest against laws that you don't agree, usually associated with passive resistence.

This means keep doing whatever you have always done ignoring the law, and of course paying the consequences. It works as a colective form o protest.

Let's suppose that the speed limit becomes 20 mph at highways. If everybody ignore this limit then the police won't be able to fine everybody.

The same happens here, if a considerable number of citizens ignore the way copyright works today it will be impossible to sue everyone, and of course they won't sue none of us!

That's how it should work, passive resistence.

Re:Civil Desobedience

[dirk]

Is a way to protest against laws that you don't agree, usually associated with passive resistence.

This means keep doing whatever you have always done ignoring the law, and of course paying the consequences. It works as a colective form o protest.

Let's suppose that the speed limit becomes 20 mph at highways. If everybody ignore this limit then the police won't be able to fine everybody.

The same happens here, if a considerable number of citizens ignore the way copyright works today it will be impossible to sue everyone, and of course they won't sue none of us!

That's how it should work, passive resistence.

While civil disobedience is fine, that is far from what this is. Kazaa (and most other P2P systems) are built on the concept of being anonymous. That means the current P2P technology is built around not being caught and not being punished, which is anything but civil disobedience. If you want to use P2P as civil disobedience, you have to make sure the law knows who you are and what you are doing. Try using your real name as your user name. Share not only MP3s, but a file with your name and address that says you know what you are doing is illegal, and if the RIAA wants to come after you, here is where they can find you. Unfortunately, 99.999% of the people using P2P have no interest in civil disobedience, they are only interested in getting stuff for free. P2P isn't about anything but getting free shit for most people.

Re:Civil Desobedience

[dh003i]

No, that's what your narrow definition of civil disobedience is.

Civil disobedience simply means peacefully disobeying the laws. That's what people of Kazaa are doing. Why shouldn't they be anonymous? Anonymosity is a good thing: it protects our privacy. Getting a law to be changed due to massive non-compliance with that law does not require publicly disclosing who's disobeying that law. Ref. prohibition. But, oh wait, according to you, all the people who drank during prohibition were wrong b/c they didn't do so openly and "accept the consequences". Of course, that's absurd: the law was unconstitutional and should never have existed in the first place. There is nothing good or noble about allowing one's self to be punished by an unjust law.

Re:Just in case...

[inerte]

Yeah, it's possible... you could use GnucDNA to make a browser plug-in that would request contents of a webpage not only to its server, but also by querying the p2p network for it.

I've tought about doing it several times, but couldn't find the time. It would not only help slashdotted websites, but anyone with large files (images, music or video).

And if you could setup a system where the server, while saving bandwidth, compensated an user who upload the content, it would be a success.

cliche: information wants to & eventually will

[indiigo]

Free.

So they shut down Kazaa. The Consumer available models of file trading are all gone? No, more effort put into efforts like freenet, or Edonkey, or much more sophisticated methods that are decentralized, encrypted, and much more difficult to shut down?

No, witness DC++, which is 99% warez, and no efforts to shut that down.

What they don't realize is people want this, they can get it, and their efforts truly are being wasted. At least the Motion Picture industry is attempting to head them off at the pass with their own service ramp-up.

For music? It's too late, they have lost the battle for distribution. And to think, if they had their own distribution model in 1998, we would likely all be paying for it, and be happy!

Your ethics are backwards. Heres why

[HanzoSan]

Theres two options.

Option A, people who make something always own what they make forever.

Option B, people who make things share what they make with all of humanity.

The same arguement which claims we should have software be open source because it benifits the whole instead of one part of the whole is the same arguement we use with file sharing.

More people benifit from file sharing than those who dont, the purpose of technology is to benifit the people.

When deciding what is more ethical, I look at patents as something mythical in my world, I do not know anyone who owns a patent in anything. I know musicians like my mother or my father who both make music but never made any money.

I make music but I never make any money. I know artists who when they make art because they have to begin to not like drawing anymore. Some things are meant to be an art, and some things are meant to be a business.

Its not very logical to try to turn bits of information into a product, it doenst benifit the majority of the people in this world. People in africa cannot buy medicinee because of this. People in afganastan cannot get educated because of patents on books. People in the USA cannot learn programming or be productive in todays society because of patents.

Why do we need patents? So a few hundred people can make billions of dollars? How does this help me? IT doesnt, I benifit more from Open Source than I do from closed source because I have no money.

I benifit more from file sharing because if there were no napsters and gnutellas of the world I simply wouldnt have the money to listen to music AT ALL, PERIOD.

Re:Your ethics are backwards. Heres why

[bogie]

"I benifit more from file sharing because if there were no napsters and gnutellas of the world I simply wouldnt have the money to listen to music AT ALL, PERIOD."

Well there is something called a radio.

Fuck the RIAA and all that, but don't act like your downloading music is some sort of humanitarian benefit to society. People download because A) they could care less about copyright B) they're tired of overpaying for CD's or C) they think its some form of protest against the record companies and/or copyright. The no money arguement is bogus. If you have no money, do without. Music isn't included in the basic Food, Clothing, and Shelter need we all have.

Morally I could care less about downloading music and I would never hold anything against someone who does. I simply don't care enough. But file sharing is no big benefit to society, its a convenience pure and simple for those who fit in one of the categories I described above.

A brief history of the Kazaa empire.

[Catharsis]

My memory is a bit sketchy in places, but I am sure y'all will fill in the blanks with /.'s usual enthusiasm.

So we begin.

A few internet cowboys, seeing the demise of Napster, cobble together Kazaa -- a decentralized filesharing network.

Originally, the software was licensed for distribution under three names, Kazaa, Morpheus, and Grokster, each of which was essentially the same program, with a different skin.

Kazaa was known for making an attempt at placating the record industry by only allowing lower bit-rate songs to be downloaded, whereas Morpheus had no such restrictions.

Forgive my lack of knowledge about Grokster -- the programs were all so close to identical that I never tried it.

Now, Kazaa came under legal fire in the Netherlands, but didn't get an official shut down.

Fearing their investments (and possibly their freedom), the original owners of Kazaa sold Kazaa to Sharmin Networks, who are perhaps the dodgiest software company I've ever seen.

Sharmin is also infamous for their spyware, and Bonzi Buddy. I can't remember who the founder was -- and Sharman Network's web page has mysteriously disappeared, but they were involved in some great scandal in Australia, and even a cursory Slashdot search (of the kind I'm unwilling to do on a saturday morning) will turn up the details, undoubtedly.

Sharmin was the one who loaded up Kazaa with enough spyware to make Back Orifice look like a legitimate client application, and has a EULA including a clause giving Sharmin permission to use your clock cycles, bandwidth, and hard drive space however they want.

This was part of what is known now as AltNet, Sharmin's answer to the Seti@Home project, or ud.com's Cancer curing project. Turn Kazaa users into a giant super computer... And then sell the time to the highest bidder.

Only one problem -- Kazaa's reputation was so bad, everyone was using Morpheus, who's tagline was something along the lines of "File-sharing without spyware".

Kazaa responded by ejecting Morpheus from their network by poisoning all the Kazaa hosts that upgraded to the new version. Any Morpheus client that touched an infected node was killed -- Kazaa overwrote a part of your registry to ensure you would never be able to use Morpheus again.

Around that time, they put up a button on the front of their site offering amnesty for refugees in this file-sharing client war, and Morpheus released Lime-Wire as Morpheus 2.0b.

Basically, the new morpheus was an old fork of the limewire code with an M for a logo, and was just a klunky gnutella client. There was some hullaballoo about open source this, and no source code that, and then Morpheus released the code again. Checking their web page now, they claim to have a final 2.0 out, but I haven't used it and cannot vouch for its quality.

Since then, Sharman Networks has been keeping a fairly low profile, and a hacker named Yuri has started releasing KazaaLite. KazaaLite is not a stripped down version of the software, so much as a stripped down version of the installer.

One without Bonzi Buddies, or yellow link underliners (remember that little ad-fad?) or any of the other myriad hacks and stupidities which Kazaa inflicts on your system.

KazaaLite does actually include a few patches to the executable, mostly to ensure Kazaa can't monitor your usage or install spyware on your system, and new versions are released with some regularity.

Well. Now we're up to the current date, with somewhat foggy bits along the way, and probably a few confused details by myself. I would appreciate any clarifications or corrections, as this all came from memory.

Cheers, and remember: KazaaLite is the answer.

Re:A brief history of the Kazaa empire.

[The J Kid]

You're account is slightly wrong in certain places...let me see:

A few internet cowboys, seeing the demise of Napster, cobble together Kazaa -- a decentralized filesharing network.

Nope, a Dutch software firm set up a daughter firm called FastTrack which set out to make a File-sharing program. They (seemingly from the article) got a few Estonians to make it. The software was targeted at business. To get more intrest from businesses they made a Public version called KaZaA, which they housed in another daughter firm (called KaZaA).

Originally, the software was licensed for distribution under three names, Kazaa, Morpheus, and Grokster, each of which was essentially the same program, with a different skin

correct.

Kazaa was known for making an attempt at placating the record industry by only allowing lower bit-rate songs to be downloaded, whereas Morpheus had no such restrictions.

This move made KaZaA a tad bit less popular, and Morpheus got a few more users out of it.

Now, Kazaa came under legal fire in the Netherlands, but didn't get an official shut down.

They did come under legal fire: They had to pay (i think) a million Euro's a day, for each day the network was still active. KaZaA said that it couldn't be shut down because it was "more p2p than napster" (which is true, but not to the extent of Gnutella for instance)

(inbetween here is correct)

Only one problem -- Kazaa's reputation was so bad, everyone was using Morpheus, who's tagline was something along the lines of "File-sharing without spyware".

Kazaa responded by ejecting Morpheus from their network by poisoning all the Kazaa hosts that upgraded to the new version. Any Morpheus client that touched an infected node was killed -- Kazaa overwrote a part of your registry to ensure you would never be able to use Morpheus again.

Nope...Morpheus was kicked off the FastTrack Network because it hadn't paid it's bills! (In the same move they kicked off giFT, the GPL FastTrack program..) Sharman did this by encripting it's login-servers authencation system.

Though by doing that they actually showed that KaZaA could be stopped, as Morpheus was now left with no central login servers. However, downloads allready begun could be finished & if you had a network of pure Morpheus users around you, you could still search each other.

Around that time, they put up a button on the front of their site offering amnesty for refugees in this file-sharing client war, and Morpheus released Lime-Wire as Morpheus 2.0b.

Basically, the new morpheus was an old fork of the limewire code with an M for a logo, and was just a klunky gnutella client. There was some hullaballoo about open source this, and no source code that, and then Morpheus released the code again. Checking their web page now, they claim to have a final 2.0 out, but I haven't used it and cannot vouch for its quality.

Correct info, wrong name...it was gnucleus. However, this move did have massive impact on the Gnutella network (which gnucleus, limewire, bearshare, shareaza, etc. use). The network just couldn't handle the massive increase in non-sharing bandwidth slurping morpheus users. (Not all, but most of them actually are that)

- the rest is correct -

Well. Now we're up to the current date, with somewhat foggy bits along the way, and probably a few confused details by myself. I would appreciate any clarifications or corrections, as this all came from memory.

You have a good memory, but my part is also from memory, though I actually read a article about it (in the time that KaZaA (the Dutch firm) was under legal fire.

Cheers, and remember: KazaaLite is the answer.

Well, ehm, partly. For now it is, though I would advise you to run giFT (gift.sf.net) under linux. It now has a FastTrack-Network lookalike plugin: OpenFT. Really cool. Scales well & really fast searches.

In the long run w'll probably want to run Freenet, but that isn't going to be done for a very long time.

In other news......

[tanveer1979]

RIAA MPAA have filed a suit against the ear. Apparantly people were storing data in neural networks without paying royalty using a highly sophisticated device ear. This device actualy can work around any copy protection mechanism to feed data into a neural network. Moreover this data can be broadcoast to other nodes using another devilish creation called the mouth and while doing so it rips of copy protection from stolen data.

The Courts have shown favourable response to the petition.. after all they dont want our poor homeless singers and bands to suffer. Probably earplugs will become mandatory at concerts.. insider sources said.

"Due to this stealing, our artists are so poor. Look at the music videos, they dont even have clothes to wear and have to appear in undergarments" said a RI** executive.

Re:I agree

[Rogerborg]

While we're at it, let's ban Colt semi-automatic pistols, Saab cars, and Hitachi VCR's, because they're all specific examples of technology that can be used for bad things. That'll set an example, and everyone will stop making and using that technology and we can put the genie back in the bottle, right?

Alternatively, we could live in the real world. Remember Napster? When that was destroyed, people moved to Kazaa. Destroy Kazaa, and people will move to Morpheus. Destroy Morpheus, and they will move to (e.g.) Gnutella. Destroy Gnutella (how?) and they'll move to Freenet. Destroy Freenet and, well at that point we've destroyed the internet in its current form. Let's give ourselves Ashcroftian superpowers and pretend we can do it. Do that, and people will go to BBS's or to Neighbourhood Area Networks. Do what you like, people will keep sharing.

Are you getting it yet? We can't put the genie back in the bottle. So go ahead and destroy Kazaa if it makes you feel good. The War on Sharing is about as winnable as the War on Drugs or War on Terror. They all have the same purpose anyway: making the hard-of-thinking feel safe and happy and protected. So you enjoy your cozy little fantasy world. Send us a postcard!

LEGITIMATE USE!!!

[Cyno01]

Me and some of my friends just shot a short film(sort of) and have been distributing burned CDs with the movie in several formats (*.mov, *.mpg and DivX'd *.avi) and with a readme file on the cd urging people to share these files on KaZaA, gnutella etc. and to burn copies for their friends. Now to me this seems like a perfectly legitimate use of both CD burners and P2P file sharing. I'm not naieve enough to not think that 99% of whats on P2P nets is copyrighted (its against the law, but i'm not morally opposed to it as i have 100+GB of tv shows on my computer) but what about the other 1%. These are easy means of distribution to independent content producers, if they're shut down, what are we supposed to do.

PS: Anyone interested in a Star Wars Themed Mullet Hunting video(complete with rotoscoped duel) search KaZaA for Mullet Wars: Episode One the Phantom Mullet or star wars mullet or something of the likes, also feel free to e-mail me about it.

Distribution always wrong? I think not.

[MenTaLguY]

I agree that copyrighted material shouldn't be freely distributed from an ethical standpoint.

If that's the way we're talking, then the RIAA have already won. There are plenty of legitimate circumstances to distribute a lot copyrighted material -- and that's not even getting into fair use yet. Consider examples in software, or other types of media.

It's not an issue of copyright per se, it's an issue of what's permitted by the license.

Copyright

[javacowboy]

I agree that copyrighted material shouldn't be freely distributed from an ethical standpoint.

Well, I don't know about you, but I don't agree with large corporations making money off artists 90 years after they died.