Slashdot Mirror
FOSS Application Under Attack by Makers of KaZaa
Famatra writes "A story
from Zeropaid indicates that maker of
KaZaA, Sharman Networks, has sent a Cease
and Desist Letter to the maker of KCEasy because it interoperates with their
FastTrack network. The creator of KCeasy says on the
KCEasy website "I feel that inclusion of
FastTrack access with KCeasy is not worth a legal battle between Sharman and
myself". A similar issue was covered by the Slashdot story
Fight On Blizzard Vs. Bnetd Case on the right to reverse engineer to create
an interoperable network. Reverse engineering to be another on the list of
rights that have fallen by the wayside?"
Sounds like Kazaa is fighting the same sort of thing for the same sort of reason except that in the case of chat, one must connect to the central servers of the chat netowrk. Can Kazaa really claim ownership-like rights to a network that doesn't depend on their servers for functionality? It would seem that Kazaa has created a Frankenstein monster . . . that perhaps they cannot wholly control . . .
Dude, that isn't a good analogy by any stretch of the imagination. Kazaa doesn't own its own network, because it's set up using its users' bandwidth; it doesn't in fact provide very much at all, besides the client. After Napster and Audiogalaxy there isn't much in the way of centralization in these networks. What does this mean? It means that KCEasy provides as much of the "network" infrastructure as the real clients. Nothing of Sharman Networks' bandwidth or computing resources are being used up, so why do they get to say who can come in and who stays out?
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
i'm tired of all these folks making up "rights" that don't exist.
And I'm tired of people thinking we don't have rights just because they aren't spelled out in the Constitution. Remember, the Constitution limits the rights of the government, it doesn't grant the people rights. We have them to begin with.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Sharman say it is not their network. They say that they only supply the software.
That is why they are allowed to continue in business, and that is why they are not liable for any copyright infringement that takes place on the network.
The only possible basis therefore for preventing other people from writing software that can connect to the same third party networks that their software connects to is patent infringement.