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?"
and here i was under the assumption that it was (technically) illegal. anyone care to fill in the gaps for me?
Let's be clear about the importance of reverse engineering. Were it not for that, if you own a Compaq today, you wouldn't. They reverse engineered the IBM PC BIOS chip way back when, and created the first PC clones. Reverse engineering is a fact, not something that should be made "illegal". Essentially every tire maker has reverse engineered the design of the tire from the first automobile tires, etc. I would argue that nearly all engineering is in some way reverse engineering, and as such, we should be very careful to preserve our freedom to go backwards around stuff... more examples? How about the 900 "Super soaker" knockoffs, despite the original having 10+ patent #'s printed on the plastic device itself? Ever see how many patents are on the cellphone? Yet many companies reverse engineer each other's technologies, and no one really cares -- competition is supposed to be healthy. I don't mean stealing their secrets or making fake Louis Vuitton bags, I mean how the Dooney & Bourke bag looks "interestingly similar" to the LV bag.
stuff |
Did you miss the introduction of MS Messenger and pissing the contest that resulted between AOL and Microsoft over Messenger logging on to the AIM network? The major IM services have routinely blocked third party clients since then, with the client developers working around the blocks.
While I agree that the Bnetd issue was fairly lame, this one is more in a gray area. The FastTrack clients dont run on an independant network, and KCeasys interoperability with the FastTrack network means interacting with Sharman Networks servers to auth the user and provide various other facilities while the Bnetd solution produced a fully independant network, where people could join without any interaction with Blizzards servers at all, and that is the major difference in this case.
I dont think "Reverse engineering to be another on the list of rights that have fallen by the wayside?" is a valid concern here, because the main issue seems to be that KCeasy interacts with SN servers, in a way that SN has not authorised or granted consent to. If KCeasy produced a fully seperate network, that simply used the FastTrack protocol, then my view would be different, but it doesnt, so it isnt. KCeasy is using the FastTrack network and Sharman Networks servers without consent, simple really.
I think that they do have a right to exclude unofficial clients from connecting to their server (or network).
I don't think they have a right to prevent anyone from making or distributing a compatible client.
Here's the kicker; I don't think they have a right to prevent people from using a compatible client to connect to instances of the client they provide.
The question is, what is "their network?" Is it anything other than a bunch of people running their P2P software on the public Internet? If so, I think they have no rights at all.
Please note that this is my analysis of the ethics involved, not my analysis of the laws involved.
-Peter
US Constitution, Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
(Yes, I understand if you are not in the US - but since so much of these rights issues crop up in the US, I think it applies).
But, that's beside the point. Really, I can't see how reverse-engineering could be forbidden by copyright AT ALL. I can see patents forbidding reverse engineering (which is another issue), but copyright / DMCA doesn't even apply.
To anyone designing networks:
- If you want to forbid access to your network, toss some sort of copyrighted part into the protocol. Example: all packets must carry the string "Foobar network, copyright Evil Corp" in a header somewhere, any packet w/o that information must be dropped. THEN, you can restrict access to your network based on copyright (copying that string into the packet is a blindingly obvious violation of copyright!). Yes it wastes a few bytes, but you wanted an exclusive network, right? Exclusivity ain't free!
- Or, patent the implementation of the network. But, as the parent is noting, that may or may not hold up legally - whereas a copyrighted string certainly should. (Yeah, IANAL)
My opinion: if a company wants to retain control of their network, it needs to be through copyright. A trivial protocol change! But then the rest of us (e.g. slashdot crowd) can reverse-engineer the protocol, CHANGE THAT STRING, and have an entirely separate network! Then, reverse-engineering = legal, sharing that network = illegal. It's not that difficult! And it's one hell of a lot cheaper than lawsuits...A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
Excellent point. ;-)
One has to look no further than our own Decleraion of Indepence to see that we are granted, "Ceritan unalienable rights...". Just because these rights are not set out in stone, does not mean they do not exsist, infact, I would prefer they where not spelled out in stone, least some over zealous prosoctor would attempt to charge me with crime on am over drawn technicality.
But, by centralizing authentication, then they lose the defense of "We just make the software. We can't police how it's used." They fall into the same hole Napster did. Since the authorities would know who was running the software, they could subpoena records from the Kazaa makers to prosecute file traders.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Anyone have any guesses?
There has been chat around here about someone who wants to tell Sharman to cram it (since you have a right to reverse engineer a network) to simply fork KCeasy (since its GPL) and await another letter.
Let us set up a forked project then, with donations to fight this bullshit.
I am willing to fight, show me the way.
(p.s. mod parent up plz)