Secret Kazaa Documents Revealed in Court

Dan Warne writes "A fascinating range of Kazaa's internal documents were revealed in Federal Court in the ongoing court case against the Australian-based company today. One extraordinary philosophical manifesto by the company's chief technical officer showed that he was aware that Kazaa's activities were a huge legal risk. He also feared being 'out-innovated' by other P2P programs that didn't come bundled with adware. "if consumers can connect to FT (as well as Gnutella 2, eDonkey and Bittorrent) and it has no ads or adware then it would seem a good choice," Philip Morle says in the his manifesto. The documents are full of all sorts of other admissions-that-you'd-be-crazy-to-put-on-paper like how Kazaa employees "hate" installing the Kazaa Media Desktop on their machines because all the bundled adware slows your machine down and can hijack your web browser."

Comments

Currently...

[gandell]

If you go to Kazaa right now, however, you'll note that they say that there's no spyware bundled with the software. Thanks, but no thanks...I'm sticking with bittorrent and Winmx.

How much does this matter?

[mistersooreams]

I can't see that this is going to blow major holes in Kazaa's legal defense, although I do think they'll lose anyway.

I don't think Kazaa's argument was ever that they "didn't know" about all the illegal P2P traffic they were generating. Surely their argument is the old "Common Carrier" one, where they aren't responsible for anything Kazaa transports and responsibility is shifted to the software user? Maybe I've misunderstood, feel free to correct me.

Now, this is clearly embarrassing for the company, and the CTO especially, but I can't see that it's of much legal importance. Everyone knows about Kazaa and spyware by now, don't they/

Still...

[DoubleDangerClub]

I'm still amazed that the people in charge of companies like Sharman, etc. think that chocking their software full of crap programs that infect and make peoples' pcs run poorly (to say the least) is the correct way to go. I guess it just shows that in the end, a proper p2p program needs to be open sourced. It seems the only way we'll get something people will want (want is emphasized) to use. It takes real people to make software to be used by real people I guess.

Re:It just goes to show...

[Eminence]

This sounds very rational. And this is probably what people should do. However, both the original poster and you assume that other fellow's lawyers' right to read anything that you've written is natural and obvious. But shouldn't there be a limit? If that would be technologically possible to subpoena someone's thoughts would you see it as natural and right? I really don't like the idea that anything I write or draw might be used against me - I thought this rule applied only to testimonies after being arrested.

I understand that from the court's point of view such memos and letters are an important evidence that would allow them to judge not only the actions but also the intentions. Maybe that's what we should worry about? After all, it is really hard to prove intentions in cases like this - and even harder to judge them. An intention to rape & kill are obviously bad, but it is not as obvious with intention to develop a way for people to freely share files over the network. Here it depends on one's beliefs and interests whether he would see it the way I put it or as an intention to develop a way for people to steal precious and highly valued intellectual property of media companies. Are beliefs to be tested in court?

Why not much free software innovation?

[br00tus]

I develop a Gnutella p2p application (Gnutizen) and have often wondered why so much of the popular and innovative products are propietary, and not more open. Napster was the first. Kazaa was the first to have "superpeers", but its network is now totally locked. Edonkey was the first good program for downloading big files, but it is propietary (there are decent Windows clients, but I haven't found any on Linux I like yet). And now eXeem has a propietary on may levels network technically superior to Edonkey in terms of speed.

I don't know the answer, but I guess I'm more qualified to answer than many because I've been coding one on and off for the past three years. I guess the answer is it's hard work. You're also not "following head lights", as even the eDonkey clones do. And the programming is not easy - with C language it's socket programming, which means all kinds of strange things can come over the network which have to be defensively coded against, and since you're using multiple sockets that means threading. And it takes a lot of code to just get a decent app, never mind cool bells and whistles. One reason mine is GPL is, aside from liking the GPL, this is my first big software project so I don't feel I'm at a level where I can sell my code yet. I've also borrowed GPL code from a program called gnut which helped. I would borrow from one called GTK-Gnutella but it's so big and complex it's hard to directly borrow from.

Of course there are exceptions - Gnutella (although AOL/TW killed the eponymous one, leaving only the protocol clones), and Bittorrent. With the Gnutella protocol, Limewire and Bearshare are commercial companies, but they agree on an open protocol, which they share with some free clients (like mine).

There are so many innovations possible - Bittorrent is one of the recent ones - it built on what Edonkey did, allowing hundreds of megs of files to be transferred, except with Bittorrent, it added speed to the picture. So because Bittorrent exists, people now have a better chance of getting ISOs of Linux distros, Indymedia videos or whatnot. It's such a cool area I wonder why the propietary folks so often beat the free ones in terms of innovation. I guess it's a wash now with who innovates more. And also, with sockets, trheading and protocols that obsolete older versions as time goes on (ay de mi!), it takes so long to get a decent app together that innovation seems a long way off.

I suppose another reason is the RIAA/MPAA is suing p2p developers left and right - that might explain why people are hanging back somewhat. It's unfortunate this fear is stifling p2p innovation. In many ways it seems ridiculous to me - on BBSs in the 1980s you had a file section and a message board system. Sometimes you didn't even have a message board - just a file section. People have been trading and sharing files on computers for decades, all of a sudden such communal practices are tainted, with accusations flying on Slashdot on how people use p2p to break some new laws that the big corporations passed recently in Washington DC that protected their soi disant intellectual property. It's ridiculous - there were normal BBSs and warez BBSs back then, just as there is an equivalent nowadays on the Internet. It would be insane for US-legal (for now) things such as sharing ISOs or Indymedia videos is crushed by the evil capitalist bourgeois corporations.

Re:Why not much free software innovation?

[Kjella]

I think I can come up with a few more reasons.

1. Lack of goal cohesion. In a proprietary company, you have a few people who design, and many who do as told. There are far too many variables around, often contradictory, like anonymity vs speed, centralization vs searchability, trust vs open network, leeching vs entry barrier and so on. Many networks have become not only a jack, but a deuce of all trades that way.

2. Lack of vision. Those capable of coding a network application are rarely the same ones who can imagine a working concept of a million nodes. In OSS, it is my distinct impression that those who can do, and those who can't are ignored. Such a network can never be simularted properly in a test lab, you have to do it in your mind. Which means others will disagree, and badly.

3. Standing on the shoulders of the wrong giant. By OSS's cross-breeding nature, it is much easier to keep building onto what is, than to change the fundamentals. In a proprietary network you're starting from scratch anyway, might as well do it "right", for whatever you believe is right. In networks, scaling is everything. If the way you construct the network is putting a ceiling on your app, the only thing you'll do is hit the roof again and again.

And what experience do I have about that? :) Let's just say that there might be a few surprises left...

Re:No, really

[Anonymous Coward]

People would prefer programs without adware? What a stunning concept.

Actually, I wouldn't mind adware that much if it was done right. As a matter of fact, if the adware was what kept the software free, I don't see a problem at all. Banner ads on many web pages are annoying, but they can be dealt with. Same with TV. Likewise, a ThinkGeek banner on the top of Slashdot is appreciated every so often when it alerts me to some new, weird, and totally cool toy I wasn't aware of, whether or not I buy it.

The problem enters when they try to use spyware in the same bundle, or are extremely excessive in the way they display ads. I do not mind ads, but I DO mind ads that are interested in snooping around at what else I do on my computer. When I visit a web site, I'm pretty sure they track me. It doesn't really bother me, because they can only track me within their own site, or affiliate sites for the most part. This is not that different from King Soopers tracking what I buy and when I buy, so that they can better stock the store. If I don't want to be tracked at King Soopers, I just don't use my member card. If I don't want to be tracked at a web site, I disable cookies. No big deal.

To be honest, these ill-conceived adware/spyware bundles are really costing genuine, non-intrusive advertisements, which is quite a pitty. Software etc. costs something to make, just like most other services and products, and as much as I'd like to see clean pure OSS just like the next guy, I also know that it ain't gonna happen. There will always be some commercial software I need or want to use, but would be happy not paying for it, and even more happy if I could do so with a clear conscience. (That is, not a pirated copy.) Now that adware has become so damn intrusive though, it's gonna be hard to have customers install software that has adware in it, even if the adware doesn't track you, isn't terribly intrusive, doesn't add considerable overhead to your computing resources, and doesn't take over anything.

Re:Anyone get the feeling...

[Anonymous Coward]

That maybe this chap wasn't -entirely- on side with the business strategy of the company.
To me this sounds like a techy complaining that the business is subverting the idea.

Actually, I think you're the one that isn't with the business strategy side. The CTO actually sounds like he understands BOTH sides of the deal, and is actually somewhat competent. His issue was that the methods used to create revenue were exactly what would turn around and bite them in the ass. He may not have been able to come up with a better way to create revenue, but he saw and identified a very real problem with the business strategy. Good for him. A lot of the dot-bomb was about non-techy managers not being able to figure out a good revenue model, and just letting the product go for free. The bubble burst, and now we have the same non-techy managers displaying that they STILL can't figure out a good revenue model, even when they're NOT giving things away entirely for free.

Re:Kazaa _must not_ fail

[Jugalator]

It's hard at least on BT since the trackers can be moderated. And it's work for the highschoolers to create .torrent files and upload them unlike just clicking to share a 1,000 file directory of junk. I'd think their attention span is often short enough for them to just settle with leeching from BT trackers. ;-)

Re:Sure there ain't no spyware...

[Phisbut]

Note that their Skype website says: No Spyware, Adware or Malware
Kazaa says: No Spyware

Funny when companies have to explicitly mention they're not evil. Funnier is that Microsoft also says: "We're not saying there's no virus or malware in our product". Seriously... The MSN-Messenger license states that :

disclaimer of warranties. to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, microsoft and its suppliers provide to you [...] as is and with all faults; and microsoft and its suppliers hereby disclaim [...] all warranties and conditions, whether express, implied or statutory, including, [...] lack of viruses, [...]

Your rightie provisional assumptions are showing

[ianscot]

But where ever business memo must be written in such a way that you csn't tell the truth because it might be used against you in a court of law, your have a big problem with your tort system.

Um, wherever putting details about your business model down on paper would result in serious legal liability, you have a big problem with your business model. Yes? The problem with Enron wasn't that they might get caught, it was that they used fundamentally dishonest accounting practices -- whether they wrote those practices down or not.

I have no problem with talking about tort reform, but the idea that trial lawyers are "running" anyone's economy is ludicrous. It's ludicrous on the same level that "trial lawyers are jacking up our medical expenses" is a ludicrous overstatement of the effect of malpractice suits.

Behind your post lies the assumption that basically anything goes for businesses, as long as they don't get held accountable for their unsavory actions. I'll take a balanced economy, thanks. Regulation of industry for the public interest, checks and balances in the legal system... It's all radical communism by you, I'm sure, but I'll choose it all the same.

Re:Intellectual "property"

[cpt kangarooski]

The reasoning behind IP law is to encourage creation of IP.

No, that's a fatally overbroad statement, and incorrect anyway.

I mean, the purpose of trademark law is absolutely not to encourage the creation of more trademarks. It is, again, to protect customers from being misled as to the source of goods or services. It's basically like the laws that mandate lists of ingredients on food products. Where ingredients are truthfully listed, customers will be able to know what's in the things they're eating. Where a trademark indicates that all marked goods come from one place, with whatever degree of quality that place has, customers won't be misled.

What you're really thinking of, I bet, are patents and copyrights, which are really among the least numerous and least financially important of forms of 'IP.' But even there, you're still wrong.

Yes, one of the purposes of patents and copyrights is to encourage the creation of inventions and works. But another, equally important purpose is to have those inventions and works to be unencumbered. Where it is unencumbered, it can be used to the maximum extent possible, for the least possible cost. This means having works enter the public domain immediately, or at least as soon as possible. And it means that the exclusive rights should be as minimal in scope as possible.

People love to jump on the argument that theres no different between "The Matrix" on DVD and a random string of bytes on that same DVD

Maybe so, but I'm not one of those.

how do we encourage the kind of society that invests effort into producing things (or intangible streams of desireable bytes) that we want?

Again, not good enough. Getting things that we want requires them to be useful to us. If I have to pay for a copy of a book, it is less useful to me than one that is free. If I cannot make and give away copies of a book, it is less useful to me than one that I can. If I cannot write a sequel to a book, then it is less useful to me than one that I can.

Freedom to use the things we want is necessary, or else why the hell do we want these things in the first place? Just to admire them from afar?

Ideally we would have the maximum possible production of inventions and works, and no restrictions at all on them.

What we make do with is to get as close to that as possible by trying to get as much production of inventions and works as we can while having the fewest restrictions placed upon us. It is a balancing act, and the point at which the balance is optimal is determined by reference to the public interest.

at least I'm not mystified on why society has decided on having laws supporting the concept of intellectual property.

I'm not mystified. I just don't think you have even defined what you mean by intellectual property, I don't think it is property, and I think that there are many different reasons for each of the various doctrines that have been clumsily lumped together under the 'IP' label. I think that there are perfectly good underlying reasons for these bodies of law, but that they don't mesh with much of the law as it is implemented now, and that you haven't gotten all that close to identifying those reasons.

Remember: I'm in favor of copyrights, patents, tradmarks, trade secrets, etc. But I'm upset about the specific implementation of these things. Your misinformation about why we have these laws at all only serves to keep our screwed up implementations. Better consideration of the policies behind these laws would, I think, produce better laws.