Kazaa Outed Over 'Trust Fund' for Red Cross

danwarne writes "In one of the most bizarre twists in the court action against Kazaa yet, documents have been tendered in Australian Federal Court court that showed that Kazaa claimed to have set up a trust fund for donations to the Red Cross (at about the time the tsunami hit), but the Red Cross has confirmed in writing it has never heard from them about it. The music industry alleged in court that it was a tactic by Kazaa parent company Sharman Networks to park money out of the reach of the music industry if it loses the case and is left with a huge damages bill. This in the same week that it came out in court that top Sharman/BDE execs offloaded their multi-million dollar homes. Sounds like Kazaa's lawyers might be telling them to prepare for the worst..."

Comments

Re:Hurray!

[Olix]

(Olix uses knowledge gained in GCSE buisness lessons) does Kazza actually have money then? Where do they earn it from? I would have thought, if the company is private limited, then they would just declare the comapny bankrupt and start again...

Java applet

[RobotPanda]

Anyone know what the applet on that site's page might be doing? My Java console has a ton of these messages: liveconnect: JavaScript: UniversalBrowserRead enabled liveconnect: JavaScript: UniversalJavaPermission enabled

Not suprised...

[ImaLamer]

Considering this company makes money off of bootlegging and piracy it makes sense.

But before you fly off the handle, look at it this way: They took software for trading files and turned it and it's abilities into a profit machine, stooping so far as to load users with spyware to further that profit (remember: Kazaa Lite has no connection to Sharman). All the time we all knew that Kazaa was used 99% of the time for retrieving copyrighted works people had no rights to. This isn't Bittorrent where many files are free.

After they had cashflow they had one of two responsiblities: Either filter owned works or pay up for those works. They made information trade their business and they didn't own the information they were "brokering".

I don't know how people can be suprised or offended when Kazaa or Napster gets sued. I don't work for the **AA, and am not Dr. Dre, just not suprised at this. I'm not suprised if they get there asses handed to them. (I'm not counting on them getting off on any technicalities, I'm just saying they have it coming.)

Napster and Kazaa with websites is tantamount to a drug dealer on the corner with a sign and them turning a profit is as disgusting as it gets. I've bootleged and pirated quite a few things but I nor anyone else should be making money off of that.

That is the point isn't it?

Re:Not suprised...

[shark72]

Kazaa went into business because they correctly saw the huge opportunity in the high demand for pirated material. Their very business model is based on this. Anybody who claims that Kazaa thought that it would be used primarily for trading Linux distros is either naive, or deliberately being Kazaa's stooge.

They took the risk, and now they're in hot water. Naturally, they're using feeble excuses to avoid liability. There's nothing to be gained by our ignoring the obvious and pretending that Kazaa isn't complicit.

I call bullshit on this story

[ArsenneLupin]

Timing is wrong. How do you compare this:

The timing of the news coincided with the devastating tsunami and the global charity needed all it could get at its greatest time of need.

... and ...:

At the time, Dispatch thought that Red Cross spokesman Jean-Jacques Bovay might have needed more time, just to check and be on the safe side before finally declaring Who the hell is this Sharman of which you speak. It was Christmas Eve that we phoned him, afterall.

So, if I got this right, Dispatch phoned the Red Cross two days before the catastrophe occurred for which the alleged trust fund was set up? What the hell. I smell a rat here.

Shady folks

[SteelV]

I was on the phone with a Kazaa-exec a few years back (actually, listening in), and couldn't help commenting on the rampant spyware issues. He was not actually at Kazaa, rather at a company that managed their ad-services if I remember correctly, and took a great deal of offense at my comments! He got really upset when I mentioned how Kazaa-Lite was so much better (hehehe).

He sounded fairly unscrupulous at the time, so I guess he knew what was going on fairly well and was OK with it. This seems like a continuation of past policy. Obviously the higher-ups don't care about users, just about making as much money as they can, any way they can.

I thought it would completely die years ago (I stopped using it a long time back). Maybe it will soon with all these recent "issues."

Re:Hurray!

[m50d]

They earn it from all the bundled spyware. So they do have quite a bit, and the RIAA will get as much of it as they can. But the execs are probably safe, yes.

Re:Journalism

[bayvult]

Anyone who takes a PR's comments at face value and calls him a "straight up bro" should have rocks thrown at him, yes.

But this couldn't be a blog, because it contains news I hadn't read someplace else. It would be disqualified from the blog-o-sphere.