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Kazaa Outed Over 'Trust Fund' for Red Cross

Posted by timothy on from the let's-call-it-darliction dept.

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..."

5 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. Journalism by kureido · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Red Cross wouldn't lie. Certainly my-main-man at the Cross, Jean-Jacques, was nothing but totally upfront during our interview. And I've interviewed plenty of spivs. My spivometre didn't move a nanometre while I was talking to him. Jean-Jacques was a straight up bro.

    What in the holy name of hell is passing for journalism these days? I might as well be reading my little brother's blog.

    1. Re:Journalism by h4rm0ny · · Score: 5, Informative


      Seconded! Who approved this piece of crap! I quote from the beginning of the article:

      them on attracting the world's most downloaded program in history as a contributor to its coffers. With three billion files downloaded each month on Kazaa, the Red Cross could almost rebuild Asia single-handedly from what must be a generous pool of dollars from Sharman

      Most downloaded program in the world? Rebuild Asia singe-handedly? This isn't hyperbole, this pure Improbability-Drive-A-Bole! The editor only needed to read three short paragraphs in to reach this rubbish! So either no-one read the article, or else they didn't understand what they were reading.
      My two pence!

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
  2. Re:Hurray! by Olix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    (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...

  3. Shady folks by SteelV · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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."

  4. New take on the Nigerian scam letter... by michaeldot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear Sir,

    I am an extremely wealthy Australian businessman who needs to quickly move money out of the country.

    If you let me use your bank account, I will pay you 10%.

    Of course, I do already know your bank account details, given the amount of spyware I loaded onto your computer...

    Sincerely,

    N. Hemming
    Sharman Networks