KaZaA Resumes Downloads, Company Sold? 203
Robert Johnson writes "According to an article on Dotcom Scoop, popular file-sharing service KaZaA may have been sold over the weekend.
"As of last week the company was based in the Netherlands. However, upon close examination of its new terms of use license, the company now says, "This License as well as all disputes arising out of or in connection with this Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the New South Wales, without regard to or application of choice of law rules or principles. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with this License, or in future agreements resulting there from, shall be exclusively resolved before the competent court in New South Wales," the article states. New South Wales is an Australian state."
Update Apparently the website reverted to the former content
which might raise a few eyebrows. Update: 01/21 18:17 GMT by T : DotcomScoop writes: "KaZaA isssued a statement regarding its sale after our story was published." Here is the statement and a little more info.
Okay, quick! (Score:2)
Sold ... or moved? (Score:1)
Thanks (Score:1)
legal (Score:1)
:))
Usage Laws (Score:1)
Smart Move. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's only a matter of time until MS becomes based in the Cayman Islands.
D
Re:Smart Move. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Smart Move. (Score:5, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/23/174
If you're wealthy enough to buy a country. (Score:2)
Re:Smart Move. (Score:3, Insightful)
You think it would be trivial to move the tech base required to support a computer industry? To provide all the things like medical, etc. that you require as infrastructural support? To provide equivalent services to all the nearby small companies your company does business with?
I can't see it. And then there are the physical security issues. Remember, Sealand was once taken by hostile forces. And they are arguably inside UK territorial waters! And denial of service becomes far easier if your connection is a seafloor fibre pipe (oops, sorry about that Micro$oft...). Not to mention exposing your HQ and your employees to flooding and tropical storms. And all those wonderful bugs that dont thrive in North America.
It might make sense to maintain a legal fiction with a lawyer and a P.O. Box down there, much like corps do in Virginia, but that's about the end of it. And in this New World of Terrorism (really, the same old world but with a new media focus...), it seems unlikely corporations would be anxious to locate to more vulnerable locations. Or did you think they'd pay for their own army, navy, air force, and significant intelligence assets? There are a few benefits to being HQ'd in the Continental USA!
Besides, if M$ were to relocate to the Carribean, whose Judges would they buy? Whose DoJ would they bribe?
Re:Smart Move. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it'd be wonderful up until huricane abby or some such comes along and wipes out all of your senior software engineers...wait. Can we sell Microsoft on this idea?
Re:Smart Move. (Score:2)
You mean like this nice large island in the Caribbean known as Cuba...
Grow your company to the right size in a protected nation (see USA), then when that country starts to turn on you, pack up and head for your own mini country!
Exactly where does this mini country get the sort of military hardware it may need to be sure of maintaining its independance?
Re:Smart Move. (Score:1)
Then they start annezing the neighbors pool, the hot dog stand.. next thing you know, we're at war!
Re:Smart Move. (Score:2)
Since at least 2 of the US states arn't strictly legitimatly part of the US there are a whole bunch of people who this could be the case for.
Unless this software company has their own army.
They'd also need air and sea defence.
Other countries can pretty much do what they want to them.
Especially the USA...
After all that investment? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would they move after investing all that time and money buying all those american politicians, and getting all those pro-microsoft laws passed?
Nope. M$ will stay where they are, this anti-trust thing will be dealt with by a suitcase full of money or the assassination of clueful judges. The bandwidth is too good in the PNW compared to backward tropical islands.
the AC
Re:Smart Move. (Score:1)
It's only a matter of time until MS becomes based in the Cayman Islands.
Or if its a Canadian company, break off a part of Canada (ie: Quebec) and declare it a seperate country!
Re:Smart Move. (Score:2)
What do they then do if they annoy the US government? Whilst they are US based the only thing they have to fear is the DOJ, move outside the US and they then have to face the DOD. (And the militry of any other country they might annoy.)
Great (Score:1)
I bought them! (Score:3, Funny)
This isn't good for KaZaa (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't good for KaZaa (Score:1, Insightful)
So? If someone files a lawsuit against them in Australia they can just sell the company and move to Belgium. There are hundreds of countries on the planet to move to with IP connectivity. It's hard to hit a moving target, especially when the real world lawyers are using crossbows and you're flying around in a jet.
kazaa working fine? (Score:4, Informative)
Error logging into Kazaa, continuing as anonymous.
I am using the linux client. Is it only me, or are others also having difficulty logging onto the network?
Re:kazaa working fine? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:kazaa working fine? (Score:1)
Re:kazaa working fine? (Score:1)
"Error logging into Kazaa, continuing as anonymous."
...continued by a forever "connecting...".
too bad. it had served me well up to this point.
Re:kazaa working fine? (Score:1)
An iteresting note is my username is followed by ??? instead of what was there (kazaa) I wonder if this has to do with them moving their servers, (anyone actually see if the IP space has change ?)
I know recently they changed their keyserver, did they change it back to allow for automomous operation again, compleyley decentalized , as it was in the begginign ?
Im betting dollars to dimes, they changed the keyserver info in some way or another to ELIMINATE being shut down as a whole networ, this is how it was originally supposed to work until clients other than their own started showing up on the network.
The linux version was a quick and dirty hack at best, Has anyone on the windows side been updated since running thier client last ???
Re:kazaa working fine? (Score:1)
There is now a follow up [dotcomscoop.com] story @ dotcomscoop quoting a statement from the company that has bought KaZaa, so it would seem to be true.
Re:kazaa working fine? (Score:5, Informative)
My guess is that the login servers are down and the linux binary's supernode list is out of date. (And I don't know about you, but I have to wipe out the whole
I further imagine that by editing in the address of a working supernode into the binary or config file somewhere, you can get the linux version to connect.
Are Windows people connecting okay?
Re:kazaa working fine? (Score:2, Informative)
aside from the general instability of the program.
Re:kazaa working fine? (Score:1)
And this helps how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Aussie Internet Laws (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll bet they'll completely ignore the idea that this might actually be a GoodThing[tm] and use it as an excuse to push through more shitty laws.
Anyway it's past my bedtime.
This does not make sense. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, at least they didn't move to the US.
Re:This does not make sense. (Score:1, Offtopic)
The proper question then is, "Why would an Australian company want to buy KaZaA given the Aussies view toward the Internet?" The answer is quite obviously that they think they can make money.
KaZaA will be turned into a pay service just like Naptster and they will partner with the labels and try not to run afoul of the law. If they accomplish this it doesn't much matter where they are.
Do they..... (Score:3, Interesting)
They could probably stay up for a few years just bouncing from country to country, or could they host the servers off shore us in some place like Bermuda with very lax laws in this type of instance?
Linux client no more (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Linux client no more (Score:1)
Re:Linux client no more (Score:2)
Just yesterday afternoon (Jan 20) I was sniffing a wireless network in downtown salt lake. There was a lot of Kazaa activity there. I then moved to another nice location to sniff another network...there was active kazaa transfers going on in that network too.
Can't tell you what client it was...likely the doze client, but it seems that the network itself was working as of yesterday afternoon.
Moving or selling KaZaA doesn't change liability (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Moving or selling KaZaA doesn't change liabilit (Score:1)
Yep, but... KaaZaa itself doesn't include any material that is of questionable original. The client itself is made of 100% pure legit code.
Perhaps they hope that in Australia they won't extend copyright violation to include clients that can be coaxed into it?
Re:Moving or selling KaZaA doesn't change liabilit (Score:1)
Geography? (Score:5, Funny)
So sorry, we Amerikuns can't learn geography this way. Australia needs to piss us off so we bomb NSW, and then CNN can show us where it is.
Slashdotted (Score:4, Informative)
A week after the company stopped downloads of its software, Amsterdam-based peer-to-peer software firm KaZaA announced on its website that it had launched a new version of its software, that includes a pay service, and a cryptic message made it appear that KaZaA is now owned by an Australian company called Sharman Network Services. Or perhaps not.
The Kazaa.com website was stripped bare of much of its content on Sunday and was allowing users to download an updated version of its software, although attempts to download this software were met with an error message.
By 4:15 AM EST on Monday, the original KaZaA website was back up with no mention of new software or Sharman Network Services. But access to the new terms of use agreement was still possible and the copyright information at the bottom identifies "Sharman Network Services" as the owner of the website's contents.
As of last week the company was based in the Netherlands. However, upon close examination of its new terms of use license, the company now appears to be based in Australia.
"This License as well as all disputes arising out of or in connection with this Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the New South Wales, without regard to or application of choice of law rules or principles. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with this License, or in future agreements resulting there from, shall be exclusively resolved before the competent court in New South Wales," the new terms of use dictate.
New South Wales is Australia's largest state population wise and the home of Sydney.
The "WHOIS" information for the Kazaa.com domain has not been updated, but a note posted on the KaZaA site on early Monday morning EST led users to believe that FastTrack, the company that created the code used for and owns KaZaA, and has licensed its code out to competitors MusicCity and Grokster, no longer controls KaZaA. Various searches for "Sharman Network Services" turned up no results.
"The original brains behind Kazaa have moved on to develop new innovative software. The team now running Kazaa will continue to deliver the best technology for finding, saving and transfering all the data you want: no limits. Get ready for the next version of KaZaA with even better performance and enhanced usability," said a note posted on the KaZaA homepage, before it reverted back to its original state.
In an ironic twist, one major new area of the company's terms of service agreement covers the distribution of the KaZaA software itself. KaZaA and other file sharing companies are under legal fire for allowing users to trade copyrighted material.
"This License allows you to install and use the KaZaA Media Desktop on a single computer. This License does not permit you to install the Software on more than one computer at a time. You may make one copy of the Software in machine-readable form for backup purposes only. The backup copy must include all copyright information contained on the original," according to KaZaA's new terms of use agreement. The original terms of use agreement is still linked on the KaZaA homepage.
The company has also apparently added new features that consumers will be forced to pay for.
"Certain features of the KaZaA Media Desktop may require payment in the future including a prepaid fee ("Prepaid Fee"). The Prepaid Fee, and all taxes and other fees related thereto will be paid by you in advance. You shall pay all fees and charges incurred through your account at the rates in effect for the billing period in which such fees and charges are incurred. All fees and charges shall be billed to you, and you shall be solely responsible for their payment. You shall pay all applicable taxes relating to the use of the Software through your account. If you do not pay the applicable fees, including Prepaid Fees, within the prescribed period of time your account will be terminated immediately, without limiting KaZaA's right to demand payment of fees and damages at a later time," the company now says.
The new terms appear to try to help KaZaA further indemnify itself from being responsible for users who trade copyrighted material.
KaZaA suspended downloads of its software last week saying it was awaiting a Dutch court decision on its fate.
"Download of the KaZaA Media Desktop software is temporarily and voluntarily suspended pending Dutch court decision on January 31. We apologise for the inconvenience. Please check back at www.kazaa.com for more information," the company said in a statement issued on its website last week.
A Dutch court ruled in November that the company must stop its users from sharing copyrighted material. The ruling is under appeal and the court will make a decision on Jan. 31.
KaZaA also recently added a disclaimer on its site regarding the copyright issue.
KaZaA, MusicCity and Grokster find themselves the subject of international court pressure. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) launched a lawsuit against the companies last fall in an effort to stem the tide of peer-to-peer transfer of copyrighted music files.
In October, an internal RIAA memo, leaked to Dotcom Scoop, outlined the RIAA's strategy to take on the file-sharing networks. The memo indicated that the RIAA would attempt to negotiate with FastTrack in an effort to shut down its licensees.
"Thus, we recommend (1) filing claims against FastTrack, MusicCity, and Grockster, (2) immediately thereafter initiating discussions with FastTrack about resolving our claims in a way that will provide us with useful information and testimony against MusicCity, and if possible obtain FastTrack's cooperation in shutting down or converting MusicCity and Grokster," the memo stated.
Brought to you by Conspiracy Theorists!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Its a trap! Don't do it! They said they were free! All I wanted was some more Pogues bootlegs and now I've got a black helicopter in my yard!
Oh my God...They're coming in! Aiiiiiiiieeeeee...
(PAUSE- THEN DIALTONE)
From Their Site (Score:5, Informative)
The original brains behind Kazaa have moved on to develop new innovative software. The team now running Kazaa will continue to deliver the best technology for finding, saving and transfering all the data you want: no limits. Get ready for the next version of KaZaA with even better performance and enhanced usability. Click here [kazaa.com] to read the new Terms of Use for KaZaA.
To me, this sounds like a mass exodus, not a simple move to avoid some laws...
Napster Mark II (Score:5, Insightful)
6 Payment and fees
6.1 Certain features of the KaZaA Media Desktop may require payment in the future including a prepaid fee ("Prepaid Fee").
The Prepaid Fee, and all taxes and other fees related thereto will be paid by you in advance.
Guess someone in the RIAA managed to make a new acquisition, as per the leaked memo [dotcomscoop.com].
Okay, new game. Who wants to make acronyms for KAZAA that indicate how f*cked they are?
Re:Napster Mark II (Score:1)
Liability for contributory infringement attaches to "one who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another . . . [L]iability exists if the defendant engages in personal conduct that encourages or assists the infringement." A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1014 (9th Cir. 2001).
It's already being cited to try and take down others. And with terminology like that, you could use that decision to sue people who even live in the same house as someone who downloads illegal MP3s.
Re:Napster Mark II (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sure that when they shut down again, we can all proclaim them
Killed Again by Zealous Aussie Attorneys
Re:Napster Mark II (Score:2, Interesting)
Cops are exempt from 17 USC 1201 (Score:2)
Ya gotta love the RIAA going against the DMCA or whatever that anti-reverse-engineering thing is called.
According to this PDF from the US Library of Congress [loc.gov], law enforcement officers operating in the line of duty are exempt from the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. (Read More... [pineight.com])
Sad for Aussies... (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, they get KaZaA in their back yard...
AND THEY HAVE TO PAY WHAT, 5 BAZILLION A MONTH FOR BROADBAND? With a bandwidth cap?
I can already see a whole bunch of Aussies looking up in the sky and moaning like Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes when they find this out.
"Damn you! Damn you all! ARrrrgggghhhh!"
Australia a bad move? (Score:1, Redundant)
Does it matter... (Score:1)
Re:Does it matter... (Score:2)
When... (Score:2, Insightful)
Decentralized, head-less networks like Gnutella or Freenet are, once again, the only way to make sure this doesnt happen. KazaA may have a decentralized network but there still is the one authority distributing the client; if they go down, eventually the network they created will disintegrate. With Gnutella or Freenet, there’s no one to sue worth their time (individual users?), and no one to buy out at all.
Re:When... (Score:1)
Gnutella's backbone is run by businesses. Namely bearshare and limewire, which are making some kind of profit. They run the main cache servers that 99% of all gnutella connect through.
URL Dutch news article (Score:1)
http://www.telegraaf.nl/digilink/teksten/digi.k
article on webwereld.nl (Score:3, Insightful)
"According to a monday released press announcement the buyer - Sharman Networks - it is a aboute certain parts of KaZaA. The following company parts are "in ieder geval" involved: The website, name(/trademark), logo's , and a licence on the peer to peer network of fastrack. If the client software is involved is unknown
Futher details are not made public. What amount the from Australia coming Sharman Networdks paid for KaZaA is not clear. According to Nikkki Hemming, CEO of sharman the continuenece of Kazaa is insured. "we think it is fantastic to resume the service of Kazaa and development the tradmark Kazaa"
[sorry for the bad translation, my dutch is better]
rest of article is stuff we already know.
-download suspended.
-talks bumra stemra (riaa)
followup Re:article on webwereld.nl (Score:2)
http://www.webwereld.nl/nieuws/9910.phtml [webwereld.nl]
-sherman networks is unknow.
-A judge will not take this.(according to a involved loyer)
-bumra/stemra knows of nothing
The Best Country / Law Mix (Score:3, Insightful)
That is where you want to locate a Napster/Kazaa/Morpheus/$whatever; a place where the legislators have better things to do than "fix" imaginary problems, and where everyone from everytwhere can connect fast, every time, 24/7/365.
How long will it be before countries face sanctions for allowing unfettered file sharing from thier soil?
The lobbying pressure will be strong for sanctions, because investors are still putting money into pay for stream/download business plans like Peter Gabriel's OD2 [independent.co.uk]
Re:The Best Country / Law Mix (Score:1)
Not very far, I think. Most technologically advanced nations are signatories to international copyright agreements that frown upon file sharing.
Re:The Best Country / Law Mix (Score:1)
Go here to read more [www.exn.ca]
excerpt:
Re:The Best Country / Law Mix (Score:1, Insightful)
Second, I doubt that they created it to allow copyright violations. They did it, I suspect, to allow individuals to place data outside of prying government hands. Since they too have ISPs, probably located in the EU, those governments could be persuaded to shutoff internet connectivity to the island if the need should arise.
Re:The Best Country / Law Mix (Score:1)
Also, with the support of UK (whom granted them sovereignty), it is quite unlikely that they get disconnected. It is like saying that we are going to cut off all the internet to California because a Gnutella hub is based there. Also, they are seeking a second connection to another place in Europe. For RIAA (for example) to be able to get the power to do such a thing would be quite unlikely and/or cost a lot of money. Also, I don't think the EU is quite supportive of RIAA.
Re:The Best Country / Law Mix (Score:1)
Does this include bandwidth?
If so, it's a pretty Damn good price. Only about $1250 a month.
KaZaA Linux (Score:1)
There's no mention of it on the site and it stopped working rather abruptly sometime yesterday.
Re:KaZaA Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Then I slapped my head and said "DOH!"
* DONT terminate your running linux clients! *
they'll stay running if you dont kill them.
Someone gonna hack the protocol to do a fake insert of a hacked linux client into the network?
Some Kazaa Linux clients no longer login? (Score:1, Redundant)
since there's no way to get at more interactive or per-peer user functions in the linux client (and you dont have to see advertising!) it doesnt much matter that you're anonymous (at least it didnt matter to me
trying to sign up again as a new user doesnt work either. and there seems to be no new version for linux to download on the site.
do others have a different version for linux?
mine was 294517 Dec 18 17:52 kza.linux.tar.gz
which calls itself
(if yours works, can, i uh, get a copy?
Legal Action in the Internet Age (Score:1)
Same thing C= did... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Same thing C= did... (Score:2)
It's all speculation now. I mean, what if Sharman is actually a huge SPAM operation? They've just bought a huge client base. When you download their "new" software, it automatically uploads SPAM to your system, and then distributes it to all the other peers. There are plenty of RIAA conspiracy theories out there as well. Who knows.
In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:2, Troll)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:1)
Maybe we could distribute the portnumber-of-the-week for Gnutella on Freenet, and vice versa :)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:1)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:1)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:1)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:1)
You don't need to run Gnutella clients as root. It binds to port 6346, which can be done by any user.
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:1)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:1)
For starters, many cable modem providers block any port below 1024. I know mine will be starting such actions within 3 months.
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:2)
This isn't because of servers, rather Code Red... and that is because everyone was warez'n win2k server.
I think though they have lifted that by now... but I think they still SAY it's blocked on their website.
Your best bet, I think[?], would be to use a port higher than 65555. But if your report to dsheild or something it would look like an attack because it won't know what you are doing.
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:1)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In related news, Gnutella quadruples overnight (Score:2)
What happened to the argument... (Score:1, Flamebait)
By disabling the linux client from being able to connect, haven't they proved otherwise?
Use the Free alternatives (Score:1)
There are a number of Free alternatives, like Gnutella, Freenet [freenetproject.org] or the FastTrack-Clone giFT [sourceforge.net]. Use them. Make them work. Make them get big. Donate billions of dollars for advertising :)
Buyer is Sharman Networks (Score:3, Informative)
They've also acquired the fasttrack licence.
Users will be required to agree to new terms of usage, the next time they log in.
Re:Buyer is Sharman Networks (Score:2, Informative)
Music City (Score:3, Informative)
Now I read on that site in the RIAA letter that they [RIAA] is teaming up with the Fast Track team [MC&Kazaa].
Not good for me since my registered name on Morpheus is: IH8URIAA.
I must also report that about 30 mins ago I wasn't getting files [segments] from Kazaa users, but now I'm doing that and also getting great speeds.
I'm going to gnutella [mainstream] if Limewire puts a tad more work into their program. It's great now, and so is gnutella in general. But it doesn't have the 'juice' like Fast Track does. I know I will get flamed for this.
hm... something else. (Score:4, Informative)
6. Payment and fees
6.1 Certain features of the KaZaA Media Desktop may require payment in the future including a prepaid fee ("Prepaid Fee").
The Prepaid Fee, and all taxes and other fees related thereto will be paid by you in advance.
You shall pay all fees and charges incurred through your account at the rates in effect for the billing period in which such fees and charges are incurred.
All fees and charges shall be billed to you, and you shall be solely responsible for their payment.
You shall pay all applicable taxes relating to the use of the Software through your account.
If you do not pay the applicable fees, including Prepaid Fees, within the prescribed period of time your account will be terminated immediately, without limiting KaZaA's right to demand payment of fees and damages at a later time.
*sigh*
Re:hm... something else. (Score:2)
I've read complete web pages warning that Fast Track keeps track of what you dl, and may use it against you some day.
Former site: with one key change - no more Linux (Score:1)
This sucks... does anyone have a copy of the linux client?
Does it work?
The site is throwing MySQL errors... (Score:1)
Dotcom Scoop first reported earlier today that it appeared that file-sharing service KaZaA had been sold after the company's website was mysteriously changed early this morning and then reverted back to its original form.
The company issued the following statement this morning:
"Jan. 21, 2002 -- Sharman Networks Limited, a privately held company, has purchased certain assets of KaZaA BV, including the popular consumer site KaZaA.com, distributor of KaZaA Media Desktop software. KaZaA BV is the Netherlands-based software and products company that founded KaZaA.com. The transaction was announced by Sharman CEO Nikki Hemming.
KaZaA Media Desktop is a full-featured peer-to-peer file sharing software that allows users to search, download, organize and play media files. Included in Sharman's purchase of assets are the license for the FastTrack P2P Stack, the KaZaA.com Web site, name, and logos.
"We are thrilled at our opportunity to resume the KaZaA service and further develop the KaZaA brand,'' stated Sharman CEO Nikki Hemming. "We value the millions of users of KaZaA's software and will continue to enhance and grow our core offerings."
KaZaA BV will continue to operate its remaining assets. Terms of the deal were not disclosed."
No further information was provided about Sharman Network Services. As we reported earlier, the company appears to be based in Australia due to information contained in KaZaA's new terms of use agreement.
A search for Sharman CEO Nikki Hemming reveals that she was the CEO of Sega World, an electronic theme park in Sydney, Australia that closed in late 2000. If that is indeed the same Nikki Hemming.
Re-sume or Res-u-me' ? (Score:3, Funny)
Looks like they're doing just that (Score:2)
The only difference is that they're much faster. According to the Napster website [napster.com], they were supposed to launch their pay service last summer, and only recently have they started asking people to preview their new pay service.
Re:Charge for access? (Score:2)
Start with "SpyWare Tracking for Dummies" and then move on to "Why a File-Sharing Service with 1000 Times More Content is Better."
Re:Charge for access? (Score:1)
Start with "SpyWare Tracking for Dummies" and then move on to "Why a File-Sharing Service with 1000 Times More Content is Better."
You should try filenavigator [filenavigator.com]. I just tried it, and it has just as many results as kazaa [kazaa.com].
No spyware either (as far as I can tell, with adaware).
Re:silliness (Score:1)
Because it WOULD. You wrote an oxymoron. ANYTHING from M$, no matter how "hard" they try, will/does suck. It sucks on technical grounds, it sucks on moral grounds, it sucks in prinicipal.
Re:why is it OK to tape a show and not to divX it? (Score:2)
Because we have ended up with a situation where the law is actually different for analogue and digital recordings. Something which major publishing and distribution companies appear to have worked hard to create.
Re:Complaints And Grievances (Score:2)