Stealware: Kazaa et al Stealing Link Commissions 684
goombah99 writes "We all heard about spyware, well now Kazaa, Morpheus and LimeWire are sneaking a new type of nastiness onto your computer, software that - without you even knowing it - redirects commissions for online purchases you make from other vendors you make back to them. For example, if you buy a CD from an affiliate of Amazon.com, say some charity, the software fools Amazon into crediting the commission to Morpheus, not the charity! The story quotes a LimeWire Developer who admits 'While I agree that this is really a
bit of a scam, it is a way for us to pay salaries while not adversely affecting our users.' The insidious part is the stealware
program remains even if you delete the original P2P software. And you supposedly gave your permission when you clicked through the EULA."
Crap like this is going to Kill P2P (Score:3, Interesting)
These guys are their own worst enemy. The RIAA doesn't need to do anything. These companies will end up destroying themselves. This is not the type of PR these guys need.
Sean D.
Now how is this not stealing? (Score:3, Interesting)
What would happen if I walked into a car dealership, bargained a nice proce for my new Kia, and told the salesperson that instead of him getting a commission, I'm going to take that money as a rebate? Wouldn't that be stealing, or am I missing something here?
Self Limiting? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Last week, Amazon cut off affiliate payments to Morpheus, one site that employs the shopping software, said an online executive. Coldwater Creek, an online clothing store, has also blocked Morpheus."
i miss napster ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Now how is this not stealing? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's pretty funny to see everybody asking this, while they are only bitching because they can't get their free music without ads and spyware... Don't you think that that's the same thing the RIAA is saying? "how is this not stealing..."
Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know if the big online retailers actually care about affiliate programs or not. If they do, then stealware is intolerable. Otherwise, the programs are useless.
Kazaa (Score:4, Interesting)
The very fact that it WAS spyware has kept me from using, even since they had supposedly gotten rid of it. Of course, I am a fairly paranoid individual. I see this as a good thing, however.
There are plenty of alternatives out there that are not spyware and don't go screwing with things they shouldn't be.
Amazon won't stand for this (Score:4, Interesting)
Once again....use a virtual machine (Score:5, Interesting)
File sharing companies are, at the very best, a dubious bunch. Experience has shown tht they will try to screw up your machine in some way.
So...let them. They'll find some way of doing it eventually anyway. The trick? Just make sure the 'machine' is a virtual machine. I personally use Virtual PC for Windows [connectix.com], but VMWare [vmware.com] would do just as well.
Make a blank virtual machine, install your P2P clients on it and take a back-up of that file. Then use that machine for nothing but P2P. The result? Spyware is useless, because there's nothing happening to actually spy on. The machine gets too spyware-ridden? No problem - delete the current machine and restore from that fresh backup you took.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Kazaa Lite (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Reprehensible (Score:4, Interesting)
In a truly civilized world these bastards would die a very prolonged, extremely painful public death.
Limewire on linux (Score:2, Interesting)
Bastards
Re:Steal from charities??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Alot are saying this. But yet they *do* see the difference between downloading an album versus shoplifting it from Best Buy.
KaZaa/Morpheus/etc all reek of get-rich-quick schemes based on the success of Napster.
I'm no more shocked than when I get an e-mail promising free porn, and then end up with 9000 popups eaching wanting to charge a dollar on my credit card for 'age verification purposes'.
You can always hide behind some legalese gobbledy-gook in an EULA. All hail the mighty litigator.
Killing the Goose. (Score:2, Interesting)
So being sneaky and nasty is really not in their best interest.
It's truly strange to think that the age of Napster was not a portent of the future, but an aberrant burp; that we might be going toward K. W. Jeter's Noir [amazon.com] , in which copyright "pirates" are tracked down by bounty hunters who suck out their brains, which are then embedded into radios or toasters for an existence of infinite torment and given to the artist whose works were infringed, instead of Distraction [amazon.com] , in which infotech-based gift and reputation societies rise to pre-eminence in a United States, its copyright-dependent economy reduced to rubble when China flooded the world with copyright-free copies of the U.S.'s bounty.
Okay, either future would be strange, but they're excellent books.
Wonder who will get the commission on these links?
Adam Brate (ab at adambrate dot com)
Re:The price of freedom. (Score:2, Interesting)
There is more to P2P then mp3 files. I have been using KaZaa lite for almost 6 months. I have NOT downloaded or shared a single MP3 file on it. I use it extensively for amature videos and pictures (not prOn either). Mostly car street and track racing and small movies. P2P is excellent for this as most people can not afford a monthly transfer fee from a hosting company, I do not have to browse through hundreds of pages with Google, and I do not have to use my monthly Giganews account.
I am assuming that KaZaa lite does not have this ill effect.
better solution 'Bug traq' (Score:3, Interesting)
each affiliate has a key that they encrypt there product numbers, a hash and a few other standard authentication bits and bobs.
When you buy a product from an affiliate Amazon looks up the affiliate's ID in a database, un-encrypts the product ID and checks the hash.
The problem isn't that there's 'spy ware' spoofing Amazon, more like Amazon's shopping site has piss poor security.
Anyone fancy posting to Bug traq on spoofing affiliation with Amazon?
Re:Amazon won't stand for this (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Crap like this is going to Kill P2P (Score:3, Interesting)
Its sad, but unharnessed P2P file trading is just too cool a thing to last forever. So my wife sits at home and tries to fill up our new 80GB hard drive while I'm at work.
If they're an affiliate,how many CDs did they sell (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You can beat them, but they make it HARD (Score:4, Interesting)
I used my brother's computer the other day to show him how to crossfade tracks in Nero. Anyway I went to search something at Google and upon hitting search button was redirected to some shady search engine site for my results. The best part is that it lists the same shady porn/hacker links no matter what you search for (albeit in different order each time). So I tried Yahoo Excite and other sites, same hijacking. "That's it I'm downloading AdAware to fix this!" I go to www.lavasoft.com and wouldn't you know the bastardware re-directed me to the same friggin search engine site.
OK, now I go into Control Panel and removed at least 10 apps that I never heard of (suprised that they even show up in there) each time confronted with scary/threatening warnings about how removing this software will damage my computer or break my software etc. I installed Ad-Aware, Kazaa-lite and cleaned it up.
I assume these bastard-apps came bundled with the plethora of naked girl screensavers, dancing strippers etc. he installed. (He's 14 what do you expect)
Re:Fer Chrissake, it's FRAUD! (Score:5, Interesting)
1.) You -=knew=- that the charity was not going to get the commission if you didn't buy it through their site
2.) You, the purchasing party, made that decision on your own. No one made it for you.
3.) All of the money involved was your own, and (again) it was your choice.
With this theftware, the situation is different. EULAs are paper tigers in court and we all know it. Even if they weren't, I'm not entirely sure tha this kind of scheme is legal in the first place, as there appears no way to cancel the contract once the software is uninstalled.
These companies are not putting up the money to buy the CD, they are taking it out of someone elses pockets. By any definition that is theft, particularly if you can demonstrate the irrelevancy of the EULA.
Re:Um, does the phrase massive lawsuit mean anythi (Score:3, Interesting)
Come on, who REALLY reads a EULA? It's just the annoying thing you need to click "OK" on or the software quits the install program. Nobody takes that shit seriously. What we do take seriously is when viruses and trojans get installed on our computer all hiding behind some legalistic bullshit. If you put in your EULA that you can come to my house and kill my children and I passively click "OK" without reading it it's still illegal to come to my house and kill my children! There are still laws that have to be followed that override a EULA.
Doesn't matter for students, really... (Score:3, Interesting)
I've gotten quite a workout on my legs from running up and down the stairs getting to each computer in a 7 story building, though.
But seriously - I've gone so far as to do a free-pizza-if-you-come-here-and-listen-to-me presentation on how KaZaa is bad, and I'll still see KaZaa on every desktop I touch (except mine, of course).
LimeWire without the Lime (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're running OS X, you can get the Ultrapeer/swarm-downloading goodness of LimeWire without that bitter SpyWare aftertaste. Have a look at Acquisiton [xlife.org]. It uses the LimeWire core with a Cocoa front-end. While still very early, using Acquisition after using LimeWire is like... using OS X after Xp (oooh! Bad troll! how'd you get in here?!?)
I don't know the guy who writes it or anything, but he's a fellow Canadian so I feel the need to plug.
Internet Business Model (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh wait, but he said they have to pay their salaries somehow. Remember the old 90s dot-com business model:
1. Register domain name
2. Make a cool website
3. [Do something here]
4. Make a profit!
We finally figured out what the missing piece was:
1. Register domain name
2. Make a cool website
3. Steal money from users
4. Make a profit!
Re:The broader picture (Score:2, Interesting)
So they gave me the NBA package for free. I didn't even ask for it. But that's ok, it was free.
The next year, I get billed for it. But because our bill was on automatic payment, I didn't notice this until after the first week of the season.
I called up DirecTV, and said I didn't order this. They told me that since I had the package the year before, it got automatically renewed.
I'm no longer using automatic bill pay.
Never trust Kazaa (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:News Flash: People who enable piracy are crooks (Score:3, Interesting)
Finally! This is what the RIAA has been trying to say all along! Finally someone on
We need to shut down the Internet. It enables piracy. All these ISP's are crooks, just selling something to enable piracy.
If we don't shut down the whole Internet, then at least shut down broadband. The only reason people get broadband is the same reason they get P2P: to do something illegal. (The same reason they got a PC in the first place, I might add.)
we now return you to your regular p2p downloading.
RIAAAAAA can use this to their advantage (Score:2, Interesting)
Kinda like the "drug money supports terrorism" ads...
Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice!
The idiot Kirk did create my favorite juxatposition of quotes: So now he is threatening to sue people who quote him? He is a complete ass.
The stupidest thing out of all of this. The merchants who go with them see an increase in affiliate sales - sure, because they are paying affiliate comissions now even if someone just typed the site name into the browser! These companies do not drive traffic or promote the companies, they leave that to webmasters, they just step in at the last minute and grab the sale. In the long run this seriously impacts merchants and causes them to see a lower return on their affiliate programs, and then as affiliates leave since their commissions are being taken, the merchant is left with nothing.
The ad networks love this because they are paid a % on each comission. So what do they care? Comission Junction has gone from trusted third party, to scam that will do anything not illegal. I guess the idea of being ethical is beyond them? Phww.. Surprise, they are an idealab company.
Chet
Sleaze and EwwwHellAze (Score:2, Interesting)
In a larger sense though, this points up some difficulties with the current way that shrink wrap, click through licensing, EULA's, "terms of use" and the like work.
Users agree to things that they may not understand (if it is couched in sufficiently baroque legalese), or to things that they may never even see. And the fact that sleazoids like these folks can hide behind an EULA is truly despicable and points up the fact that as long as companies are making enough money, they can pretty much do what they want.
I've seen such licences and the like exceed 1000 lines in length and recently saw one in both English and French - the French was essentially a translation of the English (at least for the first few lines). It seems quite possible that it was different and that the differences would commit a user to something fun.
Recently I have found a good one. Go to the abc tv web site [go.com] and locate the "terms of use" link. (in most browsers is it even visible when you load the page?), then click through to the terms of use page . Interesting reading.
Firstly, not that most people will not even see the link to the terms of use page as it is probably below the bottom of browser windows. It is for me with Mozilla in full screen mode (yech).
Formatted for a 70 character line, this is about 500 lines long and just by visiting the first site, you are agreeing (legally? I think UCITA says yes) to all the terms.
To begin with, you're agreeing to a nicely sweeping claim:
In particular the seriously unethical ( like Kazaa et al) might bind you to whatever changes in their licenses they might want to make forever. Even if you don't know about them.For a good chortle, search for "universe".
Most license agreements have something like this in them. IANAL so I can't even claim to understand the full ramifications of this, so how might a 13 year old who visits the site? Is a 13 year old legally capable of participating in a contract?
If Kazaa and the like have similar claims in their EULAs, it might mean that even if you are peeved and try to take action against them, you are still responsible for paying for their defense in the legal doodly-doo that ensues. I've seen at least one EULA that seems to say that the user is responsible for any legal action taken against the company. If that is the case, and if M$ had such a clause in their EULA, then they could conceivably make monetary claims against any users of their software in order to pay for the antitrust suit.
For amusement value, as well as insight into the way the US congresscritters are selling their souls to the devil of profit, reading EULA's and the like is highly recommended.
Re:Dancing with the devil (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, if this keeps up, the RIAA isn't going to need that pro-hacking bill; hacktivists are going to get so fed up with Kazaa that they take them down on their own.
Seriously, the more I deal with the computer and related industries, the more disgusted I become. I miss the days when people basically did what they want, and were mostly harmless. And I'm only 22.
Re:Fer Chrissake, it's FRAUD! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Way beyond the pale (Score:4, Interesting)
So this would be a perfect example of how a P2P network can be used for good, and as a marketing tool. Interesting to note that this artist didn't seem to mind the notion that the legion of Kazaa users they probably just created might then go and pirate all their songs, but given that ICP charged some $100 to get in to this packed conference and convention, they've obviously found some alternative revenue sources.
The problem with the "it has legitimate uses!" argument is that there aren't enough examples like this to offset the illegal ones. Note to artists: don't webcast your concerts - no one can watch them anyway with server overload and no one wants to watch U2 in RealMedia anyway. Do this sort of thing instead.
Re:Crap like this is going to Kill P2P (Score:3, Interesting)
15-year-old morons who have already destroyed their brains with drugs and alcohol (like, for example, my old bosses son) don't give a rip about this kind of stuff. They will still be installing Kazaa on their school networks, their dad's company's computers and where ever else they manage to get access to. It doesn't matter to them that Kazaa is stealing from the charity that their step-mom always goes to Amazon through. Hell, if they knew they'd probably think it was cool!
So, no, since that's pretty much their target market, the PR isn't going to do jack to them. The charity finding out that Kazaa is stealing their commisions and sueing them and/or sicking the FTC on them for fraud, however, just might be the straw that broke the camel's back.
It's a shame, really. There is so much legitimate possibility for P2P, it's really sad to me that it is now so tainted by this kind of scuminess.
Are they idiots? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do they believe that the user's agreement makes this legal? An agreement between two parties cannot, as a general rule, relinquish the rights of a third party. This is almost certainly felony fraud, earning the players 5-10 in the clink. I hope the players have good attorneys. As soon as the victims (hint: not the user) hear about this and file a complaint, charges will be filed. They're not going to be civil charges, and it's not going to be judge Judy.
Some people are really stupid about the internet! "Oh, this is the internet, therefore if I do something unethical, they must not have passed a law against that yet." Not so. God. DUMB!!!!!
C//
Re:Fer Chrissake, it's FRAUD! (Score:3, Interesting)
At the minimum, this meets the legal definition of fraud (IANAL, but the guy down the hall is, and he just told me that this meets the "legal yardstick"). At the most, we may be looking at criminal theft. Either way, this consitutes a real crime and is the kind of thing that governments were meant to deal with.
Logical Fallacy (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd like to analyze this for a moment. First off, many are equating the theft of music with the theft of monies targeted at charities. It seems clear to me that stealing copyrighted work is a form of theft, but obviously not in the same category as stealing money outright. My reasoning is as follows: When you copy an MP3 from someone else, an MP3 which may be a song you don't already own a legitimate copy of, you are not depriving the record label of actual revenue. You are depriving them, at best, of potential revenue. I'll get back to this concept in a moment, but bear with me. When these companies install sleazeware to redirect actual dollars intended for charities into their own coffers, they are no better than a pickpocket (a poor analogy) or a bank robber (better analogy). Sure, the end user doesn't get harmed, but the intended charity is irreparably harmed. Funds have been diverted; these are REAL dollars and cents.
Getting back to the idea of actual profits versus potential profits: The RIAA argues that music piracy costs them millions of dollars annually. This argument is based on a logical fallacy. The people who steal music aren't going to pay for that music if the vehicle for theft is taken away. They'll either rely on slower vehicles (personal copies from a friend's CD collection, for instance, or direct file trading from one person to another without an intermediary service -- both very difficult to trace) or they'll consume less music overall. Oh, sure, some people will pony up the dough for music that they can't easily find copies of, but in those cases, it's usually music that's out of print or hard to find. (I snagged MP3s of two October Project CDs from a friend of mine months before I found copies of those CDs in a Zia Records in Tucson.)
Bottom line: You can't assume that people who pirate music would otherwise pay if that means of piracy were taken away. Besides, piracy will always find an avenue. File trading still runs rampant on IRC and various instant messenger services.
Therefore, record companies reporting losses due to piracy are tallying up imaginary numbers. They have no reason to believe they would have received those monies if the so-called 'pirate networks' didn't exist.
Having said all that, I would like to reiterate that although the Gnutella network is often used for illicit file trading, it has significant non-infringing applications that cannot be overlooked -- many universities rely on Gnutella for disseminating files to faculty and students. (It seems to work very well for a finite, closed network.)
A few months ago, Slashdot ran a story about the major Gnutella client developers banding together to figure out how to 'lock out' less well behaved Gnutella clients. One of the biggest complainers was LimeWire. Now we learn that LimeWire is one of the companies involved in theft of funds from charities. They're also very quick to lay the blame for poor network performance at the feet of many open sourced clients such as Gnucleus. (Yes, the LimeWire core is also open sourced, but they're still trying to capitalize off of it in a for-profit manner. Gnucleus, AFAIK, is totally free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech.) Makes you wonder if their complaints about 'badly behaved' clients are just a ploy to lock down control of the Gnutella network -- followed of course by closing their source tree to outsiders and then making future revisions of the Gnutella spec only available to those who pay to play with the big boys.