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Kazaa Conundrum -- The Plot Thickens 203

Posted by Hemos from the like-pudding-getting-thicker dept.
Robotech_Master writes "The ever continuing Kazaa controversy just keeps getting better. This article on Wired highlights Brilliant Digital Entertainment, the company that brokered Kazaa's sale to the Australian firm, and indicates that the RIAA is investigating them."
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Kazaa Conundrum -- The Plot Thickens More

Kazaa Conundrum -- The Plot Thickens

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  • I should start a company called 'Brilliant' (Score:4, Funny)

    by MattRog ( 527508 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @01:54PM (#3106784)
    So that whenever they refer to me in the press articles I'd always be lauded for my intellectual acheivements! :D

    (e.g. When the two ran into legal trouble at home and in the United States, Brilliant Digital CEO Kevin Bermeister, set up a meeting with Nikki Hemming, CEO of Australian's Sharman Networks venture firm.)

  • The RIAA will gain the upper hand (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TrollMan 5000 ( 454685 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @01:55PM (#3106795)
    When the various file-sharing networks can't even get along. Morpheus is down already!

    It seems like the piracy industry is falling to the same problems the RIAA did - greed.
    • I guess this is where my main criticism of the file-sharing/P2P industry lies. If we want to win the battle, we can't be cought fighting ourselves. The RIAA/MPAA is extremely well funded, well lawyered, and has the law on their side. We have the internet and network-effects on ours. But when we fractionate our market with petty disputes, the powerful weapon of network effects are no longer helping us.
      • No. When they fractionate our market they ensure that if one of them goes down the others will still be up. Cell theory. One dies, another grows to take its place. A shifty-ever-moving industry with "leaders" that take the fall.

        -Sara
        • You make a good point.
          We need decoys to buy time for the concept of P2P filesharing to spread to the general public.
          Without legislation they can't possibly kill networks like gnutella, and with (hopefully) 80% of the US and EU population filesharing such a law would be hard to pass.
          Making everyone a criminal to make a few middle-men rich from others creative work just seems stupid.
          But, I guess common sense doesn't go far when law is involved.
          • For the record:
            I don't feel any sympathy for the people that try to make money from P2P (Napster, Kazaa...).
            They are no better than the RIAA in my eyes.
            But in the short term we have a common goal.
            To spred filesharing to the general public.

            I truly believe that a world without all these mindboggling restrictions on information exchange would be a better place.

            The amount of money in the music business would be smaller, but by cutting out the now obsolete middle-men the money would go to the only ones in the business that deservs any: The ones that do the actual work! The artists!

    • Re:The RIAA will gain the upper hand (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mystery_bowler ( 472698 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @02:06PM (#3106876) Homepage
      I agree. If you think for a moment you (as a business or conglomerate thereof) are going to make a mint providing the means to pirate, you're sadly mistaken. Sure, you might make some money. Maybe even pretty good money. But if you start showing as a blip on the RIAA's earnings radar, you and your lawyers are going to find yourself first very busy and second out of business.
    • Yeah, this is fooked! We'll have to go back to actually having to have real live friends and borrowing their CDs and ripping those. Or asking them what they want from our collections and burning them a custom disc. The horror! :)

  • Kazaa/Morpheus feud (Score:3, Informative)

    by grinwell ( 138078 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @01:56PM (#3106802)
    Surprisingly, the article doesn't touch upon the implication on the www.musiccity.com (Morpheus) website that the Kazaa folks had something to do with the DOS attack.

    I guess Kazaa is too busy with other lawsuits to worry about a slander case.

    (BTW, the previously posted spyware remedies for Grokster work with Kazaa as well).
    • I seem to be missing something here and I read the original Morpheus/ZaZZA story. I've got a ZaZZa client that is still downloading content from Morpheus hosts. This seems to be way blown out of proportion by people who don't use either of the products.
      • As far as I can tell from my experience, morpheus hosts that were connected before the upgrade and have stayed connected, will. If they close the client, or reboot, or whatever, they won't be able to re-connect, however.
      • ahfoo, you might be the only one.

        Right now, my Kaz searches turn up mostly other Kaz users, some Grokster, some "fileshare," but no Musiccity anymore.

        If you didn't "upgrade" from 1.33 to 1.5, you might still be able to connect.

  • Kazaa v. RIAA (Score:2, Informative)

    by crc32 ( 133399 )
    With the current legal landscape, the RIAA will probably win if they choose to sue any of the companies involved (assuming, of course, if they can exercise jurisdiction!). The long and short of it is that Kazaa will be viewed similarly to Naster, and so Brilliant Digital will probably be seen as contributing to that "problem".

  • SpyWare (Score:3, Informative)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Monday March 04, 2002 @01:59PM (#3106832) Homepage
    Well, maybe not, but it's still annoying. In Windows, when you download the latest version of the client from kazaa.com you'll be forced to install the bde 'stream' thing, which gives you, wait for it, a talking woman on the front page of the application. Yipeee.

    You can go to Add/Remove programs and kill it, but in true crapware tradition it doesn't actually delete the files. Go into the system folder and you'll find a bunch of DLLs prefixed with 'bde', both DLLs and EXEs. Delete them. (make sure you don't kill anything that belongs to the Borland Database Engine if you have it installed - check the DLL versions). There are two EXEs with fuzzy green icons.

    Next, under the windows folder there will be a directory called 'BDE', IIRC. Delete that too.

    Finally, go into the registry and look for the 'bde' and 'brilliant' strings. After verifying that they're not something else, delete those too.

    The removal doesn't seem to affect the kazaa client at all.

    • Re:SpyWare (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Moderators: before you moderate, make sure you aren't mod'ing up FUD.
      This made my windows box stop working altogether.

      Next time link to a commercial page that explains this!

    • Re:SpyWare (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, maybe not, but it's still annoying. In Windows, when you download the latest version of the client from kazaa.com you'll be forced to install the bde 'stream' thing, which gives you, wait for it, a talking woman on the front page of the application. Yipeee.

      This isn't spyware unless they've added something new. Its just a browser plugin that streams live 3d and audio, like a 3d flash player.

      BDE3d started as a way to play multipath movies (like choose your own adventure) from cd-rom, but then they changed it into a web based movie thing, and now it's for banner ads. The site mentioned in the article, brilliantdigital.com [brilliantdigital.com] explains it all.

  • The more the RIAA tightens its grip... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @01:59PM (#3106834)
    The more star systems will slip through its fingers.

    (+1 Bad Starwars Reference)

    The RIAA is 'investigating' this company? Regardless of Brilliant Digital Entertainment's ethics or motives, the RIAA is not a governmental body and is acting like it has the power of subpeona.

    All this is going to do is create new Morpheuses. Sure, they went to Gnutella rather than FT, but ended up contributing source back to the Gnutella project. It may be mostly GUI source, but User Interface is something that most open source projects are usually a little lacking in. I haven't looked at the source yet, but maybe they added one or two improvements into the way Gnutella files are transmitted that will now make it into other open source filesharing projects.

    By forcing their 'enemies' underground, the RIAA is cutting off its own fingers.

    Three cheers for Nullsoft for creating an unstoppable monster! Three cheers for all the people who've built and expanded upon Gnutella ever since, including Morpheus.
    • I wish Kazaa would go OSS so that Gnutella clients could add the ability to download the same file from multiple people at once and stick it all together at the end... If anyone knows of a gnutella client that does that let me know, because I much prefer the gnutella network to the Kazaa one but I prefer the Kazaa client because I can get decent speeds all the time, even if it's from 9 guys with 56k modems.

      Kintanon
      • If Gnutella supports resuming downloads (I forget if it does or not, haven't used it in ages) then there is no reason why multiple sources cannot be done with ease.

        Detrermining which host if the fastest so the majority of the file is downloaded from them would be a bit more tricky though. You'd have to have a test download file, or calculate who is the fastest after the file has started downloading. Either way it is all possible, and really wouldn't be that hard.

        If Gnutella doesn't support resuming, then they should add it ASAP.
        • Detrermining which host if the fastest so the majority of the file is downloaded from them would be a bit more tricky though. You'd have to have a test download file, or calculate who is the fastest after the file has started downloading.

          No, I don't think that should be needed... Just start from the beginning of the file from one host. Download a few blocks and see how fast it goes, and then calculate where to start the second download from the speed and number of hosts available.

          Actually I'm quite surprised it hasn't been done already...

          • well, if you presume that all hosts download at the same speed (which your description seems to do), then you don't really need to do a partial download at all... Just split the download equally between all the available hosts.

            Once one of the hosts finishes downloading it's section, then you can sick it on the end of the remaining part with the longest estimated download time (calculate how large a piece to bite off by the calculation of the relative D/L speeds of the two servers).

            Keep doing that until the remaining blocks are too small to be worth repartitioning -- at which time you just start dropping servers from the queue (slowest drops first).

        • Detrermining which host if the fastest so the majority of the file is downloaded from them would be a bit more tricky though. You'd have to have a test download file, or calculate who is the fastest after the file has started downloading. Either way it is all possible, and really wouldn't be that hard.

          How difficult would it be to add a header for Gnutella that allows start and end offsets to be specified? If you did it this way, you could do simultaneous transfers as follows:

          • To start, all n sources are treated equally and requests for (fize-size/(n*k)) bytes are sent to each source, with k being a subdividing coefficient (each request is actually for a small portion of the workload allocated. I will call each portion a "bundle")
          • As soon as one source's workload is completed, all bundles that have yet to be requested are divided evenly amongst the remaining.
          • Repeat the process.
          This setup has the advantage of being able to dynamically adapt to network changes. If a cable gets ripped out of the wall, it can fall over dynamically. To add a new source for this file, you can just reallocate the unrequested bundles.
          • Just a spelling correction: s/fize/file/
          • Keep in mind that this solution could increase the overall file fragmentation significantly more than even the old way of doing things. As it is, I've found myself defragging my hard drive probably three times as often as before, and Morpheus-derived files (well, before last week) were responsible for inordinately huge amounts of fragmentation.

            Perhaps using this idea to go to a temp file, then copying the file while deleting the original temp file would help to minimize such problems.
      • Gnucleus does this. Try this. [gnucleus.com] You need to use 1.6beta as multi-source downloading is not implemented in earlier versions.
    • The RIAA is 'investigating' this company?

      The RIAA is investigating just like Microsoft investigates Linux. Anyone can hire detectives and thugs to do some "detective" work.
    • Personally I think the RIAA has won a battle if they've forced another client onto the gnutella network.

      It's nice to have 5,000 machines hosting the same file, but it's a pain in the ass to find the 10 that you can actually download from at faster than .5K/s.
    • >The RIAA is 'investigating' this company? Regardless of Brilliant Digital Entertainment's ethics or motives, the RIAA is not a
      >governmental body and is acting like it has the power of subpeona.

      I dunno... Look at the way Congress and the Courts have been going, and there's not a heckuva lot of difference. Mostly just time-lag for the RIAA to ask the legal system to do its bidding, and them to start moving.

      No significant, standing victories for our side, yet.
  • As much as I want to respect the copyright on software, how can the average person who wants to fiddle with Photoshop afford $1000 for the program? Perhaps people would actually buy the software if companies started making prices more reasonable, and the licenses a little less restrictive (hint, hint MS)
    • yeah [gimp.org]
    • I'm not by any means wealthy, but I usually find ways to get the products I want. Of course, that may be easier for me at the moment, since I'm working on a CS degree, and I can get student discounts for a whole lot of productivity software. Although I do agree with you that software _is_ overpriced (A research paper I had to do last semester was about software piracy, so I know of what I speak). But I can't respect that as a basis to pirate the software.
      • Take a class in basketweaving at your local community college. You then qualify for all those big educational discounts. A lot of colleges use eFollett.com as their online store for hardware/software.
        • For those that are curious, the hardware prices are just about as high as most retail outlets. So far as the hardware goes, eFollett can't compete with pricewatch.
    • is the solution, assuming it can be enforced.

    • Re:Make it affordable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by joe52 ( 74496 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @02:23PM (#3106993) Homepage
      Why does it have to be affordable? I can't just fiddle with a $50,000 Sun box because I'm curious (unless I happen to have legitimate access to one or went out and cracked into or simply stole one). I'd like to drive a Porshe, but I drive a Honda instead since that's what I can afford.

      There's no reason why someone has to make their products affordable to you. Photoshop sells pretty well at its current price. If you can't afford it there are alternatives, both in the form of cheaper programs that do less (PaintShop Pro comes to mind) as well as in open source alternatives (gimp). I'm sure that the kind people at Adobe have considered the fact that they could sell more licenses if they sold Photoshop for $50, but I'm also pretty sure that they think they wouldn't make as much money that way (which is something that they should be allowed to do).
      • Why does it have to be affordable? I can't just fiddle with a $50,000 Sun box because I'm curious (unless I happen to have legitimate access to one or went out and cracked into or simply stole one). I'd like to drive a Porshe, but I drive a Honda instead since that's what I can afford.

        The difference is that your next job probably won't rely on you driving a Porsche in the past or not. However, Photoshop skills are marketable, and could land you a job. It's the old catch 22; you can't get a job without knowing the software, and you can't afford the software without a job.

        Although Photoshop is priced for businesses, Adobe would be smart to offer a cheaper version for non-commercial use; if it makes people only use Adobe products, then they win in the end.
        • However, Photoshop skills are marketable, and could land you a job. It's the old catch 22; you can't get a job without knowing the software, and you can't afford the software without a job.

          I don't know, maybe try /investing/ in your future? What do you think college is all about? "But I can't afford college without a job." No shit. None of us can. That's why there are student loans and financial aid. And can't you download a trial version of Photoshop? Or buy a book, "Photoshop for Idiots", they're out there. Most probably include a student version of the software to boot...
        • The difference is that your next job probably won't rely on you driving a Porsche in the past or not. However, Photoshop skills are marketable, and could land you a job. It's the old catch 22; you can't get a job without knowing the software, and you can't afford the software without a job.

          Stop your whining. If you want to talk about photoshop as a tool and "photoshop skills" as a marketable job skill, make an applicable analogy -- a high-powered car doesn't cut it.

          Instead, think about getting a job as a carpenter. You have to know how to use the tools, but you can't afford to go out and get yourself a top-of-the-line DeWalt table saw for $1300. Instead all you can afford is a crappy used $200 table saw. Will the skills you acquire using the crappy saw transfer to the DeWalt? You betcha.

          Like another poster mentioned, acquiring skills is an *investment*. Defer and/or neglect self-investment at your own peril.

          From a business perspective, Adobe has positioned Photoshop as the "Cadillac" in their category. This is a pricing strategy. There are other pricing strategies available, but Adobe has chosen this one. If you're in the store with money to burn and a desire for quality, you're most likely going to pick the product that is higher priced -- this is generally associated with higher quality. This is the behavior that those who use this pricing strategy (eg Adobe) are counting on.
        • Although Photoshop is priced for businesses, Adobe would be smart to offer a cheaper version for non-commercial use; if it makes people only use Adobe products, then they win in the end.

          Photoshop Elements [adobe.com]. As far as I've seen from reading the box in the local CompUSA, its Photoshop without the nice print stuff like CMYK. Same interface, same core set of image tools and plugins.

      • Simple... go to your local Porsche dealer, take a test spin. Problem solved.
    • Are you joking?

      Gee, how can the average person who wants to drive a ferrari afford $300,000 for the car? Your stealing. Just because it's easy doesn't make it right. Oh, and people do actually buy the software. Adobe makes a pretty nice living, no thanks to idiots like you.

      • The difference, of course, is when you steal a car the manufacturer loses money because they can't sell that car to anyone else, they can't make up that lost money/time they put into creating it. When you steal software you can't afford, it's a digital copy of something and the company doesn't lose anything. You weren't you going buy it in the first place, and they can still turn around a sell a copy to someone else like this never happened.

        I do not condone software piracy, but the comparison of software to items in the "physical" world does not make sense.
    • Maybe that's why they provide Photoshop-LE? At around $100 (less bundled with a scanner), Adobe is providing a pretty good deal. Of course, if you need 3 or 4 color seperations, you should also be able to afford $1000.

      If Photoshop was priced too high, nobody would buy it. That is clearly not the case.

  • With Morpheus [musiccity.com] dumping the fastrak network completely for gnutella it looks like the fast track network might be going down for good. And also on the Front page of Musiccity they talk about the attacks on Morphues and the Network "Who would do that" I dont know maybe RIAA^H^H^H^H Hackers. Cyber terrorism to protect big buisness... Doubt it but interesting.

  • RIAA shows how evil it really is. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Your_Mom ( 94238 ) <slashdot@@@innismir...net> on Monday March 04, 2002 @02:08PM (#3106895) Homepage
    "We do not intend to stand idly by while others build business illegally off of our music," said Matt Oppenheim

    Call me old fashioned, but I always thought that music might belong to people that created, for example, maybe.... The artists?

    • While I feel the same way also, but when bands and singers sign on with a record label, don't they essentially sell the rights to their music to the record company? If that is correct, then technically it is their music.
      • It's a question of attitude. What Your_Mom is suggesting is that the phrasing of the statement indicates the RIAA's real position, which belies their "We're here for the artists" official position.

        While they may technically own the legal rights to the music (and whether they should or not is a hot issue), they've been claiming the moral high ground based on that position. Unless Mr. Oppenhim 'misspoke' -- and if he's actually called on that (he won't be), he'll probably claim he did -- his choice of language is a clear indicator of where the RIAA really stands.

        For the record, I had exactly the same reaction.
  • I bet they eventually sue ISPs. Common-carrier defense or no, they'll be a target. By not blocking 'x' ports, they are willfully facilitating copyright infringement by their user base. Or even universities, for allowing students to violate copyright with government funded networks.

    After that, it'll be individual users. A few high profile examples of Gnutella users with 40GB of music shared from an always-on cable connection being carted off to jail in cuffs, and that'll scare the pants off some people.

    It's gonna get ugly. The RIAA should get the ATF to raid the homes. That'd be good tv.
    • No they will, see without them...they wouldn't have written the languages or programs that allowed the people to program to access or create the ports for the "piracy" software to work. Next, they'll go after WSFTP for creating the FTP software that access the illigal warez sites, and then MIRC for being one of the fist programs to use DCC conections for transfering files.

      On and on and on and on...I think you get the idea. Tell me it isn't plausible.

  • Kazaa and Spyware (Score:3, Informative)

    by BrianGa ( 536442 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @02:16PM (#3106946)
    Download the acclaimed Ad Aware program here [lavasoft.de]. It searches your registry and all your drives for running and installed spyware programs. It works great.

    • Re:Kazaa and Spyware (Score:3, Informative)

      by TheChimp ( 558231 )
      Kazaa actually refuses to run if you remove the Spyware using Adaware.

      • Re:Kazaa and Spyware (Score:5, Informative)

        by DmitriA ( 199545 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @03:26PM (#3107614)
        Don't remove it. Replace cd_clint.dll (Cydoor's spyware) that's in your Windows system directory with your own DLL that exports the same functions but does not do anything when they are called.

        Here is the source for a replacement DLL (shamelessly stolen from someone who didn't bother to leave his name in the source):

        #include <windows.h>

        extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) int ServiceShow(int,int,int,HWND,int,int,int,int, int,void*,void*);
        extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) int ServiceClose(int,HWND,void*);
        extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) void ChannelRead(int AdwrCode, char* ChannelIn, int Resv1,int Resv2);
        extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) void ChannelWrite(int AdwrCode, char* ChannelOut, int Resv1, int Resv2);
        extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) void DescWrite(int BitStart, int BitLen, int Val, int Resv1, int Resv2);

        void ChannelWrite(int AdwrCode, char* ChannelOut, int Resv1, int Resv2)
        {
        // Nothing to do here.
        }

        void ChannelRead(int AdwrCode, char* ChannelIn, int Resv1,int Resv2)
        {
        // Nothing to do here.
        }

        int ServiceShow(int AdwrCode, int LoctNum, int LoctIndx, HWND hWnd, int X, int Y, int LenX, int LenY, int Mode, void *General1, void *General2)
        {
        // Return true to tell the host application the call succeeded.
        return 1;
        }

        int ServiceClose(int LoctIndx, HWND hWnd, void* General2)
        {
        // Return true to tell the host application the call succeeded.
        return 1;
        }

        void DescWrite(int BitStart, int BitLen, int Val, int Resv1, int Resv2)
        {
        // Nichts zu tun
        }

        int WINAPI DllEntryPoint(HINSTANCE hinst, unsigned long reason, void*)
        {
        return 1;
        }

  • Brilliant Digital controls Kazaa, tracks piracy. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Templar ( 14386 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @02:18PM (#3106960) Homepage
    Brilliant Digital and Sharman have common employees. There is a definite financial link between the two. Look at the whois for sharmannetworks.com, and note the owner -- Phil Morle. Now, look at his site, creations.morle.com, and check out his employer.

    Now that you're on the Brilliant Digital site, check out their 'Anti-Piracy Statement':

    BDE has embedded proprietary encryption technology capable of tracking all copyright infringements.

    Combine that with their known partners -- Time Warner among them -- and you have a possible international conspiracy...

    Now we know why the RIAA wanted laws changed to allow them to hack p2p networks. Of course, they never did get it passed....

  • Maybe someone would care to help me understand. Do these business owners not expect their companies to fail or at least run into numerous legal obstacles? They may argue some principle that "information WANTS to be free" or something, but in the end what they are doing, I believe, is couterproductive. Music is not software, you can't give it away... especially when it technically belongs to someone else.

    There are some merits to these p2p networks though. For instance I could have never collected some 150 Simpsons episodes without Gnutella and Scour. And of course as they come out on DVD I will buy them, good God its the SIMPSONS how could I not. I also doubt very seriously I could have found a lot of live recordings of Woodie Guthrie or Nirvana.

    I suspect Kazaa, Morpheus, etc. will all end up as Gnutella client apps. Looks like Morpheus "Preview Edition" already has.
    • Music is not software, you can't give it away... especially when it technically belongs to someone else.

      Especially nothing.

      You CAN give music away, EXCEPT when it belongs to someone else.

      Don't tell me you really believe I can't record a song and give it to anyone I damn well please... If it's my song, or if the copyright owner wants it to be free, then I can give it away all I want.
  • The Morpheous people always seem to say that they just took the core as a black box, skinned it and released it. I find it hard to believe that they were able to do this without at least one or two tech people taking a peek at how it works. There must be someone technical that knows the protocol and know the app who can shed some useful light on the situation.

  • Spyware Removal (Score:3, Informative)

    by EschewObfuscation ( 146674 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @02:20PM (#3106976) Journal
    Fast Track associated spyware can still be removed by several utilities. Rather than hunting down each .DLL, you should simply download and run one of the utilities (which will clean out your system registry as well as .DLL and executables).

    One good place for information is here [cexx.org], and a good utility by Lavasoft is available here [tomcoyote.com].

    I have not yet installed the new Morpheus client, but a report I read said that at least the latest Kazaa client is still installing these, even with the checkboxes for installing Gator, etc., left empty.

    • Re:Spyware Removal (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kintanon ( 65528 )
      Watch out for spyware removal software that has backdoors stuck in it. One of the IRC chans I hang in has been getting a lot of rumors of some of the software widgets that are supposed to remove the spyware also installing remote control backdoors on their machines.

      Kintanon
  • Alright, RIAA, we give up! Where can I drop off my $10/month for Napster? We totally promise not to work on any underground schemes to subvert your pay-per-music system(s).

  • KaZaA Owners Respond to Morpheus Attack (Score:4, Informative)

    by Jagasian ( 129329 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @02:43PM (#3107181)
    Sharman Network/Brilliant Digital/KaZaA have finally responded [latimes.com] to accusations that they were behind the attack on Morpheus. In an interview with the LA Times a spokeswomen for KaZaA, Kelly Larabee, said the company had nothing to do with Morpheus' network problems adding that we have no reason to have them go away. We'd rather them stay on FastTrack.
  • Morpheus being attacked by a coordinated effort by KaZaa and Grokster:

    http://www.zeropaid.com/news/articles/auto/03012 00 2b.php

    and the response from KaZaa

    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000015607mar0 2. story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dbusiness

    loz
  • The judge decides to install Kazaa on his laptop to see how it works, then the judge cannot get rid of the damned monkey. Then he sentences the monkey to life in prison.

  • Thanks Kazaa/Fast Track (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pinball Wizard ( 161942 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @03:07PM (#3107424) Homepage Journal
    for proving that your "P2P" network really is centrally controlled. That was quite a stunt, kicking all those Morpheus users off, then trying to lure them back into the network to use Kazaa.

    I really hope the majority of people see right through this, choose Morpheus(and therefore gnutella), and I hope this gets fast track shut down.

    Its not true P2P if someone can flip a switch and cut everyone off. P2P is supposed to have no central control so when these programs become illegal(and there's no doubt they will shut them down if they can) they will live on because the network will still be there, and hopefully the project will also still be there living on in some enlightened country without industry sponsored politicians and the DMCA.
    • Its not true P2P if someone can flip a switch and cut everyone off. P2P is supposed to have no central control so when these programs become illegal(and there's no doubt they will shut them down if they can) they will live on because the network will still be there, and hopefully the project will also still be there living on in some enlightened country without industry sponsored politicians and the DMCA.

      Funny I was just thinking...if there was no central server, what is the big deal.

    • Ummm Morpheus knew about the service being centrally controlled. Hell anyone involved or that tried to use gIFT until the project was halted for this reason knew that FastTrack added centrally controlled mechanisms. Instead of just truly keeping it decentralized they fucked up and now it's gonna cost them dearly. I'm please as gnutella just quietly kept coming along and the protocol kept increasing in functionality.

      Interesting to see though; Morpheus it's really too late for you even with the switch they are gonna have to pay penalties; and to Kazaa good riddens.
    • What about if Limewire, who have a significant installed client base invested in the Gnetulla network suddenly desides to refuse connections to, say, BearShare?

      IMO, it would come down to who has more clients, like soldiers in a war, and that's who would win. Meanwhile the P2P network will become a desolate war zone.

      So in a way you CAN control P2P by controlling the software. Get a high % of users using your client and suddenly change the protocol = controlling which clients can and cannot connect.
  • With the death of Napster, we saw the influx of several better mechanisms for getting music. Gnutella provided more anonymity, Morpheus and friends provided more filetypes, and Audiogalaxy provided more convenience.

    It's time for the current, shoddy, slow networks based around central servers to die, however. Too many duplicate, badly named files, too many incompletes, and that evil necessity of downloading from a particular person instead of just downloading a particular file.

    I hope that with the eventual death of these amateurish networks we will see the rise of something more robust that makes my porn downloading less of a chore.

  • I'm confused (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kallahar ( 227430 ) <kallahar@quickwired.com> on Monday March 04, 2002 @04:03PM (#3108000) Homepage
    The new Morpheus is assumed to have spyware and tracking built into it, right? Well... It's GPL'd and the source code is available... So... _IS_ there tracking?

    On a related note, how do we know that the source code available is actually the same that was used to compile the binary version available for download?

  • One quote says it all: "We do not intend to stand idly by while others build business illegally off of our music," said Matt Oppenheim, senior vice president with the RIAA.

    Yes Matt, it's your music alright. Composers, singers and musicians work for you don't they. I'll just keep repeating that to myself until I develop the right attitude.
  • The RIAA is investigating?? Holy shit. Doesn't that mean...nothing?

  • RIAA investigating? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gdyas ( 240438 ) on Monday March 04, 2002 @07:09PM (#3109436) Homepage

    Robotech_Master writes "The ever continuing Kazaa controversy just keeps getting better. This article on Wired highlights Brilliant Digital Entertainment, the company that brokered Kazaa's sale to the Australian firm, and indicates that the RIAA is investigating them."

    I think that the thing that's more interesting than any of the particulars of this story is the reference that "RIAA is investigating them". Like RIAA, a group of music companies, is the police, or the FBI, or something. Folks, the times they are a'changin.

    Um, please don't tell Dylan I used that phrase. He might investigate me.

  • KaZaa SpyWare HowTo (Score:2, Informative)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 )
    KaZaA http://www.kazaa.com

    Keys added:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cydoor ---------- Delete

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cydoor Services - delete

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Kazaa

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cydoor --------- delete

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\KaZaA

    Folders added:
    --------------
    c:\WINDOWS\system32\AdCache ---------------- delete

    c:\Program Files\KaZaA

    Files added:
    ------------
    c:\WINDOWS\system32\cd_clint.dll ----------- NOTE!

    c:\WINDOWS\system32\cd_htm.dll ------------- delete

    ---

    Windows 95/98/Me - C:\Windows\System\
    Windows NT/2000/XP - C:\Windows\System32\

    ----

    NOTE!

    http://www.cexx.org/dummies.htm

    CD_CLINT.ZIP - CD_CLINT.DLL Replacement DLL for CYDOOR spyware.
  • is it just me or does anyone else remember the days of sneeking around to swap files on a BBS? FTP's still do exist right??
    When exactly did it become socially acceptable to launch multimillion dollar corperations based on Pirating Music/Software/Pornography ??? I'm not trying to be a hipocrit or anything cause my MP3/Warez/Porn collection could impress even the geekiest of geeks, but if I opened a "Stolen Goods & Porn Store" and advertised it on TV, I would be expecting a knock on the door from the police.

    People will always :

    1.Burn red lights
    2.Lie to the IRS (Revenue Canada)
    3.Steel Music

    The idea is that you don't go around announcing it to everyone !!

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