Re: Kazaa used by film company

["Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Not quite.

What's being used to distribute the film company trailer is AltNet, a
Trojan-horse file-distribution (NOT file *sharing,* it is centrally
controlled) network bolted onto the official KaZaA distribution. AltNet
belongs to Brilliant Digital Entertainment, a Hollywood huckster outfit, and
was incorporated into Kazaa once it was bought out by "Sharman Networks,"
which appears to be some sort of shill for this "brilliant digital"
studio-connected Internet adware-spyware outfit.

(If you're using Windows, you probably have brilliant digital snitchware on
your computer right now -- do a file search for "b3d"-- unless you've taken
steps to remove adware/spyware.)

Brilliant was one of the gizillion dot com content/advertising start-ups
from the late 90's, but for some reason it hasn't met the same fate as all
the others during the bubble's collapse. It is still a going concern,
indicating that someone behind it has really deep pockets.

What role in all this is played by the two geeks who developed the
even-cooler-than-Napster "FastTrack" technology that Kazaa uses is not
clear.

The original developers of Kazaa were forced to sell their business,
including a license to use the technology, but not the source code or
technology itself, after a lower court assessed thousands of euros in daily
fines unless they stopped people from trading files the copyright cartel
claim belong to them on the FastTrack network. Since they had specifically
designed the technology to make such file blocking impossible (by having all
accessing the network, searching and transfering go exclusively through the
computers of end users), they could no more do what the court asked than
they could make the sun rise in the West and set in the East -- no matter
how draconian the fines for failing to comply. So, basically, they threw in
the towel.

Had they waited a few more weeks, they might not have had to -- a Dutch
court of appeals overturned the lower court ruling, giving the music and
movie mafias a stunning defeat.

Yet the recent versions of Kazaa, since the sale at the beginning of the
year, have shown tremendous improvement in functionality. And these are not
in add-on functions with the basic core intact. The basic core has been
tremendously improved. Yet from what is known of their licensing
arrangements, this basic core is in one module delivered to the client
company which actually runs a p2p file sharing service as is -- with no
source code. It *seems* the original developers are still at work.

At any rate, given the rather shady nature of the outfit backing Kazaa and
the sneaky way they incorporated "alt net" into the end user Kazaa program
(the scam got discovered from Brilliant Digital's SEC filings), lots of
people are quite reticent to use it. Luckily, there are alternatives.

Discerning file sharers use Kazaa Lite or Diet Kazaa. Just as refreshing,
with no spyware/adware aftertaste or annoying pop ups.

Kazaa lite is a hacked version of the Kazaa program with the adware/spyware
taken out, and Diet Kazaa is a program that you run alongside Kazaa and
blocks the spamware/adware/spyware components from working.

Sharman networks considers --get this-- Kazaa Lite a violation of "its"
intellectual property!!! And they forced downloads.com, the #1 clearing
house for shareware & similar on the internet, to delist the program.

But it is still available -- all you need to do is Google it. Or just fire
up your favorite file-sharing application. That's how I got it. I used a
Diet Kazaa constrained version of Kazaa to get the new version Kazaa Lite,
version 2.

Sure, some minor studio is using AltNet to push its youth-exploitation movie
trailer on the Kazaa user base. How much traction this will get is an open
question, all the AltNet downloads I've seen require the installation of
Microsoft Digital Rights Management (i..e, copyright cartel snitchware)
components. I've actually done that (not with this trailer) and never gotten
a "protected" file to work.

At any rate, there is not much novel in this, and the article from the LA
Time is typical LA Times whoring for the entertainment industry, boosterism
for a home-town advertising client. It does reflect, however, the reality of
just how completely entrenched the Fasttrack network has become, and is thus
symptomatic of "Napterism's" success despite the demise of Napster.

But as for this studio's initiative, in fact, the major studios have been
quite unconcernedly allowing the download of their trailers for years now,
and have even been paying for the bandwidth that allows users to do it. They
simply did not want their movies advertised in the ultra-low-quality video
that is all that dialup streaming allows.

José


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