Kazaa Uses RIAA Victim Jammie Thomas in PR-Campaign
Written by Ernesto on July 09, 2009After the malware infested P2P client KaZaa sold its legacy, the new owners converted it into a legitimate business selling their music subscription service to the public. However, in a recent press release they quote a hacker who committed suicide, warning Kazaa users that the RIAA might come after them nonetheless.
After the P2P application Kazaa died, the brand name was taken over by Brilliant Digital Entertainment (BDE) who are now offering unlimited DRM-infested music downloads for $19.98 a month.
BDE doesn’t want to limit their service to music downloads though, and they recently introduced a groundbreaking new feature.
According to the press release issued yesterday they are about to “shake up the online media industry.” Their masterplan? They will implement new technology that will allow their users to share photos, videos and even documents with each other.
This announcement is indeed quite a shocker. However, the press release has more surprises in it, such as the following product endorsement (or warning) by a ‘web hacker’ named Jonathan James.
“Jonathan James, Web Hacker spoke of the endless possibilities the software provides to the Kazaa community. “They are going to come at you like they came at ‘tereastarr,’” the press release reads.
First of all, it is kind of strange to include an endorsement from a seemingly unknown hacker in a press release. This aside, the statement doesn’t make much sense at all to those who have never heard of ‘tereastarr,’ and even less sense to those who do.
As P2P blog points out, ‘tereastarr’ was the Kazaa username of Jammie Thomas who was slapped with a $1.92 million verdict in her case against the RIAA last month. Thomas had been found guilty of sharing 24 songs using Kazaa, and was fined $80,000 per track.
Not really the sort of person you want to refer to in a press-release to ‘promote’ a product, unless you want to imply that the people who use your legal service might face such fines as well. The strangeness doesn’t stop there though.
The quote attributed to Jonathan James is in fact a quote from Jammie Thomas’ lawyer Joe Sibley who used the one-liner in her trial.
To make things even more disturbing, the web hacker Jonathan James most likely refers to Jonathan Joseph James, a convicted NASA hacker who ended his own life last year at the age of 24. Again, not an ideal person to quote and a particularly unhelpful image to paint when promoting a product.
The sentence has now been removed from the original press release indicating that Kazaa indeed regrets publishing this fabricated and insulting quote. Nevertheless, it can still be found online on several sites that copied the original release.
So what happened here? Did Kazaa think it was funny to put the names of Thomas and James in its press release? Have they lost their minds completely? We sincerely hope that this wasn’t intentional and that they’ve been pranked by some wannabe PR-agency.
Previously: French Senate Adopts Revamped “3 Strikes” Anti-Piracy Bill
Next: Hackers Undermine Piracy Evidence With Hadopi Router
24 Responses
DRM-infested music -_-
This is just confusing. Why would any company link themselves to Jammie Thomas? Look; our service allows you to be sued for $80,000 per song! Use it today!
Download Music
Sorry, the Kazaa Music Store is available in the US only.
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lmao these people make me laugh talk about restrictions out the asshole
When are people going to understand there is a world outside of the usa
if ever their was a reason piracy exists this is just it region restrictions… on every service.
then they complain about piracy?
Kazaa still relevant?
@4 Anonymous
No.
DDOS is in order..
Attempted bad joke?
Taxpayer funded korporate kopyright kops
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/24702
kazza sucks. was full of garbage and fakes.
Maybe it was a “They’re gonna come at you like they came at ‘terrastar’….IF you use other p2p instead of our legal, paid, drmified junk.” I can’t even REACH for a reason for the dead hacker part though.
“We sincerely hope that this wasn’t intentional and that they’ve been pranked by some wannabe PR-agency.”
weheheh… well they made it on TF, so apparently it worked.
Bad PR is PR too….
What I dont understand is if she payed for the songs isnt it a legal download? and what gives the RIAA the right to access someones computer to see whats on it?
pfft…. dodos in the marketing department trying to ride the shirt tails of a victim. Nice try though lol….
what a bunch of dimwits.
J.
This stinks of fail, through and through. But seriously, what do you expect from bozos who purchase these sites long after their relevancy has passed?
lolo_ePiC.FAiLuRe
Hopefully, TorrentFreak gets at least paid for this pseudo-viral advertisement. It’d be a pity if you did it for free, even if it feels better that way.
I hope TF got paid to host this story and donates the money to TPP or some other similar outfit.
And besides, Kazaa? I mean really. That horse has been dead for sometime now. As for their sharing pictures/documents/etc, that is a true shocking revelation! What could possibly happen next I ask? Sharing pictures/documents through e-mail and IM? OMFG! Is the world ready for this type of change? This can *seriously* change the nature of our existance. Seriously!!!!!!
XD!
lol @ 20
Documents would be renamed rar files filled with viruses wow thinking about it DRM infested content + users own viruses yep yep… sound just like the old kazza we all used to know
This is no different to what the pirate bay will be doing only this time the files you download wont come from their servers constantly it will come from the sheep who’s being paid to share it around lol
every DRM services has failed big time why do they keep beating this dead horse do they hope to one day ride it in the derby
Its nice to know you will be sued for using legal services..
Il stick with bittorrent k thx bai
Utterly lame,then again what can one expect from a bunch of DRM peddlers.
gay kazaa bro
Sounds like a poorly researched PR piece that backfired
http://www.entertane.com – the easiest site for torrents (movies, music, software, games, xxx) – faster, simpler – and you can search all your favorite torrent sites. No registration needed.
This sounds very lame.
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