After Hijacking Site, Scammers Move to Seize Shareaza Trademark
Written by enigmax on March 02, 2008After taking control of Shareaza.com, imposters trying to pass themselves off as an open-source dev team have stepped up their action to destroy the GNU GPL licensed project. In an audacious move, lawyers representing Discordia Ltd have filed to register the “Shareaza” trademark at the US Patent Office.
In a December 2007 hostile takeover, a company took control of Shareaza.com, the domain name used previously for the real, open-source Shareaza P2P client. The real Shareaza client is 6th in the Sourceforge all-time Top 10 downloads and is completely free (GNU General Public License), but this company is passing off its own closed-source software as the real thing. Essentially, they are stealing the Shareaza brand name and goodwill from right under the operators noses in an effort to crush the project.
Last week, the corporate battle against this almost defenseless collective of people working on the Shareaza project took a somewhat miserable twist when the operators of the fake Shareaza site (Discordia Ltd) threatened legal action against the real Shareaza, all because of a comment made by a user on their forums.
If you’re starting to get a little annoyed that this company is pushing its luck, you may be interested to know that their lawyers - Meister Seelig & Fein in New York - have links to the new owners of iMesh and Bearshare, both initially free, both now converted to pay services after legal action.
So if it doesn’t unsettle you that some music-industry backed company has come in and stamped all over a GNU GPL project, took their domain name, passed their own software off as the real thing and threatened legal action, then maybe this will:
On January 10th 2008, lawyers representing ‘Discordia Ltd’ filed for registration of the ‘Shareaza’ trademark at the United States Patent Office. As yet, the trademark has not been granted to them but according to staff at the real Shareaza project, it must be urgently contested. Discordia claim that the first commercial use of the Shareaza trademark was December 17 2007 but other documentation suggests Discordia claim copyright since 1999. The real Shareaza project has been running since 2004.
If Discordia are successful in their application, it will put the original real Shareaza in a position where they infringe on the imposter’s trademark and will doubtless be subjected to legal action.
According to a source at the real Shareaza: “Discordia Ltd. under which the trademark was sought is a Cyprus shell company designed to shield MusicLab, iMesh, parent companies and business partners from the exceedingly high risk of liability in this case. Private information will not be disclosed, however there is significant circumstantial evidence regarding the source of their unethical and illegal behaviors that ought to be brought to light for the greater internet community.”
The real Shareaza guys are calling out for support, you can read exactly what they need here, but they are also calling on all of the budding internet investigators out there to research Discordia, iMesh, MusicLab and lawfirm Meister Seelig & Fein to dig up any information that could be of use to them in fighting these imposters.
To defend against the trademark application, the Shareaza team really need support as the financial burden is quite high, they explain:
No Shareaza developer or enthusiast has ever recieved money as a result. However, several volunteers now out-of-pocket for hundreds of dollars are facing the prospect of thousands. Shareaza has always been and will always remain free, non-commercialized software - regardless of the high value of its use that must be protected. Donations will now begin to be accepted for the sole purpose of partially compensating these unfortunate expenses. (Including a possible $900 at very short notice.) A ChipIn account has been established for PayPal (account/credit card) payments large or small. Please consider sending at least the loose change in your account to show your appreciation for enthusiasts who could scarcely afford these costs themselves. Feel free to offer in other ways as well.
Personally I think this is a very worthy and symoblic cause. No-one likes being bullied, particularly by the music industry so when they choose to pick on people with few resources, the only way they can be beaten is if people stick together and act together. Shareaza isn’t my favorite client - even with its support for BitTorrent - but it’s free in every possible way with its GNU GPL license and these people from Discordia are determined to tear it all apart. It’s unthinkable that they can be allowed to get away with it.
Discordia should consider this statement about the legal standing of trademarks:
“Immoral, deceptive or scandalous matter or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols or bring them into contempt or disrepute is not trademarkable.”
The real Shareaza team sends the final message:
You Can Help Most of All by Spreading the Word - SHAREAZA™ is the property of the Shareaza development team.
You can donate to the cause by clicking here.
Previously: BitTorrent Rip Off Sites, and How to Avoid Them
Next: Nine Inch Nails Uploads New Album on Torrent Sites
125 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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who gives a fuck? shareaza is a crap program. open source =/= always amazing.
this is probably just some stunt to draw loads of attention to shareaza because their userbase is dwindling.
It took me a while to notice that donating requires Macromedia Flash to be installed. WTF?! If it’s just a PayPal account, you should have linked to that directly. Also I wonder why they don’t use the SourceForge donation system in the first place.
[quote comment="302669"]who gives a fuck? shareaza is a crap program. open source =/= always amazing.
this is probably just some stunt to draw loads of attention to shareaza because their userbase is dwindling.[/quote]
You really didn’t read any of the article then. There are links to the registration at the United States Patent Office in the article. Anyway if you do not support OSS then STFUGTFO.
Welcome to the US, the land of litigation.
[quote comment="302335"]Given the attack on the GPL and open source moment that this whole case represents, where are the EFF on this one???[/quote]
These are the same “people” who call file sharers thieves, and terrorists now. What else can be thrown in. Pedophiles and rapists? Why not. This is like murderers taking someone to trial for not being politically correct.
[quote comment="302747"]These are the same “people” who call file sharers thieves, and terrorists now. What else can be thrown in. Pedophiles and rapists? Why not. This is like murderers taking someone to trial for not being politically correct.[/quote]
Exactly.
[quote comment="302713"][quote comment="302335"]Given the attack on the GPL and open source moment that this whole case represents, where are the EFF on this one???[/quote][/quote]
EFF, this is happening in your country; not going to help?!
It is wierd,I would of thought they would be all over this as it is a OSS based/hosted at sourceforge.net, which is American based.
[quote comment="302591"]
Some of you people are blatently stupid. Copyright infringement=copyright theft, theft=stealing. What part of that has trouble penetrating your thick heads?
[/quote]
Copyright theft? Copyright theft would be different from copyright infringment. I guess it would be the act of depriving someone of the state sponsored distribution monopoly of something. I hear that the members of the RIAA are pretty knowledgeable in such acts. I don’t see what it have to do with filesharing though.
Anyone who can’t understand the difference between ctrl+c and ctrl+x has obviously hit their heads too many times.
Discordia Ltd is BEGGING for a DDOS. Come on Anonymous, this is your call (Hell, march 15th is still a way away, you could do a little side-mission).
When you steal, you take something from somebody else.
However when you share, you make copy of something. It is not stealing.
Now on topic. Hijacking a domain name is stealing. Shareaza should react to it and not change its name. In case it changes who tells us that they wont come after shareaza’s new name…
Not a downloading case, despite the propaganda fanfare.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1528420/20060411/id_0.jhtml
The famous Santiago case , once again an uploading case read the wording.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/25/AR2005122500618_2.html
once agin an uploading case , please read the wording, “sharing music”=uploading
http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/2007/10/14/sony-and-warner-bros-successfully-sue-a-downloader-for-222000-in-minnesota.htm
yet agin we see the term “swapper” , this is indicating the P2P folks where uploading not downloading files.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2004/05/63579
Did you even read this article ?
“Kosenski said legal papers with which she was served included a list of dozens of songs her son had stored on the family computer.”
These words clearly indicate they where sharing files for upload.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/315599_music14.html?source=mypi
Now I really dont have time to waste on checking the others on your list as its clear you too are unable to differentiate between the copyright infringing “uploading” or breaching the owners right of copy . and downloading where so far no one has been sued to my knowledge.
If you can point to a single case I will be more than pleased to give it the once over, ignorance is after all it seems not my forte, but your own.
agreed, shareing isnt stealing, if i pay £10 for a album on cd the way i see it , its MINE if i want to share it i will i fookin payed for it.
oh and the shareaza thing is a bit naughty! that is blatent stealing, the real shareaza group should just change there name to something else i know they shouldnt have to but would prolly be easier and if everyone knows they wont use the hijacked version
[quote comment="302510"][quote comment="302496"][quote comment="302448"]Of course if you live outside of the U.S. or 90% of Europe, you may not be subject to such laws, otherwise you’re basicaly a socialy acceptable thief, but a thief none the less.[/quote]
Fuck you idiot.[/quote]
Oh did I touch a nerve. You must be American. My last response is awaiting moderation, so you’ll have to wait till a moderator sees fit to aprove it to get the proof as you cannot be bothered to google for yourselves. Uploading downloading, its all the same, unless you are using usenet. So in order to download you have to BE uploading, so Quartz your point is moot, and, well pointless.[/quote]
You dumbass. I can perfectly legal download anything, copyrighted or not, as much as I want.
You don’t see the difference between downloading and uploading. If you want to donwload something, someone else must have uploaded it first. It’s only the one who upload it who can be held responsible (unless it’s like a server he or she uploaded it to, like RapidShare) for the action.
And by the way, I live in Norway - where you can only be responsible for distribution, which is uploading, and not downloading.
So bluah. Stick your head in a toilet or something.
[quote]Uploading downloading, its all the same, unless you are using usenet. So in order to download you have to BE uploading, so Quartz your point is moot, and, well pointless.[/quote]
You are making a legally speculative point based on an assumption a person using bit torrent, the fact is the law is not so clear and I dont use bit torrent.
If you are unable to see how this affects your whole arguement then can I suggest a decent lawyer called ray who will explain it to you ?
All the mother fuckers saying p2p filesharers are theives are fucking douche bags who don’t remember what they did when they were younger.
Also it is my belief that they truly do not grasp the concept of file”sharing” That or they are to moral which means they never had a fucking childhood life. They were probably wasting away in their fucking cubicle wondering how to get that promotion (usually gotten by sucking dick) to do this and that so they could have 1 week of vacation and a big house with a wife who fucks the shit out of the mail man… by the way he’s a fileshare’r
Sounds pretty much like a prime case for the EFF or the Software Freedom Law Center (http://www.softwarefreedom.org/).
I hope the developers contacted at least one of them asap when the sh*t started hitting the fan.
Yep, Hulk is right.
This makes me so GOD DAMN MAAAAAAAAD!
How the heck can those idiots do this to a team of normal software devs who publish there work under the GPL.
This is Corporate Bullying!
Something similar almost happened 2 or 3 years ago with eMule in Germany.
Perhaps the original Shareaza dev(s) should contact the eMule admins for some pointers …
This is a conspiracy from Vivendi Universal an Evil french company member of the RIAA and the main instigator of the law suit.
This is how these French parasites respect our laws!
I believe we should bomb their head quarter in France.
[quote comment="302703"][quote comment="302669"]who gives a fuck? shareaza is a crap program. open source =/= always amazing.
this is probably just some stunt to draw loads of attention to shareaza because their userbase is dwindling.[/quote]
You really didn’t read any of the article then. There are links to the registration at the United States Patent Office in the article. Anyway if you do not support OSS then STFUGTFO.[/quote]
i do support OSS, but shareaza is a crap example of it. people wank over things just because they are open source, this is one of those times. if shareaza was closed source proprietry software i doubt it would have got coverage at TF.
[quote comment="302591"][quote comment="302582"]What stealing? Can you provide examples of the “stealing” you so easily think you can drop here? Copying data is NEVER stealing, it is USING sold and available tech of today, nothing more nothing less.[/quote]
Some of you people are blatently stupid. Copyright infringement=copyright theft, theft=stealing.[/quote]Who made that nonsense up? I wasn’t asked about any of this, and 80% of the world with a brain, wouldn’t agree with it. YOU are the one who is stupid here, not me, not us. You’re living a lie.
If you DON’T want the world to copy the data that is available to them, then don’t create harddisks, laser-media, computersoftware, computer networks, the internet, etc. And try not to sell the technology at the same time as you’re trying to claim copyrights over the data the tech stores. As long as you allow people to have broadband connections and DVD burners, they will use them.
Copyright does not exist in a digital world. Wake up. Nobody can EVER “infringe” on “copyrights” if they don’t even exist. When data is available in a digital format, it is public domain. End of story. No law you make up will ever work against that, never. Laws like that are just meaningless words.
Now go cry in a corner and forget about ever claiming copyrights over digital media. You can’t.
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