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
124 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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[quote comment="302841"]All the mother fuckers saying p2p filesharers are theives are fucking douche bags who don’t remember what they did when they were younger.[/quote]P2P has nothing to do with age. I’m 42 years old and I damn well copy data as I damn well please. Nobody is telling me what to do with some ones and zeros on my drives.
[quote comment="302974"][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]
Ture and that is reason for the TF coverage of the story, because if it was proprietary software, this would never happen.
Also come on, you can’t support FOSS and not think this is wrong.
Thanks for article, it was awesome ! write more! I’m waiting!
http://proxy4school.blogspot.com/
Don’t change the name. That’s letting these dicks win. The Shareaza name and infamy was already created and these fuckers are trying to steal all of the hard work and creativity that went into the original thing. If somehow the dicks do win this battle, then I propose fucking with them as much as possible by damaging the Shareaza name.. there are many ways to do it, like change the original program to suck complete ass, or create competing websites like shareazza and shareazazza and crap like that, similar to what these companies do to the legit sites. All of those products could be malware, leading people to believe that anything named share and za is not to be trusted. Just a thought. You can’t let them win, even if they do win, because it will show how they can push open source around without consequence.
maybe mediadefender defenders will come back to do something about discordia
[quote comment="302799"]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.[/quote]
Id say that was pretty much a full-on “SPNAK!1!” =]
Unlucky, DevilsAsshat…
[quote comment="303132"]maybe mediadefender defenders will come back to do something about discordia[/quote]
that would be so fucking awsome!
Has anyone unearthed any information on discordia yet ?
Did anyopne just say “lets point all our botnets at them”? :P
Just out of curiosity - how does a library pass off DVD’s, games & software to “check out” a.k.a. “Rent” (and if you lose the DVD, game and / or soft - you pay full retail price for which was usually donated!)- doesn’t this fall under some sort of infringement? Or does the U.S. Congress protect the libraries? I dunno - there is so much to this case… …I worry that Linux and uBuntu might never see the day where it reigns supreme over PC / Mac OS’s as we see them today.
Thanks TorrentFreak for the article - donated ;)
C0LDSH07(109), why don’t you ask a librarian? Libraries pay more than the normal price. Even the casette tapes have some kind of macrovision protection because when I tried to copy some of them a long time ago, I only got some noise out of it. Floppy disks where frequently lost or unreadable.
That said, it was definitely legal to make copies of library media for yourself for no additional fees. Nowadays I’m not so sure but I never owned a DVD nor do I read laws. So who cares anyway?
[quote comment="302510"][quote comment="302496"]So in order to download you have to BE uploading, so Quartz your point is moot, and, well pointless.[/quote]
You really are an ignorant twat. I’m an American and even I know of more than one bittorrent client which can be set to download without uploading anything in return.
No please go fuck yourself again as someone already suggested.
Where is the outrage about RIAA hypocrisy?
iMesh’s current CEO was the RIAA president and IFPI board member active in “antipiracy.”
He “liaises regularly with music industry partners” and then lies/cheats/steals open-source property, with SPPF help? WTF
http://www.shareazasecurity.be/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=913
One line of code to download shereaza-fake every 5 minutes:
while true; do wget http://download.shareazaweb.com/ShareazaV4.exe 2>&1 | grep HTTP; rm ShareazaV4.exe; sleep 300; done
So does this mean shareaza doesn’t work any more as it won’t work on my system.
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth’s final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commissioner Pravin Lal, “U.N. Declaration of Rights”
they sound a bunch of wankers dont they just claiming some company as their own ?
KILL THEM ALL THE NAZI FUCKERS!
ORIGINALLY POSTED ON SHAREAZA FORUM:
I had to say something, for what it’s worth. I’m disgusted. The check is in the mail. (http://shareaza.chipin.com/shareaza-support-fund)
—– Original Message —–
From: Arthur Wesley
To: action[at]eff.org
Cc: information[at]eff.org
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 6:37 AM
Subject: Overview of EFF’s Efforts to Protect P2P
Re: Shareaza (shareaza.sourceforge.net/) — legitimate and (shareaza[dot]com/) — forgery?
Please, in all honesty, how can you assert your support of P2P and ignore this blatant act of fraudulent abuse?
I am a software developer. You must understand the implication of not supporting open-source engineers. If corporate interests continue to bully, threaten and win, independent open-source software developers will simply give up. Shareaza is not the first… the death of Shareaza and *free* P2P will set a precedent! I dare not develop a fair and *free* public open-source alternative to “for-profit” offerings for fear of becoming too popular… suffering the wrath of this new model “corporate internet.” I remember when the internet was *free* and innovative — A *public* model for *free* communication and exchange. I have no affiliation with the (once *free*) P2P offerings. But I am not ignorant to what is behind this continued assault: The issue is not the millions of dollars lost in media revenue — are we that stupid? … Before the internet came to exist EVERYONE shared a good song or movie with a friend, just as you did or do. But if I enjoy the media, I would rather own it than STEAL it, just as you would…
SonyBMG is being sued for software piracy. We could both name countless other corporate monsters who stand accused or convicted of doing the same and worse… hardly breaking news. This marks the birth of a new internet: Pay as you go. Watch out! — big-brother is following… Whom do you support? I must have misunderstood…
Thank you.
(No reply is expected or desired.)
—
Now, this reply was not marked confidential, and there were no conditions appended, so I am posting it here. If this posting is inappropriate or in error, then I apologize. I just want the community to understand that their efforts on behalf of this cause matter:
Arthur,
EFF is currently in contact with Shareaza’s legal department. Those
communications are confidential, so I am unable to comment further.
Regards,
Eva Galperin
eva[at]eff.org
(http://www.shareazasecurity.be/forum/viewforum.php?f=46) http://www.shareazasecurity.be/forum/
I rarely bother with comment blocks on e-magazines; but an observation may be helpful in this instance. DevilsAdvocate is a paid troll. Last I counted this issue took 152 comments, and only a handful remained on-topic. Do you get it? The whole point of an industry-sponsored troll is to spend his or her time searching for issues on a list. Once discovered, they use multiple nicks to blast the comment block or forum with a single purpose: disrupt the community; keep the argument off-topic. I believe they earned their pay here. There are two methods to expunge a troll: one, ignore, they are easy to spot – think before you respond; two, keep a moderator on the board to delete and ban those few who abuse the community. Keeps this in mind and pass it around. Thanks.
this is just another example of the pure evil of the insane capitalist system….which just encourages the worst behavior in people.
this whole economic system is dominated by greed and immorality.
Any people who try to do good, and who are not motivated by greed & profits, always get stamped all over.
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