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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SHAREAZA™ is the property of the Shareaza development team.
-just spreding the word lol
i don’t like that company….
All i can say is wow..
cant believe people are allowed to do this stuff..
Those bastards…
This is just plain sick. Discordia are a bunch of bullies who need to be stopped like YESTERDAY. I love Shareaza. Been using it for years and I believe there is sufficient evidence that the “fine” folk at Discordia are the ones doing the plagerizing.
Given the attack on the GPL and open source moment that this whole case represents, where are the EFF on this one???
Doh!
moment = movement
Good for them, it seems the Shareaza folk are run by a bunch of incompetent morons…
This company is passing-off it’s product in a deliberate attempt to capitalize on the success of an open source project, they’re not eligible for a trademark. The devs need to get WIPO to get their domain back, first attempt should be to write to discordia and ask — politely.
Yes but the US government says they have the right to do what they please because they were the first to claim copyright even though the others were their first.
Blame USA. Canada has no responsibility in this stupid shit this time…
Shareaza another useless software like kazaa full of malware & virus.
Only dumbs using them :)
Dear consistent yet caring fans of Rapper Alliance,
It fills my body with absolute disgust (and freight) to have to write something like this to such a strong, large fan base as yourself. Now days it seems as if any person with 3 dollars and a can of green beans can act like me, and well, fact is, it hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts, it really hurts,,,,. So to make a long story short, (there are fakes out there ruining the true rhymes that can only come out of the true Rapper Alliance lips/keyboard!). I am hereby retiring. It was fun, TorrentFreaks.
Deeply caring,
but never sharing,
nigga bust my chops and he’ll be pairin’ with my mack 10 NIIGGGGGGAG NIGGGAGAA WHAT IMA BEAST
Rapper Alliance (The Real One, nigga)
The devs need to hire a competent lawyer as this trademark app would be EASILY shot down. The mark WAS in commercial use by the original dev team prior to 2007, and proof of such would be the end of the the line for the corporate assholes trying to claim first-use rights.
Another thing, being polite as #9 suggested will only encourage the bully, as this is a sign of weakness. I mean this seriously, the only thing besides the courts that might work would be a healthy dose of violence inflicted on anyone involved in this scam. If someone can post some dox on these assholes and have some of the boys drop by for ‘tune-ups’, I believe suddenly the attitude of these scammers would change. People tend to have quick attitude adjustments when they live in constant fear of getting their heads kicked in on their front lawn or having their houses firebombed. Not that I would suggest anyone do anything illegal like these discordia people are doing.
why not just change the name to something completly different and direct the users away from the hijacked names? does it matter to the people what the app is called?
[quote comment="302367"]why not just change the name to something completly different and direct the users away from the hijacked names? does it matter to the people what the app is called?[/quote]
True that..
Way not call it ShareazaII or something
YES! Violence is the answer! Never mind the thousands of avenues of resolution… Kill, kill, kill…
freaking morons…
I hate discordia as much as anyone, but fighting them in court is just what they want. Discordia wants to tie up the shareaza dev. team with lawsuits and waste their money.
I agree with previous posters: The truly subversive thing to do would be to change the name of the real shareaza.
But it looks like they aren’t going to do that. Well anyways, I wish the shareaza team the best of luck. If i weren’t poor, I’d totally donate to their cause.
Shareaza was and still is totally free.
We even said no to donations, as an ideal.
So no money for lawyers from the project. All the money spent, was given voluntarily.
Even the change of name is bad. Yet again, as a statement but also because users are confused enough.
And for the other things, Shareaza isn’t bad. Far from. It’s the networks it’s on. Networks which are anarchistic, free and open. So, easily exploited.
We encourage our users to use security filters. So, where’s your love? ;)
i’d change the name of the project, if you cant stop them, stop promoting a name that gives credit to them
waaaaaaaait ! what ?
your response is awaiting moderation ? WHAT IS THAT ? sry, you can do whatever you can to keep it clean :) even if you dont accept my post.
You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down.
ok ok, i will
only noobs use p2p anyways so I could really care less. I think its kind of ironic though. stealing something that’s used to steal something else.
will the real shareaza please stand up ? (nothing to do with the slim shady song so piss off copyright freaks) the parent companies have far to much influence in court so fighting them is useless that immoral crap in the post is useless because no one knows what immoral is anymore or deceptive or what ever you wanna call it
It’s their own funeral. Nobody will ever be using their payware.
iMesh, bearshare, napster, kazaa, all have died the day they become corporate crap.
[quote comment="302413"]only noobs use p2p anyways[/quote]then you’re the biggest noob here.
This is not even about “using p2p”.
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