Lawyers For ‘Imposter’ P2P Software Threaten Open-Source Team
Written by enigmax on February 25, 2008A company trying to pass itself off as vendors of the open-source file-sharing software Shareaza, has set the legal dogs on the real Shareaza forum. Discordia Ltd, who earlier turned Bearshare and iMesh into pay services, demanded action after a member of the real Shareaza forum suggested a DOS attack on the site.
When the news started to break in December last year, it looked bleak for the real Shareaza project. A company had somehow gained control of Shareaza.com, the domain name used previously for the real, open-source Shareaza P2P client, and was now passing its own pay service client off as the real thing. Something was seriously wrong, with many putting the pieces together into what could only be described as a conspiracy.
Now, lawyers for the “fake” or “imposter” Shareaza are threatening the real Shareaza team for a comment made by a user on their forum - things are getting out of hand. So how did this begin?
Last year a company associated with the French RIAA somehow obtained the Shareaza.com domain name from its owner, Mr Jonathan Nilson, who was given the domain in the belief he would keep it safe. Nilson would neither confirm nor deny that he had sold the domain, but speculation suggests that he may have sold it to avoid legal action. Others suggest the domain expired. Either way, the original owners of the domain (the Shareaza creators) don’t have it anymore.
Now the owners of the ‘fake’ Shareaza had control of the domain name previously associated with the real product (shareaza.com), it became easy to pretend to be them. There are two screenshots below - one is the ‘fake’ domain and one is the real thing. Can you spot the imposter?
The real, open source client is represented by the bottom graphic. The ‘fake‘ is at the top and according to Neglacio ;
ShareazaV4, is totally fake. It violates the open-source license, GPL (Version 2) in many ways. Also, it isn’t free nor open source. It requires a subscription and installs a suspicious toolbar. You can read what happened from this reference list: http://tinyurl.com/2cx7ff
Please, update your Shareaza version to Shareaza 2.3.1.0, and change the site from Shareaza.com to the new official site at Sourceforge: http://shareaza.sourceforge.net .
Understandably, the real Shareaza team and users are really upset that this outfit has effectively stolen their brand name from under their noses in a hostile takeover, and is actively ruining their reputation. It’s no surprise that emotions run high when people are ripped off so when a new signup to the real Shareaza forums suggested a small way to get back at the people doing this to them, it wasn’t anything so special. A user called Red Squirrel posted (quote courtesy of Google.com) :
Make it so the real shareaza program queries their site [shareaza.com] every couple of seconds. As an individual user this won’t take much personal bandwidth. But all shareaza users worldwide put together should be enough to kill their server and they won’t really be able to do much since it will be coming from so many different IPs.
Even though a moderator outlined that this behavior might be considered illegal, that wasn’t enough for Meister Seelig & Fein, lawyers representing the company that took over Shareaza.com. Despite now passing themselves off as the real Shareaza, the ‘imposter’ outfit clearly thinks they have the law on their side too. In correspondence sent to the ‘real’ Shareaza team:
This law firm represents Discordia, Ltd., the operator of the website Shareaza.com and owner of the rights in the Shareaza branded software distributed from that domain. Please be advised, that your forum contains a string of posts under the title: “suggestion to kill Shareaza.com.” Under the string, the poster, RedSquirrel offers directions for users of Shareaza software to implement a DoS that would have the effect of destroying or seriously impairing our client’s application and network. The poster OldDeath also offers a manner to illegally attack our client’s business.
Despite whatever complaints your forum’s users may have with our client’s proper and legal business activities, the type of activity promoted on your forum is illegal. Therefore, we request that you immediately remove this string of posts and any future strings of this nature. My client respects your users’ rights to express their points of view. However, the line is crossed when users begin to promote the destruction of a legitimate business (evidently based on out some misguided belief that artists and others who create music should not be fairly compensated for their efforts) via illegal or other predatory means.
If the above cited illegal activity on your site does not immediately cease and desist, our client will take all necessary action to vigorously and relentlessly protect its rights. To be clear, if this action is not immediately taken and, as result, our client’s business is harmed, we will not only pursue, locate and hold fully responsible each and every one of those who have implemented this, or any similar DoS, but also those responsible for maintaining your site and the forums.
Please confirm that the requested action is being taken immediately.
Jeffrey A. Kimmel
Meister Seelig & Fein, LLP
140 E. 45th St., 19th Fl.
New York, NY 10017
(212) 655-3578
Meister Seelig & Fein is the same law firm that struck the distribution deal between iMesh and SonyBMG, so their involvement in this issue is no surprise.
Shareaza.com is offering a pay client that no file sharer wants, for many reasons, including keeping all hashes, downloaded files and chat logs in a database. We certainly don’t recommend it.
Those who prefer the real, free, open-source Shareaza experience should get along to Sourceforge or to this thread where all the genuine domains point.
On the one hand, The Pirate Bay lose a domain they bought legitimately because the IFPI doesn’t like it, but when a music industry outfit attempts the destruction of a completely legal piece of open source software by passing itself off as the real thing, no-one blinks. Sign of the times?
Update: It appears that Shareaza.com has been marked as a web forgery, illustrated in the screenshot below.
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149 Responses
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[quote comment="297966"][quote comment="297877"]It’s illegal to make a suggestion??[/quote]
Conspiracy is what they call it.[/quote]
Nobody was conspiring, he suggested they could attack the website, but the moderator told him that was illegal.
There is no wrongdoing.
I can suggest to attack an embassy but someone would undoubtedly point out that’s illegal.
Should I be sued?
DDoS? Hah. These guys from Discordia must be shot. Yes, I mean it. Two in the chest and one in the head for each and every last one of them.
ya no whats funny is on the fake website at shareaza.com on the bottom it says”© 1999-2008 Discordia Ltd. All rights reserved. See our Privacy Policy & License Agreement.” isnt that copyright infringement because discordia isnt associated with te shareaza.com domain any more? i think ddosing would be great
“If the above cited illegal activity on your site does not immediately cease and desist, our client will take all necessary action to vigorously and relentlessly protect its rights.”
You mean as opposed to your client’s illegal activity? Hey scumbag, why don’t you vigorously and relentlessly kiss my ass.
“To be clear, if this action is not immediately taken and, as result, our client’s business is harmed, we will not only pursue, locate and hold fully responsible each and every one of those who have implemented this, or…blah, blah, blah.”
Oooh! I’m so-o-o scared. I can’t stop trembling at the thought of that mighty team of crooked shysters (Meister Seelig & Fein, LLP.
Come get some, punk. And pursue, locate, and hold THIS. :P
These people are evidently out of Israel. The have a front company from Scottsdale AZ, of all places. Maybe someone would go Jihad on their ass?
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Gooks in the wire!!! Gooks in the wire!! Attack Attack…………
Hi guys! I hope the exposure on Digg helped out…
God damn RIAA, why can’t people just enjoy things for free?! Given the chance, I would buy that shirt for sure. Definitely would be a top 3 on this list
http://www.ibeatyou.com/competition/248b8d/funniest-craziest-t-shirt/entry/8b5640/baby-tshirts
I’ll fucking ddos them myself. Hell maybe we should have an imposter DDos day. Everyone oil your ‘F5′ keys!!!
They’re neither seelig nor fein. And as for Meisters, they seem to be serving someone else!
you know what to do anon.
EFF
Sue them for violation of GPL, Copyright infringment (as the sharezaa team have copyright on the program), maybe even fraud (for trying to pass shareza off as their own product).
If you can get them for GPL violation they have to stop distributing their version until the copyright holders give them permision to do so again.
Make it a good high profile case.. no doubt the FSF will help in the fight, they may even provide the laywers.
I have set my desktop, with it’s college 55mbit pipeline, to DOS this site. Soon, the 45mbit pipeline will also be doing this.
I’m targetting the frontpage, hoping that it will max out the database connections, if it uses one.
Algeria Attacks.
That makes absolutely no sense , since when are owners of a site responsible for what users put on it.
Regardless of the fact that those scammers deserved that comment ( i would even say , they deserve more) , they should go after the author of the comments , not the site owners .
I mean , moderators are only human beings , after all .
If they go for that DDOS , count me in :-)
I just hope they won’t go after torrentfreak now .
[quote comment="297827"]How come that the ones with the domain ownes the trademark? Thats dumb.[/quote]
If you read the letter, they make no claim to owning a trademark, only that they own the shareaza branded software hosted at that site. In fact they do have the law on their side since the original shareaza failed to do anything to protect the name (trademark registration) and their client legally ( as far as we know ) obtained the domain.
Nobody has a “right” to a specific domain, and if the established legal process for protecting your product name (trademarking for example) are not taken, then you cannot expect to be protected from poaching.
This is something that the OSS world needs to keep in mind. When starting a new project, most of us are smart/savvy enough to pick a name that we can register as a domain, but at some point, we need to pony up the dough to register the product name as a trademark ( $100 in the US , every country has its own fee though).
[quote comment="298450"]Sue them for violation of GPL, Copyright infringment (as the sharezaa team have copyright on the program), maybe even fraud (for trying to pass shareza off as their own product).
If you can get them for GPL violation they have to stop distributing their version until the copyright holders give them permision to do so again.
Make it a good high profile case.. no doubt the FSF will help in the fight, they may even provide the laywers.[/quote]
From their FAQ:
I thought the software was free. Why am I being asked to pay?
The software is free. You are paying for the online help and support and the online tutorials for the lifetime of the membership.
This is not a violation of the GPL, and is in fact consistent with common practices in the OSS world. (RedHat for example)
Damn Church of SubGenius-named company. Slackware should tell them off.
@ 67
partially true, partially not , as sharezea open source has credited proof that that name was their trademark BEFORE sharezea.com came in and ‘nicked it’ - they can claim for it.
The copyright of any IP (intellectual Property) is accredited as soon as it enter the physical world, for instance, if i picked up a mic and went ‘hhmmmHUMMhmhmhm mah hmmmm’ and recorded it, i own the copyright to not only that recording, but the melody aswell (as songwriter), but usually it isnt ‘recognised’ by courts until it enter public domain (as then the courts can see it may of been a stolen idea).
Sharezea Open Source has been in the public domain for years now, and with google cache and other web history sites being able to prove (along with various physical items inhouse that could) that Sharezea belongs to them they can easilly win it.
dubious_1
Do they give credit to the original team and provide the source code or link to it for their build of the software?
If not, it’s GPL violation. Doesn’t matter if they charge for it or not.
Also, this is the very definition of trademark infringement and equally copyright infringement on the part of the logo graphic(as I assume someone did design it at some point).
If you have a link to Shareaza’s old site, update it with the new link. The more people that update their old link the more the Shareaza.com site will drop in Google’s rank.
Would it be illegal if I suggested that someone should shoot them in the head? If it is, I won’t suggest that.
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