Whis is Sharman Neworks/Kazaa ??

[snowman]

Does anybody know who Sharman Networks / Kazaa really is? Like really is; not just the Nikki lady from AU who talks on the phone?

Are they really owned by the Chair & CEO of Brilliant Digital ( www.bde3d.com)? Are Kevin Bermeister and Mark Dyne the silent investors? If so where do they live Sidney, AU or in LA, CA, USA? Is this whole thing subject to AU and USA laws?

Is the Sharman company really based in northern LA, CA and that is why nobody can find their office and employees? Why are they lobbying the American Congress? ( more below )

Why is the guy who registered their domain a current employee of BDE?

Organization:
Sharman Networks Phil Morle
147 Mullens Street ROZELLE, NS 2039 AU
Phone: 02 9273 9139 Email: phil@morle.com

If Phil works for them according to his online resume and they are based in California what is this telling us? This is surely a American company! Is he in AU or the good old USA?

Where are all the old FastTrack programmers? Oddly silent are they not? Did they all turn into consultants to Sharman? Living in some tropical paradise? Does anybody know where they are?

Who is lobbyist Philip S. Corwin? Who does he represent? Do American lobbyist have to declare their interest & customers publicly? If so where?

http://www.politechbot.com/docs/bide...er.030202.html

Who is paying him if this is a AU company? Why a Washington DC lobyist for a very small foreign company?

Let's face it. Sharman/Kazaa and Grokster ( the later perhaps unknowingly ) upped the security levels in 1.5 just like they did in 1.3.3 to foil the Gift project last September. This is what caused the supernodes to ignore Morpheus 1.3.3 version Plain and Simple. Look in your registry for the proof by observing the differences between 1.3.3 and 1.5 after a clean 1.3.3 clients tries to connect to the network and fails.

So why they do it? Who benefits? As they say on the radio follow the money and it answers the questions.

I am just confused as to where the money is.

[Mowzer]

Good investigative work.

The answer to your question though, where is the money?

From what i have heard by people still in the "kazaa" loop, in the pockets of Niklas zenstrom, in a remote distant way.

[Smoketoomuch]

This is not new, but very thought provoking. http://www.zeropaid.com/news/article.../03012002b.php

Its a very long, but exhausting article on these shady businesses.

What makes me wonder is that "upgrade". Usually upgrades are about new functionality, better features or whatever. None of the hot issues of previous versions were addressed in these new versions the sole purpose of these new upgrades seem to point to these events - which is of course, quite disgusting, but also, a mystery - who, why, when, how questions - it seems MC went crazy - but their public relations policy begins to take its toll on them at last. If they just knew their customers, they would not have made that joke about gnucleus.

Btw, I read some posts on grokster forum - http://www.grokster.com/dcforum/DCForumID7/535.html -, and people are reluctant to change to 1.5 - why? its no better, only more spyware. I can't believe this is happening - it is rare when one doesn't want upgrade, it is even more rare that a company has the guts to change version number (and 1.3.3 to 1.5 is not insignificant change) and calling upgrade something that is not.

[snowman]

Here is a posting from the Rebol Mail list. It summarizes that current Morpheus is not the 'almost' famous planned V2.0. This is a stop gap measure because somebody "gave Morpheus users the incompatablility version finger".

The question is why take such drastic action? Somebody is awfull mad about something. Who?

PS Rebol is a new Internet Operating System. www.rebol.com

******

Hi,

so I downloaded new Morpheus, and even if I should stay from negative
comments, I can't, as the impression is really bad. It's UI looks like
last minute hack composed of some Delphi template. Well, I am not even
alone thinking that the situation sucks.

Here's one of user comments:

" As we all know, StreamCast Networks (aka MusicCity), learned this past
week that they aren't welcomed on Kazaa's FastTrack network anymore, as
millions of Morpheus users were given the "incompatable version" finger.
StreamCast promised us back in December that they would integrate
Gnutella network compatability. Gnutella is a free peer to peer
technology, whereas StreamCast had to pay in order to use FastTrack.
Anyhow, the promised "Morpheus Preview Edition" is now out, and it seems
to be based on Gnucleus, a free, GPL'd Gnutella client. StreamCast even
forgot to remove some icons. As far as I can tell, the preferences
dialog, the "Go" button, and the file structure all are identical to
Gnucleus's. Now, I am wondering, like every good free software supporter
should, where is the source?"

It seems to be true - Gnucleus screenshost are just very similar to new
Morpheus - some of Windows are just identical:
http://www.gnutelliums.com/windows/g...eenshots.shtml

Even Slyck.com provided hard critique, which now seems to be removed
from their site ...

My personal impression is, that MusicCity divorced (or was divorced)
with Kazaa, so hundred of thousands of Morhpeus users were cut-off.
MusicCity had to find some solution really quickly.

Now the question is - if they will not use FastTrack networking
technology, is Rebol based Morpheus still planned?

Well, those are my opinions and conclusions, - you don't have to agree
with me, of course ...

Some other links:
http://quotes.freerealtime.com/dl/fr...=Latest%20News
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-849867.html

Now who's a bad guy? :-)

PS: has anyone looked into Gnutella protocol, if it is free? Would it be
possible to build Rebol Gnutella client, without the need to interface
any kind of library (tcp communication only)? Or just should be some
search capabilities added to IOS (IOS is server based though)? :-)

http://www.gnutella.com
http://www.gnutellanews.com
http://www.gnutelliums.com

-pekr-

--
To unsubscribe from this list, please send an email to
rebol-request@rebol.com with "unsubscribe" in the
subject, without the quotes.

[goldie]

Just wanted to say ~WELCOME SNOWMAN~!! to Napsterites

I'm very happy to see you here and am equally enthused to see you adding your insights to this messy, intriguing affair!

[snowman]

If Kazaa/Sharman just backed off the upgrade to 1.5 by issuing a 1.6 that reverted back to allowing Morpheus users to connect.

Since they are not doing this AND StreamCast is not attempting to force them to do this ( can't they just say pretty please with money on top ) ..... it just seems like the management knows more then it is saying.

This is more like somebody forgot to pay the bill instead of 'MusicCity and Morpheus users suffered dual attacks' that Mr. Griffin is pronouncing.

Also does, everybody realize that on Tuesday last streamcastnetworks.com DNS registrations changed the www site from 206.a.b.c to 140.a.b.c and then back to 206.a.b.c. this was not a hack because the 140.a.b.c address did have the real MC site pages. It was at Exodus if I remember correctly. Wonder why that happened. Does not sound like an attack to me ..... more like self inflicted operational change that went bad.

Where I live if you don't pay the hydro bill the lights go out. I imagine it is the same in Nashville TN or Woodland Hills CA.

I am as mystified as you are about all this.

[Smoketoomuch]

Oh yes, welcome Snow Man - last seen you fighting against blue toilet man, hmm?

I believe either of two things (or maybe both). Either failed change attempt, or Kazaa/grokster attack, or both, but what is important is that I think we are witnessing the fall of house Streamcast.