The Shareaza Conspiracy

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

The hijacking of Shareaza.com is a complex story with many twists and turns. Here is the story of Shareaza from its open source GPL roots, to the hostile takeover and where the project is today, directly from those at the heart of the news - the real Shareaza community. The fight for Shareaza has only just begun.

 

Beginnings Are a Good Place To Start

 

In mid 2002, a lone programmer by the name of Micheal Stokes released the first version of a Gnutella client he had written, dubbed “Shareaza”. Over the next two years Micheal added to his client and coded in support for the eDonkey 2000 network, BitTorrent and a rewritten Gnutella-based protocol which he named Gnutella2. Shareaza gradually became more and more popular and Mike started to receive several job offers based on the strength of his work on Shareaza. He eventually decided that continuing to work on a p2p application in an increasingly hostile legal climate was too risky, but he did the honorable thing and released the Shareaza source code under the GNU GPLv2 on June 1, 2004 (which coincided with the release of Shareaza V 2.0).

 

Mike stopped working on Shareaza and went on to develop a new p2p-based streaming radio project named Mercora. As part of distancing himself from Shareaza, he transfered the shareaza.com domain to one of his old alpha testers named Jon Nilson, who continued to administer the domain until late 2007.

 

The French (RIAA) Connection

 

In late 2007 the Shareaza website went down for several weeks, but eventually came back online. Not long after that, the Shareaza.com domain began pointing to a different website which several sharp-eyed community members recognized as identical to shareazaweb.com, a known scam site purporting to offer users “legal p2p downloads”. It emerged that Jon Nilson had been forced to relinquish control of the domain as part of a settlement with La Societe Des Producteurs De Phonogrammes En France (the French version of the RIAA). Jon’s name was the only one connected with Shareaza that the SPPF could find and due to Shareaza’s popularity in France he had been named in a lawsuit along with Azureus and Morpheus. See here for more.

 

forced: Forum Administrator:

 

This law firm represents Discordia, Ltd., the operator of the website shareaza[DOT]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[DOT]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

 

A Dump for Ill-Gotten Gains

 

Members of the Shareaza community managed to track the new “owners” of the Shareaza.com domain to MusicLab LLC, based in New York. MusicLab now distribute the “new and legal” iMesh p2p client after the original Gnutella-based iMesh developers were sued by the RIAA, and forced to settle for $4.1 million with a promise to turn their app into a paid download service. A similar legal fate befell another popular Gnutella application called Bearshare which was then rolled into the RIAA-approved iMesh. Nobody has managed to ascertain whether the original iMesh developers are still involved, but the merging of Bearshare seems to indicate that MusicLab is a vehicle used by the recording industry to dump assets acquired through lawsuits into.

 

It would seem that since Shareaza is developed by anonymous group of individuals and organized via “ad-hocracy”, there was no company to sue, so stealth tactics were employed against the weakest link in the chain: Jon Nilson. iMesh, Bearshare and the fake Shareaza being distributed from Shareaza.com are all the same application with appropriate re-branding.

 

Threats of C&D

 

As you can imagine, the members of the Shareaza community were rather upset about all of this and set up a new website with user forums. After two users made some offhand remarks about a distributed denial of service attack against the servers in Israel where the hijacked Shareaza.com site is located, our forum administrator received an email from one Jeffrey A. Kimmel of Meister Seelig & Fein, in his capacity as a representative of Discordia Ltd, the new new “owners” of Shareaza.

 

Mr Kimmel stated that DDoS attacks are illegal and any further talk by “users [who] begin to promote the destruction of a legitimate business” would result in Discordia Ltd “tak[ing] all necessary action to vigorously and relentlessly protect its rights.” He went on to state that “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.”

 

The posts in question had actually been taken down by forum moderators already (as per forum rules on objectionable content), however this email was cause for great concern: not only were the domain hijackers starting to create a series of shell companies to avoid being identified, but they had engaged lawyers to monitor our forums and threaten anyone making disparaging statements about them.

 

(Full text here)

 

A Tangled Web

 

More research by community members revealed that Discordia Ltd is registered in Cyprus, possibly owned by MusicLab but at arm’s length to avoid as much fallout as possible. Meister Seelig & Fein’s Kimmel also appears to have a long history of dealings with the recording industry, notably in the participation of the iMesh and Bearshare lawsuits and an interesting Amicus Curiae brief in the MGM vs Grokster which details how the new iMesh software has all the answers to stopping piracy and creating a wonderful legal download service.

 

Making The Takeover Official

 

In what is possibly the most audacious step so far, Discordia Ltd filed for a trademark on “Shareaza” with the USPTO on January 10, 2008. (Link)

 

If granted, our use of the Shareaza name will immediately infringe upon Discordia Ltd’s official trademark and we will doubtless be subject to legal action until we stop any infringing action i.e. we rename the project, remove all references to “Shareaza” and forget about the whole thing.

 

The Danger Posed To Open Source Software

 

Unless we are able to prevent the trademark being granted and regain control of the domain, our project will die. It really is as simple as that. Seven-odd years worth of brand recognition as “Open Source, Spyware, Malware and Advertising Free” will disappear and although we can (and have) dealt with “clones” who take our OS code base, add some spyware and release a “new” client as their own (breaking the GPLv2 in the process by not releasing the source) there is no possible way that we can survive having our identity stolen like this. Unlike a run-of-the-mill copyright violation, we are going to be permanently deprived of something. Our code is open to whoever wants to see it, we charge no money for the use of the program; the only thing of value that we have is the name and recognition that goes with it. The worst of it all is that this “software identity theft” could signal the beginning of hostile corporate takeovers of common property - the fact that we are in this predicament proves it to some extent.

 

What we need to know is if the people who stood up for an open culture by hacking copyright law will help protect that culture where it comes to trademarks and halting the advancement of encroaching corporate interests. If “common law” trademarks can’t be protected there is a very real danger that what happened to us will happen again and again and again. Many of us who work on the Shareaza project can foresee things becoming so that people will stop bothering to work on OS projects: open source software is, by it’s nature, more useful that closed source software and the more useful something is, the more popular it becomes…and then someone with expensive lawyers will come along and take it all away from the people who actually created it.

 

We recently asked for donations from our users for a legal defense fund and (very) quickly raised $2000. In our public thank you letter we wrote the following:

 

“There is one fundamental right that should never be in dispute: the right to be recognized as a creator. This moral right transcends arguments on whether copyright should last for 50 years or a hundred, whether software should be patentable or not, or even what a fair price price for an MP3 file is. Being able to say to the world “I made this” and be acknowledged for it is, for many people, the only reward they receive for their work. To deny that right is an insult to the creative forces flowing through every writer, performer, musician, actor and programmer who brings their work to the world.”

 

We have a section dedicated to this whole situation on our new forums which includes full details of all the events that have taken place so far.

 

Any help you are able to provide would be very, very gratefully accepted. Any advice, introductions or referrals to others who may be able to help us will be a great help.

 

Kind regards,

 

Shareaza Community

 

A very interesting read from the best torrent/p2p news sites [name removed by topic author due to rules]. Definitely there is a conspiracy going on, and something is rotten in Denmark. It’s sad to be constantly reassured that corporations and the media conglomerates are destroying the internet community slowly but surely. These are the entities who try and dictate how we should use technology, and they are the biggest hypocrites in the game who continuously abuse their powers, don’t play the rules and are assholes in every way shape and form. All I can suggest at this point is to keep educated about the current events involving the p2p community. Maybe donating to the cause could be a good thing to do as well.

 

EDIT: All the above text is taken from sites that I am not allowed to link to due to paranoia(read: forum rules). As such I cannot state my source. Also, several links with more information could not be posted because of said rules. This edit line is my only contribution to the wall of text. Enjoy.

[Inky]

I wasn't aware shareaza was still in use by anyone. it was pretty lame if I remember correctly, programs like limewire and shareaza have been dead for a long time, between torrents and newsgroups there is no need for a p2p program like that.

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

Limewire is scam/spy/malware now anyway. Frostwire is the safe and better alternative to it, and it's still quite good. Shareaza was great in Europe back in the day when torrents were just infants, but I haven't used it in a long time so I wouldn't know how it works at the moment.

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

I present to you:

 

Conspiracy Against Shareaza and Open Letter to the Recording Industry

 

French recording labels are suing three P2P software vendors, including Shareaza. They make many false claims against Shareaza in order to win in court. This is an open letter to them, setting the record straight and a look at MusicLab who now control iMesh and Bearshare, and has recently hijacked Shareaza.com.

 

La Societe Des Producteurs De Phonogrammes En France (SPPF), which represents recording labels in France, is suing three P2P software vendors, Shareaza, Azureus and Morpheus. They are suing because recent French legislation suggests that all P2P programs must have a feature to block the transfer of unauthorized copyright media, a feature the mentioned clients don’t have. More detailed background to the case can be found here.

 

An important player in this action is one Jonathan Nilson, so to begin, we need to clarify exactly who he is and how he fits into this legal action against Shareaza. TorrentFreak spoke to Wout000, an admin at Shareaza. He told us:

 

“Shareaza.com was firstly registered by Mike Stokes, the creator of Shareaza. Mr. Stokes registered the site, and went live with his groundbreaking client ‘Shareaza’ that contained multi-network swarming and the revolutionary network G2.

 

Mr. Stokes was, at that time, unemployed. When Shareaza gained popularity and was noticed by other companies that use P2P networks in their programs, he received a job offering. He went for it but this meant he had to leave Shareaza to other developers and distance him from the client. Therefore he made Shareaza open source and transferred the domain to a user he trusted. This user was Mr. Jonathan Nilson.

 

Mr. Nilson has had control over the domain name for years, and is being prosecuted because of that. His name was the only viable name they could dig up (whois) and therefore he is being made responsible for the entire Shareaza vs SPFF debacle. He has cut communication with the Shareaza team and doesn’t respond to emails. The calls that are made to him, end up in a legal banter that is forced upon him by his lawyers. Mr. Nilson has no ties whatsoever to the Shareaza community at present and this will presumably remain this way.”

 

Recently, we reported that the Shareaza.com domain had been ‘hijacked’, in that it is no longer controlled by Mr Nilson but is now in the hands of MusicLab - who just happen to be associates of SPPF. Mr Nilson would neither confirm nor deny that he had sold the domain, but speculation from sources close to the case suggest that he may well have sold the domain to MusicLab - after striking a deal with the prosecutor to drop the case against him.

 

Speculation maybe, but it can’t be denied that MusicLab like getting control of P2P related domains, with assistance from their friends in the RIAA. Neither can it be denied that they took control of iMesh as part of its settlement with the RIAA and that iMesh is run by Robert Summer, ex-Sony boss and ex-president of the RIAA.

 

MusicLab also took control of BearShare as part of its settlement with the RIAA and also now hosts those services on their server located at 207.232.22.55. MusicLabs, it seems, is taking each P2P client one by one - and assimilating them into a Borg-like collective.

 

And now, in 2008, it’s also impossible for MusicLabs to deny that somehow, the Shareaza.com domain name owned by Mr Nilson now points to the very same server detailed above, where they have created a fake Shareaza site, complete with graphics taken from the official site, in order to pass off their software - most likely an iMesh clone - as Shareaza. It’s not, it’s a complete scam designed to ruin the good name of Shareaza, by trading on its success to draw traffic to a counterfeit site.

 

Also on the same server was shareazaweb.com, another Shareaza scam site but they’ve taken that down now.

 

Anyone noticing a pattern here?

Open Letter to La Societe Des Producteurs De Phonogrammes En France

 

Refutation of claims made by the SPPF against Jonathan Nilson and Shareaza

 

The Writ of Summons issued before the Paris Regional Court on 18th September 2007 contains many fanciful claims against Jonathan Nilson and Shareaza. Many of the facts as they are presented in that document are simply not true, and have resulted in great harm to Nilson and the Open Source software project Shareaza, namely legal threats against a person not residing within any French jurisdiction and the loss of the shareaza.com domain name.

 

Nilson does not receive money for Shareaza

 

The most serious (and false) claims made by the SPPF is that Shareaza is a commercial software product and that Jonathan Nilson has benefited financially from his involvement with Shareaza.

 

As the SPPF itself notes, the Shareaza software is Open Source and the code is available to anyone at no charge via the SourceForge site also named in the Writ. There is no charge, fee or any other form of compensation made by users of the software to anyone involved with the development of the software, including Jonathan Nilson. The former shareaza.com website did not contain any form of advertising material. The Shareaza software did not and does not contain any form of advertising material. Examination of Shareaza’s source code will reveal that no user information is sent back to the Shareaza development team that could be used to generate financial income (such as statistical information on files being accessed by users or personal information that may be used to contact Shareaza users for commercial or other purposes).

 

In summary, there is absolutely no money involved at any level of the Shareaza project. It is given away at no charge to anyone who wants to use or modify it.

 

The real extent of Nilson’s involvement with Shareaza.

 

Jonathan Nilson is not actively involved with Shareaza at all. His only involvement is on an intermittent basis and consists solely of registering the Shareaza.com domain name and listing himself as the administrative and technical contact for it as required by the governing internet body ICANN.

 

The SPPF claims (in some parts) that Shareaza.com is “clear[ly] and without possible question” a company and that Jonathan Nilson is that company’s representative. In actual fact, Shareaza.com is not a company (later admitted by the SPPF) nor is it facilitated by any company and Nilson is simply the individual who registered the domain name. As the cost of registering a domain name is nominal and may be done in advance for periods of up to 10 years, it is easy for a registrant to forget their registration details and there are many thousands of domain names on the web which are no longer maintained by their registrants.

 

False claim of financial loss

 

The SPPF claim to represent independent producers of recorded music (as defined in the Writ) and that it’s members have suffered financial harm as a result of users of the Shareaza software downloading music protected by copyright. The author of this letter challenges the SPPF to either provide proof of these claims (rather than continuing to make the vague assertions such as those included in the Writ), or to accept the following:

 

- That Peer To Peer software, including Shareaza, actually provides independent music producers with a free platform with which to promote (a) their music, ( their live performances and concerts, © merchandise such as t-shirts, stickers, pins, etc and (d) the artist’s and/or producer’s website where other offers can be made to P2P users and the general public,

- That many independent producers and artists already use P2P software and networks in this manner to promote their creative works,

- That many independent producers and artists actually encourage the use of P2P software for the purposes of sharing their creative works,

- That many independent producers and artists have spoken publicly on the topic of P2P software and credit its usage and the sharing of their material as having a significant and positive effect on the revenue they receive from the production of their creative works.

- That if their members were surveyed, the majority would not agree with the SPPF’s actions in bringing this suite, despite the membership rules requiring them to do so.

 

Further to this, the SPPF claims that if people are able to obtain music at no charge, there is no reason for them to ever pay for music. This argument is clearly and demonstrably false. The cost of a glass of tap water is so small that it may be considered to be free, yet there is a multi-billion dollar per year global industry dedicated to providing bottled drinking water at a comparatively high cost to the consumer. As can be seen from this example and other examples specific to the music industry, even if something can be obtained at no cost there are still many people who are prepared to pay for it.

 

Shareaza Pty. Ltd. (Australia)

 

The SPPF claims that Jonathan Nilson benefited financially from his involvement with an Australian company registered as Shareaza Pty. Ltd. While the author of this letter has no direct knowledge of this claim, there are many scenarios under which such a company may be registered which do not involve Nilson benefiting financially and which are more plausible than the SPPF’s claims.

 

By way of some background, Shareaza’s original creator and sole developer Michael Stokes released the source code for Shareaza to the public under the GNU GPL v2 license on 1 June 2004 and until then he had been the only person with access to the source code. After releasing the code to the public, Stokes left the project and worked on the development of another software program named Mercora. Mercora used a similar method to Shareaza for the sharing of music files between users, however it was financially supported by flockts from users and some of this revenue was paid to royalty collection societies and thus the artists were renumerated for the music being shared.

 

The author submits that it is more likely that Stokes had intended to steer the development of Shareaza towards this form of business model and later abandoned the idea than it is for Nilson to have and continue to benefit financially from the company Shareaza Pty. Ltd. Had the music industry, represented by the SPPF and similar organizations operating in other countries been willing to embrace a global web-based marketplace and adjust their business models in a competent fashion, Shareaza Pty. Ltd. may have been allowed to develop the Shareaza software in such a way as to provide a great opportunity for the SPPF’s members, however this opportunity was wasted and the company was de-registered (as the SPPF notes).

 

This scenario, however, is speculation. The Shareaza project is no stranger to imitators who hack the freely available source code and sell the resulting “clone” or access. In any event, the SPPF has not actually claimed that Nilson was ever involved in Shareaza Pty. Ltd., only that such a company once existed and it is entirely possible that this company was registered by someone intending to engage in such actions.

 

The Streamcast Case (U.S.)

 

As the SPPF notes, the court’s decision in a case brought against Streamcast Networks, developers of another P2P application in the United States found that P2P developers and distributors may be liable for the copyright infringements of their software’s users if the developers and distributors promote the use of the software for infringing acts.

 

The Shareaza developers and maintainers of the Shareaza website did not and have not promoted Shareaza as a tool for copyright infringement. The website has only ever included a technical description of Shareaza’s capabilities in general and generic terms (e.g. “Download any file-type” not “Download the latest blockbuster movie”).

 

The fact that Shareaza has many non-infringing purposes and capabilities and does not promote copyright infringement in the manner required by the Streamcast case proves that Shareaza complies with the Streamcast ruling.

 

Further to this, the Shareaza developers and community are located in places all over the world and are individually subject to many different legal jurisdictions, often with conflicting legal requirements. The developers and community do however make a good faith effort to adhere to the spirit of the law by taking steps such as being “Streamcast Ruling-compliant”, encouraging the sharing of material only where it is legal to do so and referring users with questions about the legality of Shareaza’s use back to the intellectual property laws of their own country or jurisdiction.

 

Copyright infringement by the SPPF and associates.

 

Since making the accusations against Nilson, the domain name shareaza.com now points to a website that does not distribute the Shareaza software. Instead, it points to another website similar in appearance to the old Shareaza website which offers visitors an application named ShareazaV4.exe. That application is a different piece of software which the owner of the site falsely claim is the Shareaza software but which is actually a similar application that has been re-labeled and is owned and controlled by MediaLab, who are associates of the SPPF. The website and re-labeled software both use copyrighted artwork and logos from the real Shareaza website and software (without permission) in an attempt to trick visitors into downloading and using MediaLabs’ software.

 

The SPPF has therefore been complicit in the facilitation of copyright infringement and deception by threatening a foreign citizen with no means to defend himself in a French court and extorting from him the control of the Shareaza.com domain so that it may be used by SPPF’s associates to infringe copyright and deceive web users into downloading their own software application.

 

The author of this letter and the Shareaza community of users and developers are outraged by the SPPF’s actions and their hypocrisy by infringing copyright in a misguided attempt to protect their own.

 

Since the rise in popularity of P2P networks and software the music industry, represented by the SPPF and their international associates have refused to take advantage of new opportunities and new markets and are only just beginning to offer web users with attractive digital offerings. At the same time, they have waged an unconscionable war on competitors who refuse to co-operate with them, software developers and even their own customers.

 

In bringing suit against Jonathan Nilson, the SPPF have used a tactic that has been developed in collusion with their international counterparts and used the intricacies of their local legal system to force an individual with no capacity to defend themselves to bow to their demands and accept a proposition that no fair minded person would consider reasonable. It is this deliberate targeting of weak opponents that allows them to exercise control over any weaker person or organization of their choosing, innocent or guilty, without oversight as demonstrated by the fact that Shareaza’s co-accused SourceForge.net (a registered company with the capacity to respond to legal threats) has not lost control of it’s domain as Shareaza has, nor to the best of the author’s knowledge, paid a cent in compensation to the SPPF.

 

The author of this letter considers La Societe Des Producteurs De Phonogrammes En France to be cowardly, deceitful, underhanded and, by engaging in this reprehensible domain-raping action, a threat to any person who values a free and open culture.

 

End

 

Users can obtain the real Shareaza by visiting their SourceForge pages

[Robert]

I had been aware of this disgusting episode of corporate rape and greed, but you have provided lots of extra detail and new information.

 

The REAL shareaza -> http://sourceforge.net/projects/shareaza/

[Sybarite Paladin AxL]

The REAL shareaza -> http://sourceforge.net/projects/shareaza/

 

Nice one Robert. Now at least our users won't be tricked into downloading scamware...