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Kazaa installs hidden program

  • 04-04-2002 10:18am
    #1
    yankinlk
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,742 ✭✭✭


    Kazaa is Morpheus so be aware...

    -Sam


    In Free Music Software, a Hidden Fee-Based Service

    April 3, 2002

    By MATT RICHTEL





    Twenty million users of Kazaa, a popular Internet network
    that lets people freely exchange music files online, have
    unknowingly received software that could make them
    participants in a second network - one that plans to charge
    them fees for access to songs, movies and other media.

    The pay software's creator, Brilliant Digital Entertainment
    (news/quote), said that it intended to send an update to
    the users' computers to activate the pay network, called
    Altnet, within the next six weeks.

    Kevin G. Bermeister, chief executive of Brilliant Digital,
    which is based in Los Angeles, said that users of Kazaa
    would be given the option of activating Altnet.

    Any user who decided to do that would then have two
    simultaneous networks running: the one the person initially
    chose, which allows the free exchange of songs, and another
    that would charge for songs.

    Mr. Bermeister said Altnet would provide a platform through
    which record labels and other media companies could charge
    for their copyrighted material.

    The online music experience will "be back in the content
    owners' control," he said.

    Although that might be thought to please record companies,
    a spokesman for the Record Industry Association of America,
    Matthew J. Oppenheim, said the industry was still trying to
    understand the deal.

    The industry has sued Kazaa, saying its service abets
    rampant music piracy, which costs the record companies tens
    of millions of dollars.

    There was also no clear explanation of why consumers would
    want to pay for songs on Altnet that they could already get
    at no charge through Kazaa.

    Mr. Bermeister said users might be persuaded to purchase
    songs because they would find the quality of those songs -
    which would be monitored for quality - higher than the
    quality of the music copies they downloaded from strangers.



    The Kazaa network is operated by Sharman Networks, based in
    Sydney, Australia, and Brilliant Digital is a Sharman
    partner.

    To a typical consumer who downloaded Kazaa from the Web,
    Brilliant Digital was largely invisible. It was the
    provider of software used to display advertising to users
    of Kazaa, which was supposed to be supported by
    advertising.

    The inclusion of software to create a second network -
    embedded within the Brilliant Digital software - was first
    disclosed yesterday on CNet's News.com.

    The Brilliant Digital plan also envisioned compensating
    some users who would permit their computers to be used as
    special hubs for the distribution of content like
    advertising and music files. That disclosure quickly
    brought hundreds of online comments, many of them critical,
    from Kazaa users who objected to what some described as
    "sneakware."

    Mr. Bermeister said the inclusion of the Altnet component
    had been done with the full knowledge of Sharman Networks
    and its chief executive, Nikki Hemming.

    Mr. Bermeister said that he and Ms. Hemming were close
    friends and that he had encouraged her to make Sharman's
    investment in the Kazaa technology. A spokesman for Sharman
    Networks declined to comment on the issue.

    Brilliant Digital filed a statement with the Securities and
    Exchange Commission to explain its intention to deploy
    Altnet. It said the company was doing so with cooperation
    from Sharman Networks.

    But the move raises the question of whether the Altnet
    network could supersede Kazaa; Mr. Bermeister was
    apparently retained to build an advertising base for Kazaa.
    Mr. Bermeister said it was possible that "to some extent"
    Altnet would make Kazaa irrelevant.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/03/technology/03MUSI.html?ex=1018858433&ei=1&en=00f414cebe6b2790


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