Executives in the recording industry weren’t the only ones cheering last week’s raid on the headquarters of Sharman Networks, which makes and distributes Kazaa peer-to-peer software. At least one chief executive officer of a peer-to-peer software company welcomed the news as well.
“I think this may answer a lot of questions about what kind of control Kazaa has over their network and what kinds of information Kazaa has been storing about its users,” says Michael Weiss, chief executive officer of StreamCast Networks, maker of Morpheus P-to-P software.
The afternoon raid by investigators working for the Australian Recording Industry Association combined with a new software release by Los Angeles-based StreamCast, has the P-to-P world roiling with controversy and intrigue as Sharman scrambles to protect sensitive documents taken in the raid and to defend a rear-guard action from competitors who covet its large network of users.
Weiss says that the raid on Sharman’s offices may pull back the covers on what his company has long contended is a centralized file-sharing network, with Sharman wielding control over individual P-to-P software users.
If true, the discovery of such a control structure would be harmful to Sharman which, like other P-to-P vendors, has argued in court that it can’t be held liable for illegal file-trading activity on its network, in part because it does not have direct knowledge of or control over illegal file-trading activity.
“It’s been one hell of a week,” Weiss says, lumping the Sharman raid in with other good news for his company, including the release of a new version of Morpheus software, Morpheus 4, and a court hearing in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that many viewed as favorable to StreamCast and other defendants in a suit brought by entertainment industry groups.
An attorney for Sharman dismisses Weiss’ allegations as “fantasy.”
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