Key people Nikki Hemming (CEO) Services P2P Networks Founded 2002 | Products KaZaA Headquarters Sydney, Australia | |
Website www.sharmannetworks.com Key person Nikki Hemming (Chief Executive) | ||
Sharman Networks is a company headquartered in Australia and incorporated in Vanuatu. It owns the rights to the KaZaA file sharing software. It was created for this purpose in 2001 when the original owners of KaZaA were sued in the Netherlands.
In December 2003, Sharman shut down Kazaa Lite K++ by serving DMCA notices to all the server owners that hosted the software.
In April 2004 Sharman threatened legal action against Markus Kern for his distribution of the giFT Fasttrack plugin claiming that reverse engineering Sharman's Fasttrack network was illegal.
The CEO of Sharman Networks is Nikki Hemming. Alan Morris is the executive vice president. Phil Morle is the director of technology.
In 2006, Sharman launched a defamation suit against p2pnet.net, a one-man digital media news site specialising in freedom of speech and file sharing issues. Sharman later dropped out, leaving executive Nikki Hemming to keep the suit going. It has not yet been resolved.
The company is currently involved in legal brawls in Australia and the U.S. over the alleged use of KaZaA to infringe copyrights. (As of 8 March 2009 it is still unclear if these cases have been resolved.)