Hi Jon,

I'm the guy who arrogantly claimed that Sharman Networks implemented on December 5, 2005 an idea I sent them, which they were clueless of, to block Australians from using Kazaa. That last minute move by Sharman allowed it to continue operating Kazaa from that date until today instead of following an Australian court order which ruled that Sharman must either close down its business or implement a content filtering solution (which basically is the same as closing the business).

You can refresh your memory here:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/sharman-denies-lawyers-claim/2005/12/08/1133829710467.html

I'm telling you this because Sharman's attitude towards me, as well as in general, led me to take unreasonable and irresponsible actions including the claims I make below.

That is the reason why I now wholeheartedly want to claim that:
1. I am the person who posted in Israel the comments on p2pnet stories 8678 and 8699 which led Sharman to sue you (together with the Doe and Roe families).
2. You, Jon Newton, did not collaborate with me in any manner in posting the comments and you had no advance notice of the posts.
3. The opinions stated in those comments were genuine and the info was provided by a third party which is related to the Roes.

Now that we got that out of the way, to me it seems absolutely amazing that a P2P company which is fighting for its life in a court of law sues and tries to take down a site that has the explicit mission to advance the sharing of information and data which is really all what P2P is about. In the name of whatever is decent I think that Sharman must retract the case altogether and of course against you because it is obvious that you had nothing to do with the comments.

It's not that I don't feel compassion for Sharman's situation as I too now claim to have suffered after being publicly ridiculed with false and defamatory expressions in front of my family, friends and anyone else who read the link above. Reading about Sharman's agony over the posts reminded me of those long nights in which I woke up screaming my lungs out "screw loose? screw loose? Screw loose!" only to return to a vegetative state until the next psychotic outburst. Oh, the horror, the pain, the damages.

Compassion aside, too often do corporations and individuals with power or money decide that the end justifies the means although that sort of attitude should be reserved, if at all, for the weak.
When Sharman wants to save face or avoid answering questions it feels free to discredit with outright defamation a person who obviously had good intentions with respect to it. And when it wants to reveal the identity of an anonymous person Sharman suddenly becomes sensitive to the written word and assigns a famous defamation lawyer to the case which, if successful, can only mean bad news for free speech and the community Sharman regards as customers.

Anyway, it's worth mentioning that this entire letter, if read by anyone, is unsolicited advice and text and should be viewed accordingly, nothing above should be seen as a solicitation of legal proceedings or may be used in a court of law. Such proceedings shall be initiated, if at all, on the risk of the plaintiffs alone and I reserve all rights and claims I am provided with according to any law, including my right to, with all due respect, reject the jurisdiction of Canada's courts, the right to defend against and discredit the entire claim as well as to set off and counterclaim with at least two claims of my own I believe I have against Sharman Networks.
Also, if the legal proceedings against you shall continue I offer to legally assign to you all rights and claims I may have against Sharman Networks including with respect to an unjust enrichment claim and the defamatory expressions used against me, if in the opinion of your lawyers this may help.

It's not too late to kiss and make up.

Thank you for the great work you do here and for your stand on the right side of free speech,

Cheers :-)

Itai Leshem
Tel-Aviv, Israel
ileshem@gmail.com