DIARY

February 17, 2003

Reporter from London

The New York bureau of the WSJ has asked a reporter from their office in London to contact Pieter. The mission was obvious, the reporter should try to establish whether we were a legitimate business and whether we actually had this wonderful file-sharing software. The reporter would want to see our software. Who wouldn’t? The question now was “how are we going to come up with a software demo in a couple of hours?” Although we could have concocted something if we would have taken the time to do so, we had nothing. Programming a demo was not part of the plan. Despite this minor problem we were determined to come up with a solution. Pieter contacted one of his programmers to help out. This wasn’t much help. The second idea was to find a “starving” programmer to make a demo … fast. He would have about 9 hours to get this done. What a crazy plan but what do you do? If this didn’t work out we would have no other option but to indicate that the software was actually not available in the Netherlands at this point. This kind of made sense and it was a semi-believable story. The idea was to tell “that our attorneys have advised us not to do any programming here at our office in the Netherlands. It's all overseas, and if you've seen how KazAa has distributed their assets, then you'll certainly understand that we're facing the same issues.” If the reporter would then ask “But aren't you protected here in Holland?” we would answer “In theory, yes. But say it goes to court and we lose. Then the worse case is that we shut the office and pay the fines. But the software lives on because it is based in another country.” That was the plan. It wasn’t much but it is not what you tell, it is how you tell it, right? What a stupid idea! Despite our efforts we did not manage to whip up a demo so Pieter would have to improvise.


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ICQ fragment
Monday, February 17, 2003 :
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Phenix (08:23 PM) :
Check you email for a WSJ update.
Pieter (08:37 PM) :
Take a look at the web site. We are almost done with the section news. We have about 10 more (recent) articles to go.
Pieter (08:39 PM) :
No mail yet. I guess the server is on holiday as well.
Phenix (08:43 PM) :
Sorry to keep you in suspense, I'll cut and paste, hang on.
Phenix (08:43 PM) :
Just talked to Anna and she said that Charles Goldsmith from the London bureau will be calling tomorrow. He was supposed to do it today, but he was called into another story.
If he's in London, I don't know that he will be coming for a visit? Anna said he has both of our contact info and that he would be calling in the morning - she wasn't sure if that meant calling you or me. Considering the time difference, he'll probably call you.
Phenix (08:44 PM) :
He could fly in, I suppose. It's what, a 55 minute flight. As a Texan, that doesn't seem possible to fly from country to country.
Phenix (08:46 PM) :
I sent you some info about Charles and a recent article in an email. He's an entertainment reporter like Anna.
Phenix (08:48 PM) :
Are you ready to show him your software?
PIETER (09:20 PM) :
Not a good idea. We can’t do that right now. We have our reasons.

… Pieter and Steven continued over the phone …