One portfolio company at timberline Venture Partners sounds a lot like a classic bubble play: faddish technology, doesn't make money, lots of competition. And, oh yeah, its products may be illegal. That hasn't stopped the fund, an affiliate of venture capitalists Draper Fisher Jurvetson, from betting $10 million on StreamCast, the Los Angeles outfit that distributes Morpheus, a son-of-Napster file-sharing program. The music and movie businesses blames StreamCast (and services like Kazaa and Grokster) for destroying sales by facilitating rampant piracy. Both industries have been suing StreamCast and Grokster since October 2001, claiming copyrigh infringement, but the media moguls have lost twice.
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