Kazaa Becomes Legal Service

[ZaZu]

[news=http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41935000/jpg/_41935984_kazaa_sharman203.jpg]File-sharing site Kazaa will become a legal music download service following a series of high profile legal battles.

The peer-to-peer network has also agreed to pay $100m (£53m) in damages to the record industry.

The announcement follows the release of a music industry report that says more than 20 billion music tracks have been downloaded illegally in the last year.

File sharing and music piracy are key factors in the recent decline in record sales, according to the music business.

"We have won another battle in an ongoing war," said John Kennedy, chairman and CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI). "We move forward with a spring in our step."

Kazaa follows other sites like Napster which now offers legal downloads.

Unless you are an ardent downloader it is becoming harder to know where to go
Mark Mulligan, Jupiter Research

Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Jupiter Research said the amount of damages that Kazaa are willing to pay demonstrates how big the service had become.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5220406.stm

What-a-twist![/news]

[muchspl3]

glad I didn't have to post this

[gamer4eva]

Now they decide to make kazaa legal....i never used kazaa anyway but all i know that its a p2p program.

[Barbarossa]

No great loss really, it was already dead in the water. I'll be interested to know what this means for the fasttrack protocol. The rumours always were that Sharman could shut it down if they wanted. Perhaps we'll now find out.

All I see is even the die-hards will find alternatives. Or pay.

If free filesharing becomes less mainstream then they will eventually leave us alone. There'll always be someone somewhere who wants to share stuff for free.

[Damnatory]

File sharing and music piracy are key factors in the recent decline in record sales, according to the music business.

Now that's 'hitting the nail on the head!'

[FreeDoom]

"We have won another battle in an ongoing war," said John Kennedy, chairman and CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI). "We move forward with a spring in our step."

Yeah the life of this man is made of wins (not)
He came to my country and persuaded our own ri** to act agains't piracy by sending letters to users. The only thing he managed was a comment from a supreme court judge saying it was illegal...rofll he went away with the tail between his legs.

As for Kazaa, i think the time for the fans to leave it has come.

[Barbarossa]

File sharing and music piracy are key factors in the recent decline in record sales, according to the music business.

Now that's 'hitting the nail on the head!'

I don't actually think that's true.

I think the decline in record sales is more down to the cynically packaged processed pop tat that the record industry seems determined to try and push onto the record-buying public, rather than "proper" music.