KaZaA Collapses

MikeKD writes "according to SFGate, KaZaA has announced that it will fold due to the cost of defending itself against the RIAA & MPAA. The timing is notable since on Monday, Altnet (owned by Brillant Digital) announced plans for "sponsored listings in peer-to-peer search" on its "separate [and] secure P2P resource-sharing network"."

Comments

Interesting strategy

[Rogerborg]

I'm actually quite taken with Kazaa's strategy. It seems like they're just going to keep "selling" the name and technology to own of their own subsidiaries or spin-offs, then fold whatever part of the company is currently being sued.

Of course, it's a scam, and the [MP|RI]AA can just pursue the new owner... who can just sell on the name and technology, and fold. They'll have to actually go after the owners personally, which is a completely different proposition.

I'm not exactly enamoured with Kazaa (gnutella for me, thanks), but I think they've hit on the only possible defence to the "litagate them into submission" tactics that the [MP|RI]AA are increasingly turning to. However, it's yet another indicator that if you want to start an innovative business, don't do it inthe USA, or in anywhere with strong treaties with the USA. That part is very sad.

Re:Interesting strategy

[mshiltonj]

... yet another indicator that if you want to start an innovative business, don't do it inthe USA, or in anywhere with strong treaties with the USA.

I mostly agree.

If you clarify by saying "innovative and disruptive" business, then I think you are 100% correct. You can be innovative, but you can't disrupt revenue streams of larger corporations.

Innovation may be tolerated, depending on circumstances. Disruptive technology will be eliminated at all costs.

Re:Truly Amazing

[TheAJofOZ]

MP3 quality is a far cry from CD quality, afterall.

Well, not really. On a good quality sound system, MP3 is a far cry from CD quality - on an average sound system to average people, it's pretty much the same. I suspect that a very large majority of people would fail blind tests judging between MP3s and CDs playing on their own sound system. Heck, most people would fail when played on a top quality sound system - they listen to Britney Spears for goodness sake! :)

Re:Try to catch me ...

[tftp]

kazaa users connect to one server to retrieve a list of alternate nodes to connect to

1. An IP address hardly can be a "circumvention device". More likely, it is speech. The server that the IP points to may even not have anything offending on it. It is more like a general purpose communication network, like a telephone.
2. Even if those IPs are "evil" now, they could be easily obtained through other means, such as an IRC channel where clients would automatically advertise themselves (or Jabber, or AIM...)
3. Once you cache 1000 IP addresses, you don't need to go to the main server any more - chances are very good that one of those 1000 boxes is online, and once you connect it will give you the latest and greatest IP list.
4. Though Freenet itself may be too slow for P2P, real time traffic, it will be perfect as a secure and unbannable distribution medium for IP addresses. The Freenet protocol already has all the necessary types of keys.

Re:Newsflash!

[Beliskner]

Being on the Internet does not make one immune to copyright laws!

Copyright is an artifical concept. Many lawyers think intellectual *property*. Property being 90% of the law. In actuality it should be *intellectual* <font size=-3>property</font> which is completely seperate.

Copyright laws can change tomorrow. Some artists and all record companies will want 100% control of their product - the DVD regions system is racist as it discriminates against people in other countries and thus inhibits free trade, violating WTO regulations, even if you're willing to pay full price for the product, they still want to control who buys it, where and when. This shows me there's no middle ground with these people - it's CDBPPTA or nothing, and they'll use the most expensive lawyers available. The outcome of legal action is a combination of Poker (cheaper to fold instead of raise, even if your own hand is better), luck and who's right and wrong.

Everybody that I know that went to court "on principle" has lost their house, car and life savings as a result, despite the fact they were right. Losing everything to lawyer fees when you are 60 years old is NOT funny. This system is just plain wrong.

I wish binLaden smashed planes into the Supreme court instead of WTC. Amen.

Honestly, when I look at Sharia law I can see why the Middle East supports it, looked at objectively it as a whole at least gives the impression of love and caring for the average citizen, together with the accruing of large amounts of money being an abominational and disgusting act of selfishness. I dunno man, I can't help feeling that there's something there that we've lost.

Sharman networks should move to Dubai in UAE, Towry Law is based there and it's a beautiful place, everybody has a Mercedes. The servers can be housed in Saudi Arabia, they have no IP laws there, but they'll need one big air conditioning unit. Why don't people locate server farms in Greenland, Norway or in the Arctic? No air conditioning costs whatsoever, just a few fans.

Cheapest model in IT:
Servers in cold countries (e.g. Norway)
Coders in cheap countries (e.g. India, China)
Consumers in rich countries (e.g. America)

Re:"In a related story...

[Beliskner]

set up an ftp server, give the address out to your friends, and have them set up ftps and give the address to you. simple

This is exactly how it was done in the past, friend - FTP. Oh man, I've been trading files since you were just a twinkle in your parents' eyes kiddo. 5 years ago in my day it used to be www.audiogalaxy.com as the search engine (like Fast Networks www.alltheweb.com FTP search). It spidered FTP servers. You'd type in the song you want and get a list of FTP servers matchig with their IP address and login/pass (usualy mp3:mp3). They'd usually be running warftp daemon, have an upload:download of 1:3 usually so you MUST upload a song to be able to download a song. Unlike Kazaa if you upload a song the guy doesn't want he takes it personal and *kicks* you from his ftp server. In other words you spent 1 hour uploading a song over a dialup connection just to get kicked after 1/4 of your download, and maybe get your IP address shitlisted (if the song you up'ed was that bad). This is why in my winamp 40% of songs are incomplete, ftp server admin kicked me. Sometimes you'd do a reverse-DNS and see the FTP server is in Russia, where it's 5am, so the FTP server is unmanned. This is when you have fun and upload win386.swp and kernel32.dll to get download credits. If you want to download a 5 Meg song, and the FTP server has a 1:3 ratio, you have to upload at least a 1.8 Meg song so you'd always have your mp3 portfolio in windows explorer arranged in size order. FTP admins got pissed off that only small songs get uploaded, but in dial-up days this still took an eternity.

These were the days when CuteFTP was unstable and kept crashing. Ahhhh, those were the days when song-swapping was personal. Some people with me got kicked from the FTP server in mid-download, got pissed off and ping-flooded the FTP server for 10 minutes. It was all so personal.

Usually the FTP servers would be busy with >50 simultaneous users so you;d have to hammer the FTP server with a 3-second wait timeout. Sometimes I'd use my own PC to hammer, and I'd ssh into my friend's linux box and use it's ftp to hammer also, and then use the first one to connect. Trouble is if you hammered to hard they'd ban your IP address for 15 minutes to 1 day. With DHCP just hang up and dial up again to get a new IP address. These were the days when a static IP address (like with ADSL) was something to be avoided at all costs.

Sometimes I reminisce about the good old days by downloading from Kazaa and opening up an MSDOS prompt and typing netstat to get the reverse-DNS, makes things feel a little personal again for a few seconds. But I suppose old-timers like me with the personal touch aren't wanted any more *sniff sniff*.

So when you kids point and double-click on Kazaa, remember us, the pioneers who did things the hard way.

Score:5 Historic, pre-P2P era dinosaur, modded up out of feeling of respect for your elders, when everything wasn't as automatic as Kazaa