Kazaa Continues to Evolve

Zephy writes "The New York Times (free registration etc.. ) has an article about a new partnership between Kazaa, and Tiscali, the European internet access provider. Seems that Kazaa will carry ads for Tiscali's broadband services in return for a cash 'bounty' when a user signs up for broadband. To quote the article, 'This gives legitimacy to KaZaA.' Also, Cnet has an article about the new Kazaa version which has features designed to help users avoid corrupt or wrong files such as those spread around p2p by the MP/RIAA."

Comments

The clock is ticking

[Njoyda Sauce]

How soon till the RIAA slams Kazaa as long and hard as Napster? Surely they don't think that joining forces with European companies somehow protects them from the long arm of the RIAA?

Re:The clock is ticking

[Zhe Mappel]

I hate RIAA as much as the next guy, and I am not too happy about MPAA either, but then again, I am not happy about a lot of things really, but that doesn't make me some kind of moral superhero for the people...

Not for "the people," no. But when you uncritically parrot the sentiments of our economic masters, who decree that one must never share one's music, then you become their hero. Or stooge, as it were.

Re:The clock is ticking

[SirSlud]

> Whine all you want, but it is justifying theft, one way or the other, to think that it is ok to have services such as Kazaa.

We should shut down FedEx too. Last I heard, they had delivered lots of illegal things to sketchy people. Clearly we must ensure that people are on tigbht-fitting technological leashes so they don't have to think or act accountable for their actions. Welcome to utopia, where, if you can physically do it, it must be okay! Never think about the consequences of your individual actions again!

Would you be the first to turn in your friends and family, or are the people that made the tools responsible for bending and warping their puny little minds into acts of wonton piracy?

Re:The clock is ticking

[fandelem]

It is your COPY of the ARTISTS MUSIC, for your own personal use, yes. You can edit a track on your CD to your heart's content, as long as it's for personal use. The minute you distribute this in any way, it infringes on the copyright (which you have stated). Just like you buying a book, you could write a different ending, but when you start to claim that it's yours/selling it, it doesn't really go over to well, now does it?

I think you're not on the right topic-- The topic is regarding sharing files (ie. infringing on the copyright), not your rights concerning personal usage.

Observation

[poot_rootbeer]

'This gives legitimacy to KaZaA' means the same things as 'This paints a big bulls-eye on KaZaA's back for Rosen & Valenti to shoot at.'

Self Moderation

[QEDog]

"Kazaa's new software allows people to rate files so that corrupt or false files will quickly collect ratings poor enough to warn people away from downloading them. "

I wonder how long till this system is also exploited to give poor ratings to the real files. Maybe some other alternatives to self moderation can be used.

Rating System

[SealBeater]

Quick question on the rating system. What's to stop the same people who are
saturating KaZaa with false files to simply rate good files negatively? That
way, they don't even have to flood the network, all they have to do is stomp on
a file at a time and nobody is going to download it to see if it's good or not.
Is the rating system simply going to make it easier for companies to steer
people away from good files?

SealBeater

Tiscali == Full of FTP Abusers

[Frater 219]

Perhaps this will cut down on the number of port-21 scans I see from Tiscali. At present, they're one of the largest sources of scans for open anonymous FTP servers, right behind Wanadoo. The abusers are looking for FTP servers that allow both upload and download in the same directory. When they find them, they fill them up with warez, porn, and movies.

Now, you may think, hey, free warez, porn, and movies ... but I'll bet you don't work for a site with a few hundred technically bright but security-dumb scientists. These folks like open FTP because it makes it easy to collaborate and share data, but they don't like having their disks fill up with blowjob MPEGs.

So if Tiscali can get its warezers and pr0nsters running Kazaa and shoving spyware onto each other's systems all day, maybe they will go away and leave my users' port 21 alone.

I'll be glad when kazaa dies..

[Suppafly]

As someone who has to do network support, nothing is worse than a computer which has had kazaa and the accompaning spyware installed. That new.net crap ruins the winsock stuff forcing a total reinstall, and those spyware proxys have people complaining about QoS when its the proxy which is providing the crappy service. I await the day we come to /. to bury kazaa, not to praise it.

How odd that an ISP wants warez kiddies

[vidnet]

Most ISPs seems to want to block or limit throughput for heavy traffic apps like this. What exactly is Tiscali trying to do?

Are they trying to round up all the kiddies on their network, driving bandwidth costs down?

First impressions

[EpsCylonB]

they are promoting bands and videos on the search page but to play them you need to update your DRM software.

seems to me that kazaa could be trying to set it's self up as a media delivery system when palladium and all the copyright protection is implemented.

Legitimacy?

[csnydermvpsoft]

Woohoo, Kazaa joined an affiliate program. Does that that give my favorite pr0n site legitimacy too?

Re:Piracy?

[SirSlud]

> to some degree, you decrease the value of the song by listening to it, since the best time is the first time

Many songs take _more_ than one listening in order for you to appreciate the value (in fact, most, unless you're really lacking in any appreciation for music.)

What you're proposing is perposterous. By your logic, we should prevent friends from hearing the album we just bought because they should buy it themselves. Think about what you're saying. Do you really owe studios a buck when you watch a movie at a friends house? You've just decreased the value of the product! No .. because labels know that if your friend likes it, they'll buy it themselves.

You sound like the reason you buy a CD is to listen to a song once. The poor pop music industry sure makes it feel that way, doesn't it? People forget that you buy albums because you want to hear the song many times. If you listen to something once, what you want is the radio to play it, or to go over to your friends house to hear it (uhoh, call the police!)

You have to be kidding me that you really consider that when you go over to a friends house to check out a new album, you're decreasing the value of the product. I suppose that should be illegal too?