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KaZaA Wants to Be An Official Content Distributor
scubacuda writes "Detroit News: Nikki Hemming, CEO of KaZaA, says KaZaA wants to be the official online distributor for the entertainment industry. 'Realize that this technology is inexorable, and come to the table,' says Hemming to our friends Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti."
"When users want one, they pay a royalty fee. If they want to share files, the system forces the next person who wants to get it to also pay the fee. '
so this is really where KaZaa 'comes to the table' and joins the establishment.
Advertising can only take you so far. At some point you've got to sell your soul and talk to the bigwigs.
What kind of safeguards are going to need to be put in place to make sure that content isn't simply distributed to the ends of the earth like it is now? Un-bypassable commercials?
I have been pwned because my
Personally, I think a tool like Kazaa would be perfect for a TV network to distribute programming. They could seed next week's episode of whatever into the network and allow it to be distributed to those who want to receive it. Use DRM to expire content after a week after you first play it if you want, but this would allow me to retrieve a program and then watch it at my convenience.
.... oh shoot... I just dropped my rose-colored glasses... nevermind...
(I'd prefer a TivO, but they're not in Canada, yet...)
Wouldn't it be something if a network actually embraced Kazaa?
This will never work. The credibility of this service now could not be worse with the RIAA et al, they would never agree to sell their content on Kazaa. Especially since the Kazaa model would give them very little control over their own content, they'd never go for it. Presumably Hemming knows this (I can't imagine her being naive enough not to), I wonder if she is just taking the opportunity to try and goad Rosen and Valenti...
This is a great idea that KaZaA has been trying to implement for quite some time now. However, after seeing musicians challenge Apple to force selling of entire albums as opposed to just songs it's almost clear that the RIAA isn't willing to do away with its current business model to stop copyright violations. The RIAA wants everyone else to change but won't think about changing themselves.
Kazaa's intention to distribute licensed content via its users rather than via a central server
Kazaa intends to reward users with 'points' which they can spend on more content or prizes, for distributing this content for them
What remains to be seen though, is whether users will be willing to pay for the kind of content that they are used to downloading for free, and could probably obtain for free elsewhere. Given that Kazaa's users are already used to this convinience, it seems unlikely that they will start queueing up to get their copyrighted files in legal form. This is especially true since the download of these new licensed files from other P2P users will likely be no faster or more reliable than other files of more dubious legality. Also by allowing users to handle the distribution, the door is opened for cracks that allow people to start handing out their already purchased content for free. I'm unsure how Kazaa intends to stop this from happening, and with the files already stored on a user's machine, any method they select should be fairly simple to overcome.
Napster, Kazaa and Gnutella, etc. are great for poor people (i.e. most of us) or for companies that aren't making any money off the downloads to serve large amounts of data without buying expensive infrastructure. However, for a business that actually expects to make money off the service, I think that distributed P2P is irrelevant. You lose control over quality of service and availability without saving that much money.
I don't see why the music industry would use Kazaa's technology and I don't see why users would want Kazaa's nasty DRM.
If Kazaa plans on making money from using other people's bandwidth, isn't that going to be in violation of some ISP's service agreements? I know my ISP prohibts "commercial" use, so if I share files and for which I am paid in some form, wouldn't that in violation of that agreement?
Granted, they don't seem to mind p2p right now unless they get a notice from the RIAA/MPAA, but if Kazaa goes legit I could see them demanding a piece of the pie too.