Kazaa Launches Legitimacy Campaign

Beolach writes "The Washington Post has an article on Kazaa launching a $1 million advertising campaign promoting itself as a legitimate media distribution tool. From the article: 'The campaign is the latest push by the Kazaa file-sharing service and its parent company, Sharman Networks, to counter a multi-million-dollar legal and lobbying effort launched by music, software and movie firms convinced that peer-to-peer (P2P) services are a major source of online piracy'."

Comments

That is because it is a fact!

[The-Pheon]

music, software and movie firms convinced that peer-to-peer (P2P) services are a major source of online piracy

They are convinced because.....it is a major source of piracy! :)
Promoting kazaa for legitimate purposes is the right idea, it is a tool. for example ftp can be used for internet piracy as well, it is just another tool.

Kaaza and the War on Copyright Violations

[YouTalkinToMe]

I found this quote particularly interesting:

"Whenever I talk to people about Kazaa, they treat it like marijuana -- as much as they love it, they have a sense that what they're doing is a little bit wrong."

I also think the pending War on Copyright Violations is a bit like the War on Marijuana: Driven by entrenched intrests; lubricated by political donations; with lots of innocent casualties; and ultimately futile because at the end of the day it criminalizes something which is not immoral.

So here's some legitimate ?s

[The Ape With No Name]

Who is bankrolling the campaign? How does a company, dare I say, with no visible means of support come up with the scratch? Venture capital? Dunning the sorority girls in Massey Hall? Dollar a piece so you can have your Christina Arugula, girls? I just don't see how they do it?

Illegitimate ?:

BTW, is it just me or is Kazaa's boss a stone-cold hottie?

Re:So here's some legitimate ?s

[Albanach]

Who is bankrolling the campaign? How does a company, dare I say, with no visible means of support come up with the scratch?

According to their website, kazaa is the world's most downlaoded software. They recorded 2.8 million downloads last week. Their software is full of adware. They receive revenue for every add they feed to your desktop.

Now even if their revenue per ad is tiny - even a fraction of a cent, just do the sums. 2.8 million is a big number. I suspect if you log in you'll also see a very big number of connected users, most of whom are "enjoying" a steady stream of ads in return for the free service. Multiply big number * fraction of a cent and that's their revenue stream.

Weak argument, IMHO

[CrystalFalcon]

Isn't this like the "guns are not made for killing people" argument?

P2P networks were designed to a) distribute files, b) without a central authority that could limit what gets distributed. It is a given that people will distribute things they otherwise can't.

So even if guns have theoretical uses besides killing or hurting people, it is their primary function. Just like the primary function of P2P networks are to allow sharing of digital content, regardless of copyright. Good people want to share what they enjoy; it's the same basic psychology as inviting somebody over for a dinner you've spent hours cooking. You are proud of it, and you want other people to experience what you liked to experience, to make them feel as good as you did. Humans are not alone about this; the same behavior can be seen in all primate species - especially with regards to sharing food in a community.

However, in the specific case of P2P networks, you still get to keep what you are sharing. Therefore, the cost of sharing - to the sharer - is close to zero. Hence the effortlessness of sharing gigs and gigs of movies, games, you name it. Myself, I share about 350G of unnamed media, and that puts me in the lesser ranks of my P2P communities.

Note here: I personally believe that the concept of copyright needs some serious overhaul; when 50 million people believe something is right and some 10,000 believe it is wrong, then by the laws of most countries, it cannot be wrong for a long time more. But that is another issue; I just wanted to point out that "P2P has legitimate uses" is a rather weak argument.

Re:Without statistics/usage figures to back it up.

[j-turkey]

I'm satisfied with any margin being used for legal purposes...and I'll give you an example. RedHat is legitimately distributed via BitTorrent. Frankly, I don't believe in group punshment -- if a small group of people have a legitimate use for something, there's no reason to tear it down.

It's clear that Bittorrent is being used to distribute both legal and illegal content. I don't know the percentages, and with regards to the discussion of legality, I don't care. With regard to arguing over percentages, it's pretty easy to draw parallels to the DeCSS lawsuits (where the legitimate users of this software were Linux users -- but because they were a minarity, they were ignored). This was a bullshit case with an outcome that I still view as completely unjust.

The fact is, P2P is a tool. It can be both used and misused. Further, the implications for the common person to be able to publish any type of document and distribute it on a massive scale with a cost approaching nil are great. I view this alone to be a greater threat to mass media than piracy. It's their content. If they want to distribute it with loads of DRM -- fine. I jsut won't buy it. If they can't innovate fast enough -- fuck 'em.

--Turkey