Skype + Kazaa = ?

An anonymous reader writes "Kazaa has now embedded Skype in their v3.0 download." This isn't a surprising pairing, and it adds millions of VoIP users to the network ... the article also notes that this might bring out the spammers as well.

Comments

P2P legitimate uses

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good thing.

Let's please have legitimate uses for P2P so that the greedy fuckers at RIAA and MPAA can't run around trying to ban P2P on the basis that it only has detrimental uses.

Imagine if cooking or hunting wasnt invented, knives would have been banned cause it would only be used for killing people.

Think about it .. why is the bomb makin illegal?

Ridiculous but true.

Re:P2P legitimate uses

[DaHat]

Ahh the typical stupid P2P zealot who thinks that copyright infringement, just because it hurts the MPAA and RIAA is ok.

Yes, p2p does have legitimate purposes, unlike the VCR though, many services, including Kazaa are primarily used for copyright infringement.

The reason they have gone after Kazaa and not say... the maker(s) of bit torrent, is that Kazaa was designed from the get go for copyright infringement. Bram Cohen didn't have downloading music and movies in mind, but legitimate content distribution, to quote from the BitTorrent website:

You have a great product, many customers, and are delivering your product to hordes of happy customers online. Serving large files creates problems of scaling, flash crowds, and reliability. As you grow, they become more central to your business, but your bandwidth costs go up as well. It's a vicious cycle.

There is a solution. BitTorrent is a simple software product which addresses all of these problems.

Kazaa on the other hand, like Napster and many others were with... less legitimate purposes in mind.

Besides... last I checked, the war the MPAA and RIAA had on P2P had nothing to do about it having no legitimate uses, but was how many users were using it.

The moral of this story? You need to grow up and stop with your "nyeh, guns don't kill people, bullets do" style arguments and recognize both sides of this issue (one you weren't even able to identify), even if you happen to disagree with one or both sides.

Re:P2P legitimate uses

[Queer Boy]

So uh, what if I were using a P2P program in a country that didn't recognise copyright. Would it be OK then?

You seem to have the attitude that just because some people believe that IP is real and there are laws, that everyone should hold that view.

Westerners...

This is a marriage made in heaven :-)

[muditgarg]

This looks like a win-win for both. Kazaa get the respectability it seeks and Skype get the huge customer base of Kazaa.
Especially as recently Dutch Supreme Court ruled Kazaa legal

Re:This is a marriage made in heaven :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, despise bundled software, personally i think they should draw the line at heavily endorsing eachother and linking some features. Getting more than you bargain for isn't always a good deal, in fact it can be downright annoying! what if i JUST want to download some files?

Spyware heaven

[Anonymous Coward]

so skype are now bundling their product with a spyware brimming p2p application that costs more in technical support to remove it and the damage it does than the PC is worth ? /me adds skype to DNS 127.0.0.1

Re:Antitrust case?

[Spad]

Kazaa hardly has a monopoly on P2P software

And what about...

[Tuxedo Jack]

How about the fact that Kazaa includes spyware like mad? How much you want to bet that there'll be speech-recognition software (a la that in OS 9) that picks up on keywords in calls and uses Kazaa's adware to create popups based on it?

Skype is only for kids anyway

[blackhedd]

Until they stop dissing SIP and play nice in the sandbox with the rest of the world, kids are all they'll get.

Re:Skype is only for kids anyway

[Nurgled]

The proprietary technology always (since the Internet has become popular with non-geeks) wins. See Jabber vs. AIM/MSN Messenger.

Branding and prettiness always wins over technical superiority, especially in a world where most people are stuck behind awkward NAT gateways that they don't really understand. SIP might be open and friendly, but it's a royal pain in the ass to deploy for most home users, especially if you get two people behind the same NAT gateway wanting to use it.

Re:I wonder who would use it.

[someguy456]

No, the average Kazaa user wouldn't know about IRC.

And how long before voice ads?

[binaryspiral]

So I get a P2P client with more spyware than a warez site, and now they shove a voip client in it - will they also generate audio ads?

I don't understand why Kazaa is still being used when there are so many other viable P2P clients out there that won't harm your PC.

Re:Smart move of Skype?

[InodoroPereyra]

I have to agree here. The reason for them to do this seems to be their hunger for new users.

My feeling is that their business plan was:

1. Release a great product: IM and VoIP in a cute small package that just works eveywhere (Windows, Macs, Linux). PC to PC calls are free, PC to Phone calls is their revenue (they charge for them)
2. Make the product massively popular
3. Get a steady revenue from a small percentage of the huge user base, making PC to Phone calls

Problem is, step 2 didn't go very well. They have a nice user base, but it seems not to be large enough for their needs.

I am a happy Linux Skype user myself, and I buy skypeout PC-Phone talk time regularly. My feeling from the tone of the skype employees posts in the forums is that they need to increase their user base, and they need it soon. Good luck to them. I would prefer an OS product, but skype installed in a snap and it just works, at least for me.

Re:I wonder who would use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Kazaa is mainstream, irc is not.

On the otherhand, while users of Freenet would be aware of irc, they'd probably consider it to be far too lacking in security.

Re:Bandwidth?

[rsgill]

I think the main idea behind this is to defelct lawsuits.

By having Skype embedded with Kazaa, they have a very strong case for proving non copyright infringing use of their product.

Whether or not there is any bandwidth left to make this merging of Skype and Kazaa work on the other hand is still in question.

Re:Do people still use Kazaa?

[Espectr0]

To what? The fasttrack protocol is still the best and most populated one to get files. Edonkey just sucks, requiring you to hunt servers, and have share ratios. Gnutella just doesn't cut it either.

I use poisoned on macosx, which is a pretty UI on top of gift.

skype problems

[steve_l]

1. your contact list is stored per machine, not on the server. When your machine goes (like my laptop got stolen last week), your contact list is gone. They should at least cache known skype users.

2. tone generation dubious. not good for getting through onto conference calls reliably.

3. no caller ID. so you cannot call people with a private-caller block unless you enter the phone number by hand. Which leads back to issue #2

4. the credit expires if you dont use it.

Otherwise, its an excellent service for long distance networking, and the linux client works great.

Re:So this means...

[brianosaurus]

...companies that make software whose primary purpose is helping folk to rip off copyright holders ...

I'm so tired of this.

The labels in the UK just announced they've had their best earnings ever. US music labels have increased revenue even while decreasing the quantity (and quality) of releases. If anyone is getting ripped off, its the consumers NOT the music companies.

Downloads are an excellent way to preview music before you buy, so you can spend your $15 on music you know you will enjoy instead of being disappointed. Happy consumers will likely purchase more than those who get repeatedly burned buying 1-hit wonders.

Not all p2p software is backed by unethical companies, and a lack of ethics isn't unique to that industry by any stretch of the imagination. The RIAA has hardly been ethical with their scare tactics.

I do agree with your comment about the government.