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Azureus Inc. Moves Toward Commercialization
SamBob writes "Future releases of the most popular BitTorrent client, Azureus, will come bundled with a 'platform' for media companies to promote their product to Azureus' multi-million users, reports Slyck.com. Azureus Inc., who are the newly formed company behind the Azureus software, plan to generate a profit from the platform in the future, but in the short-term are hoping to help independent film companies find their audience."
Am I the only one who thinks that this really means that it is going to be the next Kazaa?
English is easier said than done.
If they make it annoying at all, what's to prevent people from switching to the slew of other BT apps out there? Given the fact that advertising is almost always made to catch the eye, it'll have a hard time not annoying users. Frankly, I'd switch to something else even if it was a static clickable banner.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
All you have to do is, say, convince Cartoon Network or Sci-Fi to publish their TV shows (with commercials intact) through Azureus. Users provide most of the bandwidth, content is delivered in a manner that earns providers money, and Azureus takes a slice off the top.
And suddenly we won't see HBO suing for people downloading the latest Sopranos. We'll see HBO distributing episodes for $1-2 to anybody who wants on the private tracker. Or better yet, users simply subscribe to the HBO/Azureus service and can download any available content they want that month and view as they please. Keep the price reasonable and the only pirates you have to battle are the people who wouldn't pay for your service even if they couldn't decrypt your works.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
It looks like it's time to migrate to utorrent if you haven't already. There no commercialization associated with it and it's much faster. The only downside is that it's for windows only.
They'll be a direct target if they offer copyrighter material without permission. If they do this the right way, and sign on independent movies (which the article mentions) with permission from the makers, we might finally see p2p distribution of movies and music become legitimate, and Azureus become a place to get good, independent legal media.