Sharman Networks dissinters Kazaa
p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- Kazaa, the despised Australian P2P filesharing application owned by Sharman networks and implicated in the majority of RIAA file sharing cases, is back in business —-
—- and working with the people who put it down.
Credited with being one of the first companies to introduce spyware to the net, Sharman bought the application and associated technology from Skype creators Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.
For years Kazaa cynically claimed to be a committed part of the P2P community, at the same time striving to cross to the corporate side of the tracks where the money was.
Kazaa was sued by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music in Australia with ex-Oz detective sergeant Michael Speck (right), who ran the the Big 4’s MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Investigations), leading the attack.
Finally settling for $115 million, Kazaa is now reincarnated as a music rental service —- with Speck a part of the team.
With Speck is Kevin Bermeister, the man behind the, “failed Sega World theme park at Darling Harbour [in Australia] — a venture which reportedly cost $60 million to $80 million,” said the Sydney Morning Herald, going on:
“He walked away, but took the mothballed park’s general manager, [Kazaa boss Nikki] Hemming, across to his new dotcom business, Brilliant Digital Entertainment. This project was to have made video games, but – when that venture faltered – came to rely on revenue from Kazaa.”
Under its latest guise as corporate good guy, Kazaa is offering tunes from the Big 4 but its, “comeback is anything but assured,” says Los Angeles Times, continuing:
“It’s been nearly four years since the name ‘Kazaa’ was associated with online music.
“And other file-sharing services that have gone legit, such as iMesh, met with limited success, largely because they lack the key to their earlier cache — free music downloads. Even Napster, the original file-sharing site whose name is synonymous with digital downloads, has struggled as a new, paid service.”
Kazaa also has to deal with the fact that, unlike the applications mentioned by the LA Times, it still has its reputation to contend with.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
RIAA file sharing cases – Kazaa, the RIAA and Jammie Thomas, oxctober 17, 2008
Sydney Morning Herald – When the music stops, march 23, 2005
Los Angeles Times – Onetime peer-to-peer bete noir Kazaa relaunches as legitimate music site, July 20, 2009
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July 21st, 2009 at 1:05 pm
So basically its a music rental service? You know what? I would rather just download and discover music from artists not affiliated with the RIAA. If I wanted to “rent” music, I’d borrow a cd from a friend or something.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Can you say Napster? Can you say Audiogalaxy? Can anyone learn from these mistakes?
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:18 am
It’s the RIAA, what do you expect? Their brains can’t function properly when they’re being deprived of oxygen as a result of being held within one’s rectal cavity.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:10 am
@Reader’s Write: You can discover a lot (from what we’ve discovered) at frostclick.com . Tons of non-RIAA and free (Creative Commons) world class music available
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 am
I don’t think they “get it”… People do not give a flying fig about a “brand name” when they want to download shit.
Users will jump from one service to another on almost on a whim. You heard the phrase “word of mouth” before, well it is (perhaps_ most apt on the internet, sites live and die by word of mouth on the net, seriously will these buisness people trying to buy a “brand” not get it ?
GGF may be next to get a lesson in this one, unless they really do have this fantastic idea that could buck the trend.