Free file trading appear to be alive and well despite the closure of Napster’s free service, 2.5 millions digital files were transferred on the Internet over a one six-minute period, said Jon Fowler, director of marketing at NetPD, a London based company that tracks file-trading.
According to Download.com, which is owned by CNET Networks, the publisher of ZDNet UK, the Kazaa applications have be downloaded 229,150,955 times. Spokeswoman from Sharman Network said Kazaa has been receiving an average of 366,000 downloads per day compared to the next popular application; ICQ which has been receiving an average of 50,000 downloads per day, as measured by Download.com.
The Australian owned company has far evaded the international recording industry's attempts to be shut down by setting up operations around the globe, such as the US, the South Pacific island nation Vanuatu and the Netherlands. The idea behind this is because because individual countries are responsible for regulating the Internet within their borders.
"The record companies can go after Kazaa in any country, but in a country like the Netherlands, the record industry went in to court with a theory and they lost," Band said. "(In the Netherlands), it's not contributory infringement to distribute their software."
Kazaa’s defence can also be bolsetered with with stronger ties between ISPs and file-trading companies.
Despite law suites by US courts, it doesn’t seem that any one can stop Kazaa with it’s launch of Kazza v2.5, wining the People's Voice Award in the category of Broadband as a part of the annual Webby Awards, adding French, German and Spanish languages as an options to its Kazaa Media Desktop (KMD) software showing it’s commitment to reach out to world wide audience.
With a decentralise network and the Kazza software running on individual PC’s around the globe and not on the company’s servers it would be hard to shut down the network, despite a court order demanding it do just that. Also in favour of Kazaa is that courts outside America have not been particularly aggressive about prosecuting companies distributing file-trading software.
Kazaa reamins safe at home for now, as the Australian recording industry hasn't filed any lawsuits against Sharman Networks.
With all attempts to squash such networks, Kazaa is still running stronger and there is no signs Kazaa will roll over and play dead.
Go To Page: 1
