KaZaa raises from the dead, utters sweet nothings
We clearly are approaching kaliyuga, with some of the most evil, illegal, services now atoning and trying to get a seat in legal heaven. The good old days of free filesharing are slowly slipping away.
Napster succumbed to the wounds inflicted upon it by the RIAA back in 2003 and Napster 2 arose from its ashes, promising a 100% reduction in free filesharing fun, and expecting users to pay instead. And pay they did, Napster has over 800,000 subscribers.
Recently we saw The Pirate Bay close down for pirate ships, only to be reconfigured into a family safe theme park, pay as you go indeed. Most people chose to leave instead.
Now we see Kazaa promising to disinfect itself of all the viruses that are its claim to fame, and infect your files with DRM instead. Now a subscription-based pay service which gives you the freedom to download as many files as you want for $20 a month and play them in as many as three devices! Freedom indeed.
Their new service now allows you to share their files (photos, videos and documents) with each other. However, their press release does more to hamper your confidence than anything else. The original PR references court cases against a ‘tereastarr’ (real name Jammie Thomas) who was fined $80,000 for each of the 24 tracks he shared. Being in the technology field ourselves, we’ve heard of cheaper ways to share files, honest!
Worst case: we’ve lost another source of virus and DRM infestation.