Free music downloads via Kazaa

Kazaa, a web application that allows users to exchange a basically unlimited supply of music MP3s, videos and more, has attracted 60 million users around the world (Todd Woody, "The Race to Kill Kazaa"). Kazaa turns a profit by selling ad space through its application without charging the user a cost for downloads; therefore making Kazaa an extremely popular choice for music download.

Kazaa was able to escape the wrath of Napster's copyright infringement lawsuit because the company is very segmented with no clear person to sue... "There is no plug to pull" writes Woody in his article, "The Race to Kill Kazaa" (304).

The global entertainment industry banded together to try to shut down Kazaa, but the U.S. District Court judge was looking at the logistics of the situation: with Kazaa employees and central unit split up and separated across the globe, "Does Sharman (the company with ownership of Kazaa) do enough business in the U.S. to be lawfully included as part of the Morpheus-Grokster lawsuit (agaisnt file share)?" (305).

I think because of all the loop holes and technicalities the indsutry had to face to begin legal proceedings with Sharman (and the rest of the Kazaa network), it makes it easy for a company to become secretive and allow users to access free music download. I also think music download is too expensive - CDs can cost $20 - but I wish there was a more happy medium. Record labels and the artists deserve their fair cut of the music they make, but they shouldn't be able to charge an unreasonable fee for it. I think the proliferation of the Internet, combined with audience frustrations over the cost of CDs led to the creation of free music download.

P2P

Remember when Metallica sued Napster in 2000? That's when the world took notice that P2P file sharing was becoming a big problem. But before that, the Internet was a download haven, where you could get copies of your favorite music/movies/software for free! So much so, that for a long time, I, along with many others, thought the Internet was a place to download stuff. Many years down the line, I know of its infinite possibilities, but to me, then, it was all about limewire, torrents and other such sites. The authorities finally caught on, but I don't think it has stopped the process. But downloading is a lot lesser than it used to be. But why would you download when you can stream? Try to bring the hammer down, and people will find ways and means to beat the system. Its a human trait! Like it happened with Kazaa:

On a January morning three months after the suit was filed, Amsterdam-based Kazaa.com went dark and Zennstrom vanished. Days later, the company was reborn with a structure as decentralized as Kazaa's peer-to-peer service itself. Zennstrom, a Swedish citizen, transferred control of the software's code to Blastoise, a strangely crafted company with operations off the coast of Britain - on a remote island renowned as a tax haven - and in Estonia, a notorious safe harbor for intellectual property pirates. And that was just the start.

Earlier, in India, I used to download a lot of music. Then one fine day, Limewire gave my system a trojan. With my hard drive completely erased, I had to get music from my friends. P2P, anyone? I then started working for a music magazine where I had access to an insane amount of music. By then, I had completely stopped downloading.

Why would I when I can stream? For free? The other day, I wanted to watch Gran Torino again and it was not running in any theaters. Also, it was not out on DVD. So I just went to OVGUIDE and keyed it in. Sure enough, more than 20 sites allowed me to watch the film. Again, for free! Also, with sites like Youtube, where high definition is now a possibility, I can go to sites like www.zamzar.com, that allow me to convert files. This file conversion software is totally legal and provides me with a loophole to get a song that I want. Since I am almost perpetually online, I listen to online radios like imeem and pandora - all sites that provide clear, high quality music.

So although I agree that it is totally pointless to bring the hammer down, what can we do to give people the credit they deserve?