Hey guys, it's Fred! I hope you all had a fun time with the switch from Daylights Savings to Standard Time!
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| WHAT TIME IS IT SERIOUSLY GUYS |
Today we'll be talking about one of the best-known post-Napster "second-generation" piracy sites:
Kazaa
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| Kazaa's website today |
Kazaa (sometimes styled KaZaA) was another brainchild of the man behind Napster. However, Kazaa differed from its grandfather in several important ways. First, it was a decentralized, P2P network that allowed direct sharing between users without the need of a central server, circumnavigating the lawsuit filed against Napster. Additionally, it not only allowed people to share music, but also videos and software. This greatly expanded the possibility for piracy and made it very, very dangerous to copyright holders. Hence, its days were probably numbered from the beginning.
Kazaa wasn't just a website; it was also a program that users downloaded to their computers to enable P2P sharing. Eventually, Kazaa began bundling spyware/adware with their program, and it became targetable by antimalware programs. This, coupled with a long and turbulent history with copyright holders, sounded its death knell. It is still possible to download hacked versions of the Kazaa software, but the Kazaa website is currently inactive (see above). If you're interested in learning more about Kazaa, this website contains a number of news items about Kazaa and this article covers some of Kazaa's history.
Tune in next time for one more old-school pirate site!
For every legitimate music buying site, how many pirating sites do you estimate there are?
ReplyDeleteIt's ok Fred, you're a dinosaur, you shouldn't understand the concept of time or clocks. You just need to understand asteroids.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of hilarious how many tries people have made to create file sharing websites to be shut down and prosecuted. Especially with the large uproar that Napster caused, you would think its creators had learned their lesson.