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Kazaa Launches Legitimacy Campaign 252

Posted by simoniker from the v-well-behaved dept.
Beolach writes "The Washington Post has an article on Kazaa launching a $1 million advertising campaign promoting itself as a legitimate media distribution tool. From the article: 'The campaign is the latest push by the Kazaa file-sharing service and its parent company, Sharman Networks, to counter a multi-million-dollar legal and lobbying effort launched by music, software and movie firms convinced that peer-to-peer (P2P) services are a major source of online piracy'."
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Kazaa Launches Legitimacy Campaign More

Kazaa Launches Legitimacy Campaign

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  • But... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:22AM (#7518730)
    How will Kazaa Lite promote itself then? ;)

  • Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stephen R Hall ( 163541 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:24AM (#7518742)
    Kazaa is a major source of on-line piracy - they cannot deny this. However, P2P file sharing does have legitimate uses, and the tool cannot be blamed for what it is used for. Rat poison can be used to kill people, but that is about how it is used, not what it is.

    • Re:Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Davak ( 526912 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:38AM (#7518802) Homepage
      Oh... I see the anti-gun, anti-weapon, anti-rat poision people eating this thread up. (groan)

      However, more than actually trying to plead their case, it sounds like Kazaa is just trying to build support for their service. The ads are encouraging users to be cheerleaders for the service:
      The ads invite readers and Kazaa's estimated 60 million users to "join the revolution" by proclaiming their love of Kazaa to "politicians, journalists, record labels, movie companies and friends." They also exhort the entertainment industry to embrace the "revolution" or get left behind as technology passes them by.

      Use your money to educate people about copyright laws.
      Use your money to compensate artists.
      Use your money to change the laws regarding digital distribution.

      Use your money to promote an actual positive idea... We don't need wasted ads encouraging people to be cheerleaders for a service.

      They should just say:
      "Tell your lawmakers that you want free copyrighted material or you won't vote for them."

      That's just not a very tasteful way to promote your service, IMHO.
      • They should just say:
        "Tell your lawmakers that you want free copyrighted material or you won't vote for them."

        That's just not a very tasteful way to promote your service, IMHO.

        You seem to believe that copyright is a God-given impeccable right.

        It isn't. It is a man-made construct that can and should be changed if society as a whole benefits from another model.

        Of course, with any change of order comes fierce resistance from those who will lose from the new order. That has always been the case; already
        • The only people "benefiting" are the kids who can't be arsed to spend their allowance money on a CD.

          • Re:Copyright is not a given (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Perhaps.

            But if there are sixty million of them, and there are some thousands losing money over it, then I'd say that the aggregate benefit damn well outweights the aggregate loss.

    • Re:Piracy (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dcordeiro ( 703625 )
      it always depends on what most people do with it.

      Naming a thing "Rat Poison" doesn't means that is for rats. If *most* of the ppl used it to kill other ppl, it's not rat poison.
      Naming a basooka: toothpick doesn't makes it a toothpick :)

    • Weak argument, IMHO (Score:4, Interesting)

      by CrystalFalcon ( 233559 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:43AM (#7518822) Homepage
      Isn't this like the "guns are not made for killing people" argument?

      P2P networks were designed to a) distribute files, b) without a central authority that could limit what gets distributed. It is a given that people will distribute things they otherwise can't.

      So even if guns have theoretical uses besides killing or hurting people, it is their primary function. Just like the primary function of P2P networks are to allow sharing of digital content, regardless of copyright. Good people want to share what they enjoy; it's the same basic psychology as inviting somebody over for a dinner you've spent hours cooking. You are proud of it, and you want other people to experience what you liked to experience, to make them feel as good as you did. Humans are not alone about this; the same behavior can be seen in all primate species - especially with regards to sharing food in a community.

      However, in the specific case of P2P networks, you still get to keep what you are sharing. Therefore, the cost of sharing - to the sharer - is close to zero. Hence the effortlessness of sharing gigs and gigs of movies, games, you name it. Myself, I share about 350G of unnamed media, and that puts me in the lesser ranks of my P2P communities.

      Note here: I personally believe that the concept of copyright needs some serious overhaul; when 50 million people believe something is right and some 10,000 believe it is wrong, then by the laws of most countries, it cannot be wrong for a long time more. But that is another issue; I just wanted to point out that "P2P has legitimate uses" is a rather weak argument.
      • I would say peer to peer does have legitimate uses; its more than just "getting around the central authority." For one thing, it allows people to distrubute content (whatever it is) and alleviates the bandwidth costs across the whole population of sharers (and sometimes nonsharers too unfortunatly.) BitTorrent is a perfect example of this.

        Ok, its going to get a little offtopic here. I would like to disagree on the premise that the primary functions of guns are for killing people. It may have been the ca

      • Re:Weak argument, IMHO (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Psiren ( 6145 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:28AM (#7518993)
        Just like the primary function of P2P networks are to allow sharing of digital content, regardless of copyright.

        Umm, no other method of sharing files deals with copyright issues either. P2P isn't unique in this respect, it's the same as everything else.
      • I don't think your comparison is a fair one as killing someone is far more serious than copyright infringement (even they are giving more importance to the latter recently). While preventing homicides is a good reason why personal freedom should be limited in some way (ie. you can't buy guns), I don't think the same should be applied to copyright infringement (ie. you can't use programs that let you share material).

        "I personally believe that the concept of copyright needs some serious overhaul; when 50

      • Not a weak argument... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by khenson ( 706671 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:38AM (#7519038)
        It is exactly the same argument as "guns are not made for killing people" - and both arguments are correct.

        Blaming a gun for a murder is senseless and sophmoric and blaming a file distribution technology for piracy is as well. People have "warez" ftp sites where piracy occurs, does this mean ftp needs to be abolished? How about the internet in general?

        It is a simple mathematical case of failing to find the common denominator. People pirate files using ftp. People pirate files using http. People pirate files using P2P. Do you see the common denominator here?

        People kill with knives. People kill with vehicles. People kill with guns. People kill with clubs. Did you find the common denominator in this one?

        In case you missed it - the answer is "people". If you want to stop piracy you have to make "people" stop doing it - not disable or outlaw the technology and if you want to stop murders you have to make people stop killing each other, not outlaw or abandon guns, knives, etc.

        But that's not easy, is it? It's easier to abolish guns than address the *REAL* problem of dealing with people. It's a cop-out.

        reminds me of a story: One night a woman is on a street corner looking for something when a man wanders up. He can see the lady's distress and asks what the problem is. The lady tells him that she lost a hundred dollar bill and is looking for it - so the man starts helping her look. After a bit of searching he asks the lady where she thinks she may have dropped it and the lady responds by pointing down the street through the darkness a block away. Puzzled, the man asks the lady why she is searching here? Pointing to the overhead streetlamp above them the lady responds "because the light is better".

        We cannot, as a society, try to find the answer to problems where it is easiest to look because, quite simply, the answer simply isn't there. It is far more difficult to find the "answer" to murder is in people, the "answer" to piracy is in people. A far more daunting fix may be in order but it is the correct one. Anything else is as futile as looking for lost money in a place where the light is better.
        • All very true, but the problem with that is there is no solution. Like you say, people are the problem. There will always be people who want (for whatever reason) to do the wrong thing (wrong being defined in some way as against the good of the group). Some things are obviously wrong and harm the group a lot (murder); somethings are more esoteric and have a less obvious harm (copying mp3s). Murder has always existed, it exists (afaik) in every society and likely always will. So what do we do? Give up and le

        • It is exactly the same argument as "guns are not made for killing people" - and both arguments are correct.

          Actually no. Guns are made for killing. Some are made for killing animals, and some are made for killing people. People, being somewhat more intelligent than most animals, on average, often require different tactics to kill, and therefore guns that are suitable for such tactics. People have a tendancy to take cover and sometimes even shoot back. Therefore, volume of fire becomes an issue. The

      • Just because there is no central authority moderating the content on the network doesn't invalidate the 'p2p has legitimate uses' argument. In fact, I think it strengthens it. Instead of a central authority that can censor and control things that it disagrees with as well as what might be illegal, it simply can't control and lets the userbase decide was gets to be heard and seen.

        Then again, we're talking about the Kazaa network, and I'm pretty sure it'd be easy enough for them to block certain filenames/
      • P2P networks were designed to a) distribute files, b) without a central authority that could limit what gets distributed. So... it is their primary function.

        This assumption - that p2p networks were designed to exempt users from central authority - would only be a safe one if p2p networks did not also exhibit other highly useful benefits. One such benefit is the ability to aggregate and distribute access to an ad hoc collection of data, amortizing transfer costs over as many internet connections as there

      • So even if guns have theoretical uses besides killing or hurting people, it is their primary function.

        Uh, WTF?

        Guns were designed to kill animals that people could use for food. It's foolish to think that a gun's "primary function" is to facilitate murdering people.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:55AM (#7518870)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Ok, reading your post brought to mind a question I've had for a while now, and I wonder if the good people here at slashdot can answer it. I use Kazaa Lite to download copyrighted material. But the material I download is all stuff that I have legally purchased. Until recently I hadn't found a good quality ripping program that didn't take exceptionally long, and was free, and could make mp3's, so I would download songs of my cd's that I bought at a store. I would then burn those mp3's onto a single disc that
        • It is illegal according to the recent (3-4 years ago) mp3.com precedent.

          That website offered a service they claimed allowed people to stream songs they already owned. Mp3.com quickly lost in court.

          However, it's possible that although your use of Kazaa is illegal, you are not the guilty party. The blame might only apply to the one sending you the files. He's got no idea if you own the CD or not- and if he had to guess, he'd probably think "not". So he thinks he's doing something illegal, which is enoug
      • Kazaa only use is the distribution of illegally copied material.

        My shared folder is full of images, MP3s, and documents that I created myself, FROM SCRATCH. I hold the copyright and I grant anyone in the world to grab a copy and check it out.

        "Illegally copied material" may be the primary type of content to be found on Kazaa, but if it all vanished tomorrow, would Kazaa still serve a purpose? Of course it would.

        Could someone give me a something that Kazaa could be used for which wouldn't work better v
        • "Illegally copied material" may be the primary type of content to be found on Kazaa, but if it all vanished tomorrow, would Kazaa still serve a purpose?

          Sure. You and the four other people still running it would be able to trade stuff all day long.

          Trying to deny that the vast majority of Kazaa users are there solely to pirate copyrighted materials is like the Tobacco lobby whining that nicotine isn't addictive.

      • The advantage of using a network like Kazaa instead of a Bittorrent client is in the volume of files your able to share. Leaving a torrent up for multiple files can become cumbersome quickly and if your looking at sharing thousands of files, impossible. P2P clients like Kazaa are useful and just because it has been used primarily to redistribute copyrighted material does not mean that there is no legitimate use.

        I redistribute freely published music and iso's, I keep my copyrighted/consumer music and softw

    • the campaign is destined to fail. People generally say that P2P has legitimate uses, and is being used in a non-copyright-infringing way, but unless these people can provide some data to back up their claim no one will believe them. I am ambivalent to the whole P2P thing, and I don't even believe that P2P is used legitimately much of the time.

      However, what will happen if someone does gather these usage statistics and the result is that .1% of P2P traffic does not infringe copyright? How about 10%? 25

      • Re:Without statistics/usage figures to back it up. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by j-turkey ( 187775 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @09:55AM (#7519661) Homepage

        I'm satisfied with any margin being used for legal purposes...and I'll give you an example. RedHat is legitimately distributed via BitTorrent. Frankly, I don't believe in group punshment -- if a small group of people have a legitimate use for something, there's no reason to tear it down.

        It's clear that Bittorrent is being used to distribute both legal and illegal content. I don't know the percentages, and with regards to the discussion of legality, I don't care. With regard to arguing over percentages, it's pretty easy to draw parallels to the DeCSS lawsuits (where the legitimate users of this software were Linux users -- but because they were a minarity, they were ignored). This was a bullshit case with an outcome that I still view as completely unjust.

        The fact is, P2P is a tool. It can be both used and misused. Further, the implications for the common person to be able to publish any type of document and distribute it on a massive scale with a cost approaching nil are great. I view this alone to be a greater threat to mass media than piracy. It's their content. If they want to distribute it with loads of DRM -- fine. I jsut won't buy it. If they can't innovate fast enough -- fuck 'em.

        --Turkey
        • It's clear that Bittorrent is being used to distribute both legal and illegal content.

          BitTorrent is very different from Kazaa though.

          BT provides P2P downloads only. Kazaa distributes not just downloading, but also searching. It's the searching part that makes it a threat.

          If a person wants to use BT for copyright infringement, she'd still got to put up a webpage hosting the torrent file. She's just as legally vulnerable as if the entire file was on the webserver. There is a single point of blame, so

          • ...This puts Kazaa at a greater risk of law enforcement action.

            Yeah -- a wholeheartedly agree with you on that one. There's a single point of origin on the Kazaa network -- the service itself. That's the weakness.

            BT has even less accountability than you suggest, with "rogue" sites like suprnova and the associated mirrors -- and many of these sites also provide links or redirects to .torrent files. It makes me wonder about how a system like freenet would work along these lines of legal accountabili

    • Kazaa is a major source of on-line piracy - they cannot deny this. However, P2P file sharing does have legitimate uses, and the tool cannot be blamed for what it is used for. Rat poison can be used to kill people, but that is about how it is used, not what it is.

      I hate to point out the obvious, but illegal copying IS a legitimate and JUST use. Copyrights are what's unjust, copyrights are the tool used to wrongly restrict copying that people have no moral or inherent right to restrict. Type in "agains

  • Like Tobacco (Score:5, Informative)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:25AM (#7518745) Homepage
    I love kazaa. And I think this approach will help... Kazaa needs to highlight it's "other" uses...

    however, many people will see this as I see the tobacco companies offering anti-smoking advice/commericals?

    Public appearance is everything.
    • Kazaa might be a nice piece of software, but not all the crap (spyware) it comes with. I've had to "clean" several computers that were full of spyware running in the background slowing everything down, and on all these computers I've also found Kazaa installed. Thanks god for Kazaa Lite, but the average users don't know about it, they install the real version and everything that comes with it...

  • It's legit. The users are iffy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:26AM (#7518749) Journal
    Sharing files is not against the law.

    Distributing copyrighted works is.

    • Re:It's legit. The users are iffy (Score:5, Funny)

      by Urkki ( 668283 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:50AM (#7518851)
      Owning a legal gun is not against the law.
      Shooting copyright lawyers is.

      Disclaimer: Anybody is free to interpret this post as any combination of anti/pro-guns, anti/pro-file, anti/pro-piracy and anti/pro-shooting ;-)
    • Sharing files is not against the law...
      Distributing copyrighted works is.

      Sometimes... if you're not the author, if you're not a librarian or a lawyer, if the copyright is valid in your country and hasn't expired, and there's no implicit permission or explicit license... and if you do actually make copies, rather than distributing the same copyrighted work that you received...

      Why do people make out that copyright is so simple as the DRM people say it it? It's a complex subject, and contains more informat

  • There's a reason why they're convinced (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:26AM (#7518750)
    The various P2P networks are a major source of online piracy.

    Now, I'm not saying that that's all they're used for, or that they don't have legitimate uses (distribution of Linux iso images is one that springs immediately to mind), or that the various lobbying groups should succeed. But I can't see how anyone can deny that P2P is used a lot by pirates, both casual and probably organised.

    Of course, so is ftp, http, etc, and I'm not saying that they should be banned either. I'm just questioning the tone of that part of the summary, is all.
    • The various P2P networks are a major source of online piracy.

      And piracy has its good uses too.

      1) You need to make a distinction between commercial piracy and casual piracy. First one is intended to sell a pirated copy of a 1000$ product for 500$. The pirate really deprives the author of one sale, "stealing" it from him. Second is intended to provide free or nearly free copies to people who are not willing to pay for the product and thus have never been potential clients. First type of piracy harms indust
    • distribution of Linux iso images is one that springs immediately to mind

      I'd say amature porn (of the uncopyrighted, public domain type) is much more frequenly traded material.

      Course lots of people will say thats immoral too, but thats not their problem.

  • That is because it is a fact! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The-Pheon ( 65392 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:27AM (#7518757) Homepage
    music, software and movie firms convinced that peer-to-peer (P2P) services are a major source of online piracy

    They are convinced because.....it is a major source of piracy! :)
    Promoting kazaa for legitimate purposes is the right idea, it is a tool. for example ftp can be used for internet piracy as well, it is just another tool.

  • in other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by dcordeiro ( 703625 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:29AM (#7518767)
    Warez sites claim that they only distribute games and apps to those that unluckly broke their original CDs in half.

    North Korea is creating nuclar bombs just to lower unemployment - officials say.

    add your own lie here!!!

  • Kaaza and the War on Copyright Violations (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YouTalkinToMe ( 559217 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:30AM (#7518775)

    I found this quote particularly interesting:

    "Whenever I talk to people about Kazaa, they treat it like marijuana -- as much as they love it, they have a sense that what they're doing is a little bit wrong."

    I also think the pending War on Copyright Violations is a bit like the War on Marijuana: Driven by entrenched intrests; lubricated by political donations; with lots of innocent casualties; and ultimately futile because at the end of the day it criminalizes something which is not immoral.

    • Re:Kaaza and the War on Copyright Violations (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you think taking what cannot be legitimately considered yours with compensating the creator is not immoral, you are working with a completely different set of morals than most people.

      There's a reason people view using Kazaa as "a little bit wrong" and it has to do with their conscience.
    • lots of innocent casualties

      "Innocent" doesn't mean "didn't harm anybody"; it means "didn't break the law". Marijuana users and copyright violators have unquestionably broken the law.

      it criminalizes something which is not immoral

      You feel that getting Something for Nothing is not immoral?

      • "Innocent" doesn't mean "didn't harm anybody"; it means "didn't break the law".

        innocent: Uncorrupted by evil, malice, or wrongdoing -- American Heritage Dictionary

        Both marijuana users and copyright violators are innocent using the most common definitions.

        Marijuana users and copyright violators have unquestionably broken the law.

        Lawbreakers are not the only victums of the law. In the case of marijuana, the resulting violence affects many more than the law breakers. The cost affects all tax payers.

    • This attitude that I'm somehow violating someone by copying things is bogus morality. Sorta like saying you're going to hell if you don't follow the Kings choosen religion. Well I call bullshit. If you stole my car, yes I would feel violated, but if you just want to make a copy - hell, have two. Infact, it's a Geo, there are 10 million coppies. I dont feel violated. Perhaps I mow my lawn with vertical stripes instead of horizontal, well please, copy that too! I promose I won't feel violated either, n
    • What sort of stoners do you hang out with? All the pot smokers I know, myself included, curse and spit at the government for criminalizing a wholesome and harmless activity.

  • So here's some legitimate ?s (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Ape With No Name ( 213531 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:31AM (#7518779) Homepage
    Who is bankrolling the campaign? How does a company, dare I say, with no visible means of support come up with the scratch? Venture capital? Dunning the sorority girls in Massey Hall? Dollar a piece so you can have your Christina Arugula, girls? I just don't see how they do it?

    Illegitimate ?:

    BTW, is it just me or is Kazaa's boss a stone-cold hottie?

    • Re:So here's some legitimate ?s (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Albanach ( 527650 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:11AM (#7518916) Homepage
      Who is bankrolling the campaign? How does a company, dare I say, with no visible means of support come up with the scratch?

      According to their website, kazaa is the world's most downlaoded software. They recorded 2.8 million downloads last week. Their software is full of adware. They receive revenue for every add they feed to your desktop.

      Now even if their revenue per ad is tiny - even a fraction of a cent, just do the sums. 2.8 million is a big number. I suspect if you log in you'll also see a very big number of connected users, most of whom are "enjoying" a steady stream of ads in return for the free service. Multiply big number * fraction of a cent and that's their revenue stream.

      • So they ARE making money from this. Doesn't that go against the set of beliefs that, while believing the current copyright system is wrong, also holds that one should not be able to profit from other people's work without their permission? Isn't that one of the tenets of the OSS movement? Using this for-profit, proprietary software, with the only excuse that it can be used legitimately to distribute Free and OS software, actually goes against the beliefs of Free and OS software advocates.

        Sniff, sniff.

  • Where is the ad? (Score:4, Funny)

    by CrystalFalcon ( 233559 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:32AM (#7518786) Homepage
    Can I download it off Kazaa? What is the file name?
  • Kazaa is for the most part copyrighted music/movies and pr0n. If you remove the copyrighted stuff you will be left with the worlds biggest pr0n distribution channel. Not that I think this would be a bad thing but you will probably have a hard time persuading Joe public (OK Joe might buy it), Josephine public then that this is a Good Thing (TM)
    • Isn't a lot of the pr0n copyrighted as well? I mean, not that i would know...

      So basically take out the pr0n, take out the music, take out the movies and other copyrighted materials. What's left?
      World's Funniest Home Videos.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I do think copyright applies to pr0n, its just the pr0n industry is currently not as vigourous in their defense of it as say the RIAA. Plus a lot of it is just snippets most of the time people do not download the whole thing as is the case with music and other movies
  • Kazaa affiliate Altnet [altnet.com] seem to be going down the abusive patent path. I just posted a story on this subject to K5 [kuro5hin.org], here is the opening paragraph:

    Altnet, the company that brought us spyware, recently acquired a patent which allows easy identification of files on a P2P network. In the words of Derek Broes, Altnet's executive vice president of worldwide operations, Altnet will "...focus on protecting and commercializing our patented technology and realizing the potential it offers content owners by commerci

  • Stats Explosion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:41AM (#7518813) Homepage
    The MPAA estimates that file sharing has cost the film industry more than $1 billion in the last year.

    I estimate that the MPAA overestimates 125% of the stats that they estimate.

    Because somebody watches a pirated movie does not directly mean that anybody lost money over it. Money is only lost if that person would have paid money but instead watched it for free.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Money is only lost if that person would have paid money but instead watched it for free.

      But once they've watched it for free, there's no way of knowing whether they would have paid to watch it, or if they'd have just not watched it.

      The issue of real revenues vs. potential revenues is a complex one.

  • Possibly good news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowardNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Thursday November 20, 2003 @07:42AM (#7518814) Journal
    Apart from the question of who is actually financing this and what they hope to get from it, the idea is good.

    The next year will see a massive publicity campaign from the top 5 music companies as they try to exaggerate the impact of p2p ("try" is what I mean, cause I believe the impact is really huge), in the hope that this will allow them to merge into 2 or 3 companies.

    Without some anti-publicity, it means a lot more of the "hacker pirates stealing music" stories. Kazaa are not my choice for a champion, I'd prefer someone like Michael Robertson of mp3.com fame. But it's a start.
  • RIAA-za [slimeware.com] is a much better file sharing application than Kazaa because, according to the developers.. RIAA-za picks up where Morpheus and Kazaa stop. This powerful application allows you to trade music, video, documents, spreadsheets, banking details and your private pornography collection with everyone else with RIAA-za installed.

    ;)

  • Won't work (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Zigg ( 64962 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:06AM (#7518893)

    Sharman's been playing the "us vs. the recording industry" game way too long to try to create any impression of legitimacy now. Maybe if they'd made a concerted effort (and not just a hide behind enough legalese to cover their asses) from day one to discourage copyright infringement, they might have a shot at it.

    But they didn't, and they don't. And if they had, they certainly wouldn't be in the position they were today as the household name in file "sharing".

  • Show me the money ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:13AM (#7518925) Homepage Journal
    First off, since they give Kazaa away, where is the money for the ad campaign coming from?

    Secondly, if the MPAA & RIAA are both doing so badly, where are all the broke movie and music superstars?

    Now some editorial comments. ;~)

    The real theft is the loss of freedom which comes as corporations work to stripmine the benefits of common property. We all gain when something is created, discovered or shared. People who create should be rewarded if even only for the reason they can then create more. By restricting what is commonly and freely available, we all lose, and for the sole benefit of those who are already affluent.

    Furthermore, as the overly affluent use this unearned excessive wealth to further corrupt the legal and political processes, we all move closer to the prepice of corruption which all previous great civilizations have fallen off.
    • First off, since they give Kazaa away, where is the money for the ad campaign coming from?

      IIRC, it's probably from all that spyware they bundled with Kazaa...

    • "First off, since they give Kazaa away, where is the money for the ad campaign coming from?"

      Ad revenue, of course. Kazaa is a for-profit business. Like a web site, they provide a medium and then sell ad space on it. Kazaa usage is down, and this means ad revenue is down. They are (rightfully so, as any business should be) alarmed about this. One thing which may have them concerned is the relative success of the legitimate download services.

      When this ad campaign was reported on news.com [com.com] three days

      • Thanks eh. ;-) However I still have a few questions that maybe someone can answer.

        First, does Kazaa really make that much from selling adspace on their homepage?

        Secondly, isn't it better that artists, and the support staff they work with, aren't going to continue working for record labels which have a poor record in promoting lesser bands?

        As far as I can see, the Internet is setting the stage for a cultural renaissance. Does anyone else think this is so?

  • It's like LSD (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tgt ( 599351 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @08:35AM (#7519015) Homepage

    Kazaa is a lot like LSD [wikipedia.org]:

    1. Designed by scientists in search for cure.
    2. Found to be useful in getting high.
    3. Agencies experimented with it to see if it's suitable for their own evil needs.
    4. Although some legitimate (medical) uses were possible, it was determined to be a drug and thus declared illegal and prohibited for any use.
    5. Still wanted by end users and therefore still around in pure form or in variations.
    6. Variations, shall we say, vary, therefore it's very difficult to say which is original stuff and which is not.

    Like it or not, but it's there and it's not getting away easily. Some publicity sure helps.
  • you have to play a legitimacy campaign for it.

  • Kazaa's owners, Sharman Networks, is showing the OpenSource community the way to win this P2P file sharing war with the RIAA & MPAA. It would behoove us to pay attention. The OpenSource community should imitate their ad campaign. It would be money well spent. The sooner this war is politicised the better. The only way Congress is going to pay attention to our conserns is when it begins to cost them politically. Ad campaigns are by far the surest way to get their attention.

  • Oh Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Insipid Trunculance ( 526362 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @09:07AM (#7519213) Homepage
    I have used Napster,gnutella,Morpheus and Kazaa lite.Why?Not to get anything that is legitimate but copyrighted music.Not because i dont want to spend any money but because i cant get here in london what i want.

    I dont have a problem if i want to listen britney boobs and company.their music is everywhere.

    But good flamenco and jazz is impossible to get.most of it is simply not available anywhere.

    so what am i doing ? violating the rights of the artists or am i keeping their legacy alive, some of those artists long dead.

    • Re:Oh Good (Score:2, Insightful)

      by IM6100 ( 692796 )
      But good flamenco and jazz is impossible to get.most of it is simply not available anywhere.

      And using a P2P to get it completely obliterates the small market for it, making it even less likely that you'll ever be able to get it on commercial pressings.

      So unless the flamenco and jazz artists themselves choose to begin distributing their works directly through P2P means, you're destroying their distribution method.

      Yeah, I know that in your personal case, you figure you can bend the rules and if not that m

  • Not "piracy", maybe not "stealing" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Glass of Water ( 537481 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @09:13AM (#7519265) Journal
    definition of piracy, (via gonze [gonze.com]):
    CITE 18 USC Sec. 1652
    01/26/98
    TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
    PART I - CRIMES
    CHAPTER 81 - PIRACY AND PRIVATEERING
    Sec. 1652. Citizens as pirates

    "Whoever, being a citizen of the United States, commits any murder or robbery, or any act of hostility against the United States, or against any citizen thereof, on the high seas, under color of any commission from any foreign prince, or state, or on pretense of authority from any person, is a pirate, and shall be imprisoned for life."

    it's also not quite clear that making an exact duplicate copy, where it does not degrade the original, is "theft".

    it's infringement of copyright. just like when people used to tape albums for their friends, just on a different scale.

    • it's also not quite clear that making an exact duplicate copy, where it does not degrade the original, is "theft".

      Many people use the word "thief" as a generic term for any criminal motivated by profit (especially nonviolent ones). For example, people will often discribe fictional character Tony Soprano as a thief, although theft rarely figures in his illegal activities.

  • Seems like a pretty weak campaign. A million is very little when you consider that:

    a) first you have to pay an ad adjency to develop your ads in several different media;

    b) then you have to distribute the material;

    c) then you have to pay for the material to appear e.g. in newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV; and

    d) you have to repeat c) over a time frame e.g. weeks, months.

    It sounds like a lot but a million will actually be spread very thinly. Remember, they are trying to reach the "public" not just

  • And in related news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by drix ( 4602 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @01:32PM (#7521768) Homepage
    Jack Valenti, cleaning up his house last weekend, found $1 million tucked beneath the cushion of one of his diamond-embroidered chaise lounges. He was nonplussed.

    I'm not how well a million bucks of advocacy is going to fare against the abysally-deep pockets of the American entertainment industry...
  • fah. FileDonkey happens to be a much larger and much faster form of p2p, and gets past any firewall specifically blocking kazaa and the like, as it uses many different servers. All hail El Mule!

  • my personal response (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Thursday November 20, 2003 @05:28PM (#7523942)
    I wonder why the porn industry isn't more up in arms than the RIAA is. They probably lose more potential business than the RIAA; is it becasue the porn industry doesn't rely on investments for livelyhood as much as the music industry does, and thus their company value isn't as pertinent to their success?

    At least on Kazaa, it seems as if getting specific songs, and complete songs, is next to impossible. That, and nearly every search returns at least half a dozen instances of porn (unless I simply search for music, in which case it's only one or two). On the other hand, if someone searches for porn, it's likely little else will show up.

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