Analysts Not Impressed By Tiscali/Kazaa Deal

from the good-points dept

Earlier this week we posted a story about the relationship between Kazaa and European ISP Tiscali. My initial reaction was that this was a good thing - as Tiscali could use the offering of file sharing as a good way to sign up new customers. However, analysts have been trashing the idea and they make some valid points. I hadn't realized that the direction of the deal is to get current Kazaa users to sign up for Tiscali. That's backwards. As the analysts point out, if you're using Kazaa, you probably already have broadband access. What they should be doing is having Tiscali promoting Kazaa to get more people to sign up. Unfortunately, that won't work either, since most people seem to think Kazaa is filled with useless junk now. A more reasonable strategy (though, one unlikely to ever occur) is for an ISP to make agreements with the music industry to allow for a cleaned up file sharing service - without all the junk uploaded by the music industry to trick people - but with a completely open, unrestricted file sharing service that lets people experiment and share music. Then, they charge an extra few dollars a month as part of the ISP fees - and pass that money on to the recording industry and the musicians. It seems like a perfectly sensible plan that no one will ever go for.