Kazaa To Pay Up, Go Straight
from the paying-their-way-to-irrelevance dept
The owners of the Kazaa file-sharing network have settled with the music industry, agreeing to pay more than $100 million in damages to the world's four major record labels. The legal battle against Kazaa has been going on for some time, but Sharman Networks, the company behind it, has decided to pay up and go straight -- apparently now planning to become a seller of licensed content using its P2P system. While it would be nice to see some new models for buying and downloaded content emerge, the turn-P2P-into-something-legit path has been trodden before, with little success, whether it's been Napster (which abandoned P2P), Napster founder Sean Fanning's Snocap, or various efforts from labels or movie studios. The head of the IFPI, the international equivalent of the RIAA, says that Kazaa "hampered our industry's efforts to grow a legitimate digital business", implying that business will now begin to flourish. Well, if nothing else, the future of Kazaa will prove or disprove this common refrain: sure, Kazaa could go on to revolutionize the entertainment industry by delivering products people want, at reasonable prices, in a convenient way and without so many pointless restrictions. But given the entertainment industry's penchant for locking down content and business models, that seems pretty unlikely. What's more likely is that, in the continued absence of better legitimate services, Kazaa users will just move on to the next file-sharing system. It's not the availability of file-sharing systems that's holding the download business back, but rather the lack of attractive legitimate options.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Bah!
"hampered our industry's efforts to grow a legitimate digital business"
We all know the industry's efforts were to stifle anything
that didn't fit the present business model.
Hopefully Kazaa will be successful in this new endeavor
but I fully expect the music industry to try and torpedo it.
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Agreed
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Who gets the money?
The artists need to understand that the RIAA is only about protecting itself and the millions it makes off of the backs of others. The RIAA realize that they are potentially redundant in the distribution of music as technology brings performers and artists closer together - they are terrified that their customers (both the consumer and the artist) are going to figure out that their existence adds nothing of value to the transaction.
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Bandwidth
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So..
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at least torrents are popular
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Of course
Big suits will go faaaar out of their way to sink something that they think is "Scary" which often is something that, if used properly, can be a powerfull tool, and this isnt just limited to Music allll sorts of thingsa are ruined by big buisness, Heck, they're the ones trying to get the internet privtized(not sure I spelled that right) These jerks need to back off
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But where will the money come from once they've sued everyone they can?
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Just Curious
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Re: Of course
RE: “...all sort of things are ruined by big business”. Maybe we shouldn’t forget that a lot of things are created and made possible by/because of bug business and the often maligned “big suits greed”. While the **AA’s efforts against file sharing technologies my be a bit misguided, I am not sure painting all big business with such broad brush strokes is the most open mined of approaches.
Most things we use daily are created by big business with the singular goal of making more money.
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Re: Just Curious
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open-source
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Re: Just Curious
I've never understood this line of reasoning. You claim that people who believe in free market economics (the economics that says price will get driven to marginal cost) are "capitalist hating." Meanwhile, you support a situation where the government regulates the market with barriers -- which seems a lot more like what most people think of as a "commie" gov't.
It is the equivalent to opening the doors of a Blockbuster Video and just letting people loot it.
This has been explained countless times. Copyright infringement and theft are two different things.
There is a business model for people like you, but it does not work well. It is called Welfare. If you want something for nothing, no business model is going to work well for you.
Right, that's why we've pointed out plenty of business models that involve giving away music for free.
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alternative solutions
Here is the alternative the Napster has offered:
"Napster reportedly offered the record labels $150 million per year for starters (plus $50 million per year to indies) for the right to continue to offer its practice of letting users trade unprotected MP3s with each other, albeit with a $10/month subscription fee. Napster's centralized servers would have provided a clear accounting method for paying artists their due (in fact, maybe that's why RIAA members prefer these settlements). "
So why didn't RIAA accept this idea, if it is obviously paying nice sums to record labels and artists? I'll tell you why. Because RIAA and all the middle man wouldn't get paid! Only artists would make money and consumers could purchase more music for less money. So it's obvious that lawsuits and monopoly are a better solution for the blood suckers. It always was that way and always will be.
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The Solution
Most downloaders are generally honest people, but end up bending their moral stance because they cannot justify spending ridiculous amounts of money on music when an alternative exsists.
In my opinion, if the record companys form a similar US model, they will make gobs of money, look like the good guys, and virtually extinguish honest people's desire to download for free.
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Re: The Solution
I am a generally honest person, but I end up bending my moral stance because I cannot justify spending ridiculus amounts of money on music when the music sucks for the most part. Why should I pay $16.00 for an 18 track album when I will end up only liking about 4-5 songs?
I've been meaning to check out AllofMP3(if I can that is). If the price is reasonable then I'll be glad to pay. I'd much rather pay for the 2-3 songs I like on Gorillaz "Demon Days" (I think that's what its called) album at $1 each than to pay almost $20 for the whole thing and not like it all.
In my opinion, if the record companys form a similar US model, they will make gobs of money, look like the good guys, and virtually extinguish honest people's desire to download for free.
Because as far as the big suts are concerned a US-like AllofMP3 would not increase revenues for them therefore its a bad idea. Sadly making more money is more important than being a hero in these dangerous digital days.
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Re: Agreed
...Tehn some clever people will find a way to make dumptrucks of money by selling music and movies through the tubes.
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Re: Re: The Solution
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Re: Just Curious
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WE HAVE A MORAL RESPONSIBILITY TO STEAL MUSIC
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Just what Kazaa was always after
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Hate to say this....
However, those really old songs should not get as much monetary value as the newest stuff. I think if someone wants to share their music with you the knock off should not get as much of a compensation cause well, the person who shares it with you has already rented, bought, paid for it once. I mean if a friend borrows your car, and you wanta lend it to him or her... they don't charge you a royalty fee for this do they? Think maybe there is some missing technical information in the story like some illegal stuff..YA KNOW. STUFF and BUSTED? Yeah maybe
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