KaZaA

KaZaA Media Desktop is a peer-to-peer file sharing application on the Music City network, developed by FastTrack for Consumer Empowerment. It is very similar to Morpheus, which also used the FastTrack protocol. Many consider KaZaA to be superior to other programs because of its file selection and fast transfer speeds. Countering that is KaZaA's use of spyware and adware installed as default with the main product. The Altnet software, also installed by default, is another problem, it allocates users' bandwidth to serve advertisements to others.

KaZaA's decentralized peer-to-peer technology is similar to that of Gnutella. Like the creators of many similar products, KaZaA's creators have been taken to court by music publishing bodies to restrict its use in the sharing of copyright material. Consumer Empowerment was taken to court in the Netherlands by the Dutch music publishing body, Buma/Stemra[?]. The court ordered KaZaA to take steps to prevent its users from violating copyrights or else pay a heavy fine. They responded by selling KaZaA to the Australian company Sharman. However a court of appeal in late March 2002 reversed the earlier judgement, stating that KaZaA was not responsible for the actions of its users. There may also have been court actions in America by the RIAA and the MPAA

KaZaA Lite is a stripped-down version of KaZaA, which serves slightly extended functionality with less adware and spyware. Included with recent versions of KaZaA Lite is K++, a memory patcher written by random nut that removes many restrictions from the vanilla KaZaA, including search limit restrictions, multisource limits, as well as setting one's "participation level" to the maximum of 10000.

External links

• Official Website (http://www.kazaa.com/)
• Kazaa Lite (old site) (http://www.kazaalite.com/)
• KaZaA Lite (new direct link) (http://doa2.host.sk/)
• FastTrackMovies, a site to make KaZaA download real movies using Sig2Dat (KLite needed) (http://www.fasttrackmovies.com/)
• The Race to Kill Kazaa (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/kazaa.html)
• Advanced Peer-Based Technology Business Models (http://shumans.com/p2p-business-models.pdf) - P2P Industry Model from M.I.T.