KaZaA is currently confusing the entertaiment industry. The software offers downloads trough the FastTrack. On this networks also pirated music/movies and software is availble. Besides that, KaZaA also connects to altnet. This network is able to deliver music/movies and software in a more secure way.
Companies have e.g released demo versions of their software, music that has been protected with Digital Rights Management software and it seems that there is already a percentage of the KaZaA users is willing to pay for this content.
The ranks of these marketers include independent bands with little to lose and established companies like Microsoft. What they have in common is that they are starting to view the masses of Internet pirates as a possible source of revenue. They have begun to experiment with promoting their wares on file-trading services, which are typically used to obtain unauthorized copies of music, movies or software. |
Some entertainment industry officials condemn those marketing efforts as giving support to services that encourage the theft of other people's intellectual property. But the organizations promoting file-traders see it as a way to lure people away from piracy by providing them with authorized material to download '” and, in some cases, asking them to pay for it.
Intresting, hopefully companies will also find out that KaZaA might be a place where a lot of pirated content is traded, but also THE place to reach people, and some of them are willing to pay for the content. Because how many times have you downloaded content from KaZaA where you would have never paid for anyway ?
Read more at the New York times here.
Source: NYtimes.com
