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[LonWar]

I was surfing around today and noticed that there are 2 Kazaa sites that charge a fee. They look allright, Anybody know if they are legal or not?

K-lite 19.95 Yr +
KazaaLite 1.49 month for 2 years.

Anybody use either?

[Charlemagne 8]

No Kazaa is legal. All Kazaa is free. Charging for Kazaa is at least as unethical as using it to download music and movies.
I've seen them. It's a rip.

And ironically, Kazaa is trying very hard to stop Kazaa-lite --- seems it's a rip-off of Kazaa. Something about copyright infringement. Weird, huh?

CVIII

[JimH]

No Kazaa is legal.

Kazaa is legal.  Sharing copyrighted works is not.

[Charlemagne 8]

Ok, Ok.

But Kazaa-LITE isn't legal.

CVIII

[LonWar]

I kinda thought that was weird....

Oh Well...

[KingSparta]

Ok, Ok.

But Kazaa-LITE isn't legal.

CVIII

why?

Kazaa-Lite is nothing more than Kazaa with plug-ins that modify the way Kazaa works. they did not use any Kazaa source code or modified the kazaa code in any way.

[fex]

As long as you don't upload (!) any copyrighted stuff, Kazaa is legal in Europe. Just downloading for 'private use' is allowed (most countrys in Europe like France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium...):

Whether you use Kazaa, Kazaa Plus, Kazaa Lite, Diet Kazaa , File Donkey, ML Donkey, eMule, BitTorrent, Shareaza, PowerMule or whatever.

[Charlemagne 8]

King,

According to Kazaa, (Sharman something), Kazaa-Lite is illegal in that it uses their software without permission and strips out the adware, which is what pays for Kazaa.

CVIII

[bebop]

k-Lite is indeed in a war of legaleze with Kazza, but for those of you in the US it is still illegal to download (copyright infringement issues, or so I'm told).  And yes, it does what Kazza does without all those ads and spyware.  However, in Canada it is still legal to exchange music via p2p (our law has a loop hole which the music muscle are trying desperately to fill and are currently in court arguing out).  As long as one doesn't physically hand over a copy of the cd, it is perfectly ok.  

Note that we also pay a tax for each and every bit of recordable media...whether it is used for data or music/video.  they even tried (unsuccessfully) to charge businesses who listened to radio stations or canned musaz in their offices.  

I, for one, think the artists would be far better off having their own sites and selling their own stuff at reasonable prices.  Cutting out the middlemen who take the largest chunk of the profits for their work seems sensible to me.  See www.p2pnet.net/article/7419 for more info.  

PS  The court case is now into arguements regarding our Charter of Rights and Freedoms....seems the music industrys' attempt to force the internet providers with names of persons with large uploading/downloading histories was delt a blow by the court as infringing on an idividuals right to privacy, so now the music mogals have to find another way to get that info.  

[cascius]

Interesting reading in this thread.

Bebop, may I ask in what you country you live? Just out of curiosity. Also, from what Fex was saying, I'm guessing that using Kazaa through a proxy in Europe would make it somehow legal(or at least those European IPs shouldn't be monitored) for you to download music... Weird and interesting at the same time.

-Cas

[bebop]

Live in Canada...on the west coast, you know land of the hippies and free thinkers, also known as Lotus Land by the prairie dwellers.  And yeah...also heard that about using a proxy.