Kazaa: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Kazaa Media Desktop (once colloquially capitalized as "KaZaA", but now usually left as "Kazaa") is a peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack protocol; it is commonly used to exchange mp3 music files and is (as of 2003) the most popular application for this purpose. It is also increasingly being used to exchange movie files. It can be downloaded free and is financed by the spyware and adware installed as default with the main product. Kazaa and the FastTrack protocol are the brainchild of the Scandinavians Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis and were introduced in March 2001 by their Dutch company Consumer Empowerment. Today the rights to the Kazaa application are held by Sharman Networks.

Currently, the program is released only for the Windows operating system. It can be run on Linux, Mac OS X and other operating systems with emulation software like WINE and Virtual PC.

Advanced users may prefer the open source program giFT from [1] for stability, flexibility, and performance reasons.

Kazaa is very similar to the programs Morpheus and Grokster, which use(d) the same protocol. This decentralized peer-to-peer technology is similar to that of Gnutella.

Many consider Kazaa to be superior to other file sharing programs because of its file selection and fast transfer speeds. Some counter this by pointing to Kazaa's use of spyware and adware. While it is the application with the largest installed userbase, it is worth noting that the Kazaa client installs spyware onto the user's machine. Whether this offsets the features and benefits of the client software is a decision for each individual user to make, and reading about spyware and the related security and privacy risks can only help potential users make the best choice based upon their own needs. The Altnet software, also installed by default, is another problem as it allocates users' bandwidth to serve advertisements to others. However, Altnet also has a service which lets users download encrypted songs for money, thus providing a legal alternative to the exchanging of copyrighted music.

Kazaa uses a "participation level" system which rewards participants who share much material with fast downloads.

Variations of the program

In August 2003, Kazaa Plus was introduced by Sharman Networks; this is a paid-for premium version that doesn't have spyware and adware. Kazaa Gold is another commercial version, but it is not an acutal product of Sharman Networks, but a attempt by scammers to cash in on the Kazaa name. There are also "clean" versions of Kazaa clients which are basically verisons of the Kazaa Media Desktop with the Altnet spyware removed by programmers on the Internet, two such programs are DietK and Clean KMD.

Kazaa Lite (also called K-Lite) is a modified version of the Kazaa Media Desktop application which excludes adware and spyware and provides slightly extended functionality; it can be downloaded free. It connects to the same FastTrack network and thus allows to exchange files with all Kazaa users. It was created by third party programmers by modifying the binary of the original Kazaa application. Included with recent versions of Kazaa Lite is K++, a memory patcher that removes search limit restrictions, multisource limits, and sets one's "participation level" to the maximum of 1000.

Sharman Networks considers K-Lite to be a copyright violation. On August 11, 2003, they sent a letter to Google requesting that all links to the application be removed from their database. During December 2003 Sharman emailed the owners of all sites hosting a copy of K-Lite, threatening legal action if it was not removed. Because of this, the program is today no longer available from the official website and is difficult to find on the web, though still available from some sites. However, the program is widely available on the FastTrack network itself, where it can be downloaded with Kazaa or any other FastTrack client. There are rumours that new versions of Sharman's Kazaa will prevent K-Lite users from connecting to their supernodes, in an effort to shut these users out from the FastTrack network.

The confusion over the status of K-Lite was exploited by the owners of the deceptively titled website http://k-lite-legal.com/ to sell subscriptions to a music download service unrelated to the K-Lite application. KCeasy, like Kazaa Lite, also accessed the FastTrack network and was also served a DMCA notice.

After the shut down of K-Lite, a couple of diffrent programmers created their own verisions of K-Lite based on the orignal, two of these such programs are Kazaa Lite Resurrection and Kazza Lite Tools K++

Open Source Variation

See the FastTrack article on the technical details of the protocol and on the efforts to reverse engineer it, in an effort to let open source clients exchange files with Kazaa users.

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 copyrighted material. Consumer Empowerment was taken to court in the Netherlands in 2001 by the Dutch music publishing body, Buma/Stemra. The court ordered Kazaa's owners to take steps to prevent its users from violating copyrights or else pay a heavy fine. The owners responded by selling the Kazaa application to the company Sharman Networks, headquartered in Australia and incorporated in Vanuatu. A court of appeal in late March 2002 reversed the earlier judgement, stating that Kazaa was not responsible for the actions of its users.

In 2002, Sharman was sued in Los Angeles by the RIAA and the MPAA. That lawsuit is still pending. Sharman responded with an antitrust countersuit, claiming that the major music labels had conspired to shut out Sharman's secure music distribution service based on Altnet. The suit was dismissed in July 2003. Sharman further claimed that it couldn't be sued in California as it lacked substantial contacts with the state; this claim was also dismissed in July 2003.

In September 2003, the RIAA filed suit in civil court against several private individuals who had shared large numbers of files with Kazaa; most of these suits were settled with small monetary payments. As a result, traffic on the FastTrack network has decreased about 10-15%. Sharman networks responded with a lawsuit against the RIAA, alleging that the terms of use of the network were violated and that unauthorized client software (such as Kazaa Lite, see above) was used in the investigation to track down the individual file sharers. An effort to throw out this suit was denied in January 2004.

In February 2004, the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) announced its own legal action against Kazaa, alleging massive copyright breaches. The organization's chief piracy investigator said "This is the largest copyright infringement case in Australia", "these people are the largest infringers of copyright in the world", and added that their operation is "based almost entirely on illegal traffic."

The number of users connected to the Kazaa network at any given time fluctuates between 1 million and 5 million users, with the average usually being around 3 million. There are about 1,000 downloads every minute. [5] There are over 26 petabytes and over 1.5 billion files on the network.

Kazaa has, from early on, been accused of installing spyware and/or adware onto users' computers. Brilliant Digital, Kazaa's home company, has always denied that they did any such thing. However, their definition of spyware, and that of other people, differs. At one time, the part of the Kazaa code which was considered spyware by neutral observers was an uptional, though technically difficult to not install, part of the Kazaa installation. Since the allegations have surfaced, however, the code has been bundled into the main Kazaa software, and it is not possible not to install it. Also, spyware detection and removal software has frequently failed to delete the code without special actions taken by the PC user.

Spyware Kazaa installs, and what it does:

• New.Net - Filters all web address requests through the DNS servers of New.net.
• SaveNow - Monitors what sites the PC user visits and pops up sponsored "deals".
• Cydoor - Collects information on the PC's surfing habits and passes it on to the company which created Cydoor.
• B3D - an add-on which causes advertising popups if the PC accesses a website which triggers the B3D code.

When spyware removal software is run, Kazaa leaves 3 Windows Registry keys behind for Cydoor and one for SaveNow.

• iMesh
• Poisoned