Kazaa Goes Legal

Kazaa, a popular peer-to-peer program, has now gone legal after losing several court battles with the record industry. The company has also agreed to pay $100 million in damages as a result of these rulings. The fact that Kazaa agreed to this fine goes to show just how big they had become. Last year, the federal court ruled that Kazaa owners had to modify their software by implementing modifications that included a filtering system on 3,000 keywords so as to prevent users finding copyrighted material. Apparently, this was not enough to stem the tide of illegal dowloading across Kazaa’s peer-to-peer network. As the program has been downloaded 239 million times, even if a small fraction of its current user base begin purchasing tracks, Kazaa should stay in the blank.