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Kazaa

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Kazaa
Developer(s)Sharman Networks
Stable release
3.0 / 2005
Operating systemWindows
TypePeer-to-peer
LicenseMalware-supported
Websitewww.kazaa.com

Kazaa Media Desktop (once capitalized as "KaZaA", but usually left as "Kazaa") is a controversial peer-to-peer file sharing application using the FastTrack Protocol. It is commonly used to exchange MP3 music files over the Internet. It is also increasingly used to exchange movie files. The official Kazaa client can be downloaded free of charge and is financed by attached adware, spyware and malware (although an apocryphal "No Spyware" message is displayed on their website).

History

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. It appeared during the end of the first generation of P2P networks – Napster shut down in July of that year.

Its initial userbase was made up of users of the Morpheus program, formerly a client of MusicCity. However, once the official Kazaa client became more widespread, its developers used their ability to automatically update it, changing the protocol in February 2002 to shut out Morpheus clients when its developers failed to pay license fees. (Morpheus subsequently became a client of Gnutella.)

Like the creators of similar products, Kazaa's owners 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. In November 2001, the court ordered Kazaa's owners to take steps to prevent its users from violating copyrights or else pay a heavy fine. Consumer Empowerment responded by selling the Kazaa application to a complicated mesh of offshore companies, primarily Sharman Networks, headquartered in Australia and incorporated in Vanuatu.

A court of appeal in late March 2002 reversed the earlier judgment, stating that Kazaa was not responsible for the actions of its users. However, in 2002, Sharman was sued in Los Angeles by the RIAA and the MPAA. That lawsuit is still pending, although a recent judgement by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a related lawsuit against a similar FastTrack client Grokster appears to take away the basis for the US Kazaa suit. That decision was appealed to the US Supreme Court, and a decision reached in the case, uninanimously in MGM Studios' favor. [1] [2]

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 monetary payments averaging $3,000. 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 below) 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 trial began on November 29, 2004. On February 6, 2005 the homes of two Sharman Networks executives and the offices of Sharman Networks in Australia were raided under a court order by ARIA to gather evidence for the trial.

On September 5, 2005, the Federal Court of Australia issued a landmark ruling that Sharman, though not itself guilty of copyright infringement, had "authorised" Kazaa users to illegally swap copyrighted songs. The court ruled six defendants - including Kazaa's owners Sharman Networks, Sharman's Sydney-based boss Nikki Hemming and associate Kevin Bermeister - had knowingly allowed Kazaa users to illegally swap copyrighted songs. The company was ordered to modify the software within two months (a ruling enforceable only in Australia). Sharman and the other five parties also face paying millions of dollars in damages to the record labels that instigated the legal action. [3].

Program

Currently, Kazaa has been 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.

Many consider Kazaa to be superior to other file sharing programs because of its wide file selection and fast transfer speeds. While it is the P2P network with the second-largest installed userbase, it is worth noting that the Kazaa client installs spyware, adware and malware onto the user's machine, with potential security and privacy implications. Others are able to install Kazaa without the fears of privacy invasion by installing them on a virtual machine e.g. the virtual machine of Virtual PC.

Kazaa uses a "participation level" system intended to reward participants the more material they have uploaded to other users. This is subverted by most of the unofficial clients and leaves legitimate third-party clients suffering.

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 over 1.5 billion files on the network totalling 26 petabytes, with about 1,000 downloads every minute.

Allegations of malware

Kazaa has, from early on, been accused of installing spyware or adware onto users' computers. Sharman, Kazaa's home company, claims that the products are adware and do not collect personal user information. At one time, the part of the Kazaa code which was considered adware was an optional, though technically difficult not to 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 to uninstall it. Also, spyware detection and removal software has frequently failed to delete the code without special actions taken by the PC user.

Malware installed by Kazaa includes:

  • 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.
  • Altnet - A distribution network for paid "gold" files.
  • GAIN - Identifies your interests based on some of your computer usage and some of your web surfing behavior, including the URLs of Web pages viewed by you and other criteria.
  • InstaFinder - Redirects your URL typing errors to InstaFinder's web page instead of the standard MSN search page.
  • RX Toolbar - The toolbar monitors all the sites you visit with Microsoft Internet Explorer and provides links to competitors' websites.
  • New.Net - A browser plugin that lets you access several of it's own unofficial Top Level Domain names. e.g. things like .chat and .shop. The main purpose of which is to sell domain names such as www.record.shop which is actually www.record.shop.new.net.

As a result of these additional components, CNET's Download.com site stopped the distribution of KaZaA in April 2004.

Variations

This section is limited to those programs which are based on the official Kazaa client. For other FastTrack-compatible clients, see FastTrack.

Kazaa Lite is an unauthorized modification of the Kazaa Media Desktop application which excludes adware and spyware and provides slightly extended functionality. It became available in April 2002. It can be downloaded free of charge, and as of mid-2005 is almost as widely used as the official Kazaa client itself. 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. Later versions of Kazaa Lite included K++, a memory patcher that removed search limit restrictions, multisource limits, and set one's "participation level" to the maximum of 1000.

Sharman Networks considers Kazaa Lite to be a copyright violation. On August 11, 2003, they sent a letter to Google requesting that all links to the Kazaa Lite application be removed from their database. During December 2003 Sharman emailed the owners of all sites hosting a copy of Kazaa Lite, threatening legal action if it was not removed. Because of this, the program was for a while difficult to find on the web, and development of it stopped. As of mid-2005, the program is again widely available. It also remains 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 Kazaa Lite from connecting to the FastTrack network, but as of mid-2005, this hasn't happened. In March 2005 Sharman Networks again sent a letter to Google requesting that all links to the Kazaa Lite application be removed from their database.

After development of Kazaa Lite stopped, K-Lite v2.6 and Kazaa Lite Tools appeared. Although K-Lite is related to Kazaa Lite and the name sounds similar, they are actually different projects. K-Lite is not an update to Kazaa Lite, and was instead written as a separate loader with many fundamental changes. Unlike Kazaa Lite, which is a modification of an old version of Kazaa, K-Lite v2.6 requires the original KMD 2.6 executable to run. K-Lite doesn't include any code by Sharman: it requires the user to supply the original, unpatched Kazaa Media Desktop, and they execute it in an environment which removes the malware and adds some features. The authors believe that this version might therefore be legal. They also hope that since this client uses a newer version of the actual Kazaa program, they won't be affected by attempts to block Kazaa Lite from the network.

In November 2004, the developers of K-Lite released K-Lite v2.7, which similarly requires the KMD 2.7 executable. Currently, other clean variants use an older core (2.02) and thus, K-Lite has some features that others will never have. K-Lite includes multiple search tabs, a custom toolbar, and autostart. It also has auto search more, a download accelerator, an optional splash screen, preview with option (to view files you are currently downloading), an IP blocker, Magnet links support, and ad blocking, although the clients based on the 2.02 core abstract these functions to third-party programs.

Kazaa Lite Tools on the other hand is in fact an update of the original Kazaa Lite. It's a copy of Kazaa Lite, with modifications to the third-party programs included. It has newer, more and better third-party programs included. At first KLR was very well recieved by the community, however a forum discussion about link-exchanging and allegations of spyware that got out of hand split the community up. It was then that Kazaa Lite Tools K++ appeared. Kazaa Lite Tools K++ is a Kazaa Lite version stuffed with third-party Tools, a very useful Kazaa Lite version. Not much later Kazaa Lite Revolutions appeared, being an almost exact copy of Kazaa Lite Resurrection. One could say it merely a copy with a different name. All these Kazaa Lite version are clean, except for Kazaa Lite Revolutions and Resurrection.

The confusion over the status of Kazaa Lite was exploited by the owners of the deceptively titled website [4] to sell subscriptions to a music download service unrelated to the Kazaa Lite application. Many other websites have also attempted to scam people into paying for something that sounds like Kazaa Lite but is actually some other service which is already free. Other forms of scams are versions of Kazaa with malware, such as Kazaa Lite Revolutions. [5]

In August 2003, Kazaa Plus was introduced by Sharman Networks. This is a paid-for premium version presumably with no spyware or adware though the attached adware, spyware and malware is still included. In an attempt to cash in on the Kazaa name, another commercial version called Kazaa Gold was produced. This was not an actual product of Sharman Networks. However in 2004, Sharman Networks started buying the domains owned by these companies and some like the Kazaa Gold one now redirect to the real Kazaa site.

Kazaa Lite and variants homepages

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