You remember Kazaa, don't you? The malware riddled P2P file sharing service of yesteryear? It went defunct around 2006 after being forced to pay $100-plus million in damages to the record industry. In accordance with that agreement, Kazaa's owner, Sharman Networks vowed to convert the program to a legal music download service.
It took a few years but the brand was taken over by Brilliant Digital Entertainment and the new service is expected to leave beta as early as this week. It will open with over 1 million tracks and offer unlimited downloads for $20 per month. Now, if you're not up to brush on the going rates for legal all-you-can-eat music services, $20 is a bit steep.
To step up the game, the press release says the service will implement new technology which permits users to share photos, videos and even documents with one another. Unfortunately, the rest of the press release is very confusing, and quite hurtful to the service's image. So, how long before Kazaa is buried again?