Kazaa Pays $100 Million

Kazaa will be paying record companies $100 million dollars in damages. "Kazaa was an international engine of copyright theft which damaged the whole music sector and hampered our industry’s efforts to grow a legitimate digital business," said John Kennedy, head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in a statement.

As those of us in the communications space know, Kazaa was developed by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the creators of Skype. These guys have to be some of the most press worthy people around — everything they do seems to turn to gold — and generate tons of free press.

They have recently set out to revolutionize the world of video distribution as well and one wonders what sort of empire they will build this time around.

  • James
    June 24, 2009 at 2:35 am

    Jammie Thomas Rasset has been making headlines as a person who has been made an example of, who really doesn’t deserve it. Jammie Thomas Rasset has been sued by the RIAA for illegal downloading from Kazaa, and they want some instant cash to the tune of $1.9 million, for downloading 24 songs – 2 CDs worth. Intellectual property needs to be preserved, but given the history of the music industry, even a casual examination reveals that they only care about the gravy train, rather than the artist’s intellectual property, and many recording contracts give almost all licensing to the record companies, which is who is behind the huge need for cash advance loans of epic proportions for Jammie Thomas Rasset.

Leave Your Comment


 

Loading
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap