Kazaa Pays $100 Million, Vows to Go Legal

By Geoff Duncan
July 27, 2006

Kazaa, one of the most (in)famous peer-to-peer file sharing networks, has agreed to pay music companies $100 million in damages and immediately commit to going legal.

Sharman Networks, owners of the Kazaa peer-to-peer file sharing service, announced today that they have settled all litigation with four of the world's largest music publishers (Universal, Sony BMG, EMI, and Warner Music) for $100 million, and immediately commits to "going legal" and using Kazaa to distribute only licences content. Sharman has also settled with the Motion Picture Association of America (PDF), which said Sharman "will continue operations while employing new technologies to prevent unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works," although terms of the MPAA settlement were not disclosed.

"This settlement marks the dawn of a new age of cooperation between P2P technology and content industries which will promise an exciting future for online distribution in general and ...

Continue Reading Article @ DigitalTrends.com