Why you should download Mahler's 5th... (KaZaA)

Member Name: Morgenhund

Product:	KaZaA
Date:	11/12/01 (1861 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: small download, free, lots of items for download

Disadvantages: spyware, illegal, porn/horror masquerading under box office titles.

Everybody knows the fate of Napster, which was eventually closed down, with a hydra-like consequence, namely that by cutting of its head two new ones would appear. A fair amount of my daily bandwidth is on streaming audio, with Radios 5, 4, 3 or 1 or Virgin Radio being on all day long at home, as I have an always on cable connection, although the frustrating thing is that unlike the radio where you could stick in that C-90 and copy songs off the radio, it is not possible to with streaming media.

However file-sharing utilities such as Napster finally made this a possibility, and indeed thanks to Napster, Morpheus, Audiogalaxy, Winmx and Kazaa, I have accumulated some 1200 tracks, ranging from Eddie Izzard to Plastic Bertrand and Edith Piaf to Fauré. I am currently using Kazaa, as I had found that Morpheus seemed prone to crashing, and although kazaa was ostensibly the same software, it seemed not to crash so spontaneously.

The reason I was drawn to Morpheus/Kazaa was due to the fact that there were other files that could be downloaded using the service, with a choice of audio, video, images, software and documents.

Of course I do fully realise that downloaded copyrighted material is wrong, and that it might not be the victimless crime that it is made out to be, with it still after all being piracy. In the last few months I have been able to enjoy films such as Bridget Jones, A Knight?s Tale, AI, Jurassic Park III, American Pie II, Gladiator amongst others courtesy of the service, not to mention various Ali G, South Park, Friends and Simpsons episodes. Sounds cool doesn't it? Sadly, all is not as innocent as it may seem. Recently I tried to download Harry Potter (it wasn't out here in Austria then) and after a 500Mb download I discovered that I had been given a horror movie ? pretty nasty stuff. Then a subsequent attempt to download it resulted in Manga porn ? after two minutes of utter amazement dumbstruck at the bizarre animatio
n I decided to scrub it.

On the upside the service has enabled me to get a lot of Photoshop plug-ins and actions, which I would otherwise have had to have trawled the web for, and which I wouldn't have found so easily. But again, this is piracy, pure and simple.

You can search for and compile lists of things to download and leave kazaa to do its business, and downloads can come from various sources simultaneously, as well being possible to pause them and continue at a later time. There is an in-built player and you can un-share files if you want (although that is not what they would prefer you to do), as well as being able to choose a maximum number of files that can be simultaneously uploaded and downloaded.

The player is very basic, but is good for a simple preview of what you have downloaded. The other reason I choose Kazaa recently was because one of the file-sharing databases is Eurocentric, and therefore I find it easier than on Morpheus to find obscure Europop ? like the Tribe of Toffs, Plastic Bertrand, Falco live and so on.

However it may well be the end of the road for Kazaa, since a Dutch judge has given the site just two weeks to close its service that provides users with the opportunity of exchanging copyrighted materials or face fines of up to ?45,000 a day for non-compliance (I see another Napster happening).

Of course any shut down will merely be the sign for alternatives to emerge, and whilst many come and go, there will always be ways and means of transmitting copyrighted material over the net. One thing which I will be glad to see disappear should kazaa be closed down would be the Cydoor spyware which is in the software, and without which the software won't run. There is however a faint possibility that the spyware might originate from tucows.com, .the download portal I used to download Kazaa

All in all, this is a piece of software to enjoy whilst you can, the experience being good
, the set-up easy and the product easy to use, although don't be surprised if the clinical chop comes very soon indeed.

The title is perhaps confusing or intriguing. I would advise people to download Mahler's 5th from Kazaa and play it as the service goes down, and have a rye chuckle over the irony. Otherwise the funeral march will make a good substitute.

Summary: