Sharman Networks Limited, an Australian multimedia company,
yesterday announced its purchase from Dutch company KaZaA BV of
assets including KaZaA.com, the web site which distributes the
controversial file sharing software. Terms of the deal were not
disclosed.
Included in Sharman's purchase of assets are the license for the
FastTrack P2P Stack, the software on which KaZaA is based and which
is licensed to other file swapping services including Grokster and
MusicCity.
The popularity of the software is huge. Last week saw more than
1.6 million downloads of Morpheus, MusicCity's brand for the
technology, according to Download.com. According to CNet, it is the
most popular software download on the internet.
Sharman has resumed downloads of the KaZaA software. Downloads
were stopped last week pending a decision by an Amsterdam court on
the legality of the service although those who already have the
peer-to-peer software cannot be stopped from using it.
