File sharing rebels Pirate Bay and Kazaa launch legal download services

The Pirate Bay and Kazaa, two file-sharing systems that have been caught in legal battles for providing copyrighted material for public download, will both be reborn as paid systems.

Kazaa, which was shut down after a $150 million lawsuit pursued by the music industry, will charge US customers $US20 per month for unlimited downloads in the new model to be announced on Tuesday.

Kevin Bermeister, the Sydney-based entrepreneur leading the relaunch through his company, Brilliant Digital Entertainment, has said the service will be available in Australia within six months.

“People have been enamoured with the ability to rebel and break through and get stuff for free, but I think sentiment is changing and people are going to shift towards a quality [legal] product,” he told The Age.

Bermeister said there is a lot of competition in online music downloads, but argued that customers would be “intrigued to go back to a brand that they spent a lot of time on and lived with for so many years”.

Features in the new Kazaa will include the ability to pay for the service through their monthly phone bill, and the ability to upload home videos. Four of the major record labels have signed deals with the service, as well as several independent labels.

Kazaa was at the height of its popularity earlier in the decade. It was particularly popular amongst younger users as it could allow them to download and upload files of copyrighted material in an easy, no-fuss interface.

But some doubts have been raised regarding the service’s chances at beating Apple’s market share. Kazaa’s files will be available in WMA format, while iPods, the most popular portable media devices, only support MP3s and AACs.

Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing website that was recently ordered to shut down after its operators were found guilty of providing copyrighted material, will be reborn with a “give-and-take” payment model.

“The more you give, the more you get,” said Hans Pandeya, chief executive of Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X, the company that bought out The Pirate Bay last month.

“For the great majority it will be free of charge, for a minority it will actually make them money, and for a small portion it will cost them,” he said.

Pandeya has also said users may have to pay a small fee, but that fee could be lowered by sharing material or lending storage capacity on computers.

“We know that unless we’re able to create revenues for the file sharers they’ll just move on to the next free site,” he said. “File sharers are our best friends.”

The site, which will be launched next month, is also expected to raise revenue through advertising, and by reducing the costs of network traffic for ISPs by automatically connecting users who are in local areas, opposed to sharing data over international borders.

Pandeya also said the site is in negotiations with some of the “world’s largest players” in the music industry.