Kazaa Releases iOS App For $10/Month Streaming Service.

Remember Kazaa? For early twenty-somethings it was “the” way to get music in the late, late 90′s and early 2000′s. The past several years, however, have seen the service (as well as many other similar ones) completely redone or closed entirely. Kazaa looked like it would face the same dead end fate.

But the company is back with a new subscription service and iOS app…

The Pirate Bay Gets Legitimate Cousin: BayFiles Now Open For Business.

The Pirate Bay may hold a special place in your heart and a thorn in content owners’ sides, but love it or hate it a new service is being born from the same mind. The site is called “BayFiles” and is partially founded by Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij. Different from The Pirate Bay, however, is that BayFiles” will allow users to anonymously upload files for public sharing with a few anti-piracy measures.

First and foremost, BayFiles does not have any central storage index meaning if you don’t have the direct download link — given after the file in question is uploaded — there isn’t any way to browse recent uploads. On top of that the outfit has enlisted in several DMCA officers to act upon any and all DMCA takedown requests. More evidence of the site’s more legitimate tone comes by way of a much lengthier, harshly worded ToS.

Naturally, the BayFiles group is looking to turn a profit. Free unregistered and registered accounts will have a few restrictions:

• File size limit: 250 MB for unregistered accounts/500 MB for registered accounts

• Both unregistered and unregistered accounts will have a 1 download-per-hour limit

Pricing for premium accounts will be €5 (1 month), €25 (6 months), or €45 (12 months). The only question: Will it take off?

It’s Finally Over: Limewire Settles P2P Lawsuit For $105 Million.

The long-running battle between once popular P2P file sharing service Limewire and various music labels is finally over. Just one short week after the end of the official trial, the second trial to determine damages has ended with a settlement of $105 million USD reached. While said amount may sound like a lot of money (because it is), it pales in comparison to the $150,000/song major music labels had voiced before, totaling trillions in damages. Thankfully common sense came out on top.

Limewire itself has been dead since last October after a failed attempt at launching a legitimate online music store. With the end of the trial, we could be looking at the last mentions of the once infamous file sharing service. As for file sharing as a whole, the story has just begun.

BitTorrent Reaches 100 Million Active Monthly Users.

In news that should make every music label and movie publishing company ecstatic, BitTorrent announced today via an official press release that they have now climbed above 100 million active monthly users spanning across 220 countries. If we drill down to the daily level, it works out to roughly 20 million users swapping some 400,000+ files — impressive numbers indeed. Everything from desktops to rooted Android phones are sucking down torrents at increasing rates.

Jokes aside, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for BitTorrent believe or not. The biggest one that comes to mind offhand — Linux distros. Of course, if you’re not the Linux hobbyist, feel free to toss in your personal favorite. Press release after the break.

China Cracking Down on VoIP Phone Services.

Internet phone services such as Skype are about to have a much harder time operating within China’s borders, if at all. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated that “We are carrying out with relevant authorities a campaign to crack down on illegal Voice over Internet Protocol phone services” — In this case, “illegal” means any service that is not state-owned and under the direct control of the Chinese government. On that same note, vice-minister Xi Guohua was quoted by the Beijing Morning Post saying that “only state-owned major Chinese telecommunications operators were licensed to provide internet phone services linking telephones and computers”.

In a country with 450 million+ internet users, such a restriction has far-reaching consequences that will affect one of the world’s largest internet markets. Not surprisingly, Chinese citizens are already voicing their displeasure on internet forums and websites, claiming the crackdown is being enforced solely for the benefit of state-owned monopolies and their over-priced services — services that Skype and others offer at much lower costs. Regardless, such a crackdown is a disappointing and unnecessary.

Wireless Industry Joins Canadian Gov’t in Opposing “iPod Tax”. #ipodtax

For almost a year now, various members of the Canadian government and various content owner executives have been pushing for an “iPod Tax” that would levy a hefty C$75 surcharge onto every digital music player and smartphone on the market. The false guise of course relating to copyright and how the digital revolution is killing the music industry. The thought of such a bill passing didn’t make much sense then, and almost a year later still doesn’t. That’s why it with great relief that I announce the bill is being rejected by not only the Canadian government as whole, but the wireless industry as well.

President and CEO of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), Bernard Lord had this to say:

“This is absolutely the right decision for consumers as the Government moves forward with its digital economy strategy. We don’t agree that law-abiding consumers should have to pay twice – once to legally download a song, and once again for the right to play it on a MP3 player or smartphone. There are also lots of uses for digital media players and smartphones that don’t involve playing recorded music, and this proposal would have unfairly penalized consumers that way too. The Government definitely got this right.”

This is definitely a win for the Canadian people.

Oh the Irony: EMI Found to Have Illegally Distributed Music on RapidShare. #emi #filesharing

Since the dawn of Napster, the topic of filesharing and p2p downloads have been an extremely hot topic. Focusing on the music industry, there are two major sides: (1) The major music labels and (2) End users/consumers. We already know each respective side’s stance — Major music labels hate new types of technology such as p2p, filesharing, and basically anything innovative and exciting. Consumers love to share. The former has constantly criticized the latter for doing just that. But as it turns out, irony can strike in the most surprising places.

The biggest example of this “irony” recently surfaced in the three year long EMI vs. MP3tunes lawsuit where the current defendant, MP3tunes owner Michael Robertson, somehow managed to obtain a bevy of secret EMI internal e-mails. The most alarming revelation in the emails — according to German website Heise.de, EMI was willingly and frequently using p2p/filesharing networks to illegally distribute MP3s…

It’s Over: Limewire Shutting Down for Good. #limewire #p2p

Just one day ago we heard that Limewire was pulling the plug on their legal digital music storefront, signaling to many that bleak times were ahead for the once popular p2p service. At the same time, the theory that Limewire was merely trying to protect themselves come judgement day early next year started circulating as well. For if the company is worth next to nothing, the fine handed down upon them would surely be less, right?

Unfortunately, none of that really matters any more as Limewire responded to AllThingsD via email with the following:

“Given our current situation, plans to bring our separate, legal music service to market have been canceled. The beginning of 2011 will mark the closing of LimeWire’s New York office and cessation of business by LimeWire. We attracted some of the top talent from the technology community over the years to build our new music service. We’ll be helping our team members commence their job search over the next few months.”

While Limewire could still be putting on a grand show for the lawsuit’s sake, believing too much into such an outcome would be a bit too far of a reach. It appears that Limewire is down for the count.

German Court Finds File Sharer Guilty, Fines Him $42. Wait…What?

In stark contrast to the ridiculous fines doled upon Jamie Thomas, it appears that the German court system has both common sense and the ability to tell major labels/music industry lobbyists to go screw themselves. A man in Germany was accused of sharing two songs back in 2006 when he was just 16 years old. The songs in question — “Engel” and “Dreh’ dich nicht um” (whip out that German dictionary). In the U.S. under our “completely legal, reasonable, and fair” guidelines, such a punishment would equal out to roughly $120,000. In Germany however, the same penalty for sharing two songs is $42.

Assuming the price of a song at the a-la-carte price of $0.99, $42 for two is a solid 20x the normal price. That’s a far cry from the markup the music industry is getting from settlements and full blown lawsuits in the U.S. But of course, if file sharing fines were actually anything close to reasonable, the music industry wouldn’t make any money, and as such, wouldn’t use them to prop up their broken industry.

Hmm. Just think about that.