How insanely hypocritical is this? Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, has forced Google.com to take down URLs that were included when someone searched for "kazaa lite." Apparently, said URLs featured downloads for Kazaa lite, a spy-ware free version of Kazaa that features faster downloading, none of the ads, and none of the spyware. Now that Sharman has gone completely commercial with Kazaa Plus (or whatever they call the paid version), apparently, they can't let people distribute Kazaa lite, even though, everyone who runs Kazza lite shares files over the whole Kazaa network, thus giving Kazaa Plus greater value.

That point aside, I find it absolutely hilarious that they forced Google to take down links to these sites because, apparently, they're stealing code from Kazaa and redistributing it in another (free) way. Hmm...kind of sounds like exactly what everyone is doing on Kazaa which has led to its success. People ripping MP3s from CDs and then distributing them freely. How ironic that Kazaa thinks they're being threatend by people stealing from them, when all they do is facilitate theft from the music companies. And please, don't leave a comment telling me that there are legal uses of Kazaa. I know that there are most likely legal files being shared and there are most likely people using Kazaa for the download of only legal files (as Kazaa claims). But I can guarantee you that 97% of all people on Kazaa are either a) sharing illegal files or b) downloading illegal files.

URL: Kazaa Owner Complains of Copyright Infringement -- Chilling Effects Clearinghouse