The Copyright Controversy Surrounding KaZaA and other Peer to Peer Networks - Singing in Cyberspace - Napster lives, KaZaA mutates - Salon.com: The Parasite Economy Peer to Peer Networks - KaZaa - Kazaa - Kazaa in Computer Networking Kazaa is a free, distributed file sharing service that uses peer-to-peer (P2P) network technology. Kazaa is most commonly used to share and download MP3 music files over the Internet.

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KaZaA is a second-generation peer-to-peer file-sharing service with which you can search and download media files from other Kazaa users. Kazaa is currently owned by an Australian company called Sharman Networks that has battled the same copyright and legal issues surrounding other  peer-to-peer networking programs like Napster. Niklas Zennstrom from Sweden and Janus Friis from Denmark are the software programmers who invented KaZaA. About 140 million PCs and increasing worldwide have KaZaA installed.

According to Salon.com, "the buzz has coagulated around an application called KaZaA. Over the last two months old KaZaA has hit peer-to-peer critical mass: A network of 5 million people is using it to trade files of all kinds, from obscure bootlegs to raunchy porn." Salon.com also goes on to state, "KaZaA comes bundled with no fewer than five associated applications. Some of these programs fall into a class labeled by critics as spyware. Because they reside on your hard drive but automatically phone home to outside servers on the Net (to upgrade themselves, or retrieve ads), they can threaten user privacy and security..."

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