Can Kazaa be shut down

[overdo]

i've just read the article here (http://www.zeropaid.com/news/articles/auto/01112003a) saying that Sharman can apparently be sued. i'm not really too bothered about that bit.

what i want to know is, say that Sharman are ordered to shut down all Kazaa users (a la Napster) is this actually possibly? is the limit that Sharman can go to the prevention of producing new version of Kazaa and stopping the program from being downloaded anymore? cause in my little brain, i didn't think that Kazaa users could be stopped connecting to the FT network, as they are only connecting a supernode, not a dedicated server.

just wanna see what u all have to say about this,

[Munchables]

Well kazaa is centerlized. However there servers are in COMMUNIST china. In communisum all intelectul proporty is oned by everyone. So what will probably happen is the corts will tell china to shut down fasttrack, china will say no and short of going to war the corts are fucked. Well if with some leep of fate china folds then fasttrack will move it's servers agin. Probably with its new encription and new version of kazaa if it did not implement it before they moved.

[CCSDUDE]

Severs don't mean shit, dude.

Hmmm how many people are running KL with the name "KazaaLiteUser@Kazaa.com"?

Gotta be in the 100 thousand + range....

It isn't like Napster where you had to have a password and a specific user name. The reason on Napster being the hotlist and all that chat crap.

With Kazaa there is no chat/no hotlist. It only goes by IP's the user names are just a lame attempt at simplicity.

So, even if they shut their central servers down they'll be a way to remove code/hop nodes that were connected before they shut the central server down. Or changing the freakin IP in your registry to your buddies on AIM after he tells you he set himself up as a supernode. LOL

Once that's done Sharman nor the RIAA or the courts can shut shit down. It's outta they're hands unless they have the power to shutdown almost half a million + home PC's acting as super nodes.... ; )

That'll never happen....so fuck 'em.

Sharman wasn't getting cash from ad's generated on my PC before and they won't if/when they get shut down....

Fasttrack won't die that easily....

Oh, and China wouldn't cave to any foreign devils....you can count on that. Plus they want Sharmans cash....

[notbob]

90% of kazaa's users are too stupid to do what you just described (they don't even know what a registry is)

kazaa is popular because it's idiot proof--if it gets complicated by needing to set up IP addys and such, it's dead

look how many people don't care about the adware and spyware--millions--they'll hear on the news or read in people magazine or usa today "kazaa shut down", and say "well that's the end of that!" and it will be

there might be an underground minikazaa, but it will never have more than a half-million users

[random nut]

Originally posted by CCSDUDE
Oh, and China wouldn't cave to any foreign devils....you can count on that. Plus they want Sharmans cash....

Deep inside every communist, there's a capitalist! LOL!

[Sockfulloflove]

well if they shut it down, i'll just use one of the other 5 p2p apps. i have on my comp.

[overdo]

lol @ random nut. i agree with notbob saying that kazaa users want simplicity.

just to take this discussion further, i doubt that u NEED the central servers because i can't imagine every supernode phoning home. so if they shut down the servers, could ppl still connect without any reg edits etc?

[method77]

Kazaa might get shut down BUT the FT network will be there for others to use (IMesh, Grogster...) and Sharman can easily release or better yet sell the source so we must expect many programs from now and on to appear. That's just a guess.
On the other hand, I think that it's not an easy case for RIAA like napster but they will have a hard time winning this case if they do.