Kazaa to Be Relaunched as Legal, Subscription-Based Service

Illegal file sharing services coming back as legit products is nothing new, though for the most part, they haven't exactly been an overwhelming success. Napster tried it and is still at it offering a legal, subscription-based music download service, the Pirate Bay is apparently doing something similar though details are scarce, and now it seems the infamous Kazaa is making a comeback also with a subscription model.

“Kazaa is a subscription-based service brought to you by Brilliant Digital Entertainment (BDE) a leading online distributor of licensed digital content. BDE provides the means for record labels, film studios and software developers to market and sell their products to a worldwide audience of 70 million users. With the Kazaa service you get unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of CD-quality tracks for one low monthly fee,” the description on the site reads.

The brand will resurface as a subscription-based music and ringtone download service having secured content from all four major music labels as well as other sources. A beta version has been available for a while now and the site boasts “over 1 million premium tracks.” But from the start it looks like the site is inferior to pretty much any other service out there. It will offer unlimited downloads for $20 a month but the tracks are DRM-encumbered and encoded in the WMA format. Meanwhile, Napster offers unlimited downloads plus portable player support for $15 per month, along with unlimited streaming and five MP3 downloads for $5 per month.

Somehow Kazaa's offering doesn't sound like much of a deal unless it can offer some added benefits. Still, while most subscription-based music streaming or downloading services have so far proved unprofitable, not that there is a short supply of those trying, someone is bound to find a working business model and it might as well be Kazaa.