It is now a week since Apple unwrapped its iTunes 99-cents-a-download music file swap service, but no one necessarily sees KaZaa, Grokster, or the other, more notorious P2P services quaking in their cyberboots. Small wonder: KaZaa and other P2Pers also make room for adult video clips, and a former Jupiter Communications analyst says that's the big reason why, hit though it is, Apple isn't going to put as much as a nick in the P2P market.
A February survey showed porn the number-one content swap on Gnutella's P2P system, with a reported 42 percent of Gnutella's users looking for adult videos and films. "We're all about different kinds of content sharing," Greg Bildson, chief operating officer for Gnutella-software maker LimeWire, told Wired.
"There's a ton of (porn) being traded around," said Grokster president Wayne Rosso. And with a huge and active customer base, in spite of movie and record industry moves against them in the courts and otherwise, the KaZaa/Gnutella/Grokster-style P2P networks have a large advantage over Apple.
They also have a big legal boost, after a judge ruled in late April that they aren't liable for copyright infringements when their users swap video, film, and music files. And, they have an operating advantage over Apple, too: iTunes may not work as well on Windows machines as KaZaa and company work, though Apple CEO Steve Jobs told Wired iTunes will be ready for Windows computers by the end of the year.
"But such adaptations are notoriously tricky," Wired said. "And the rights-management issues -- key to any download service -- are bound to get much more complex in Microsoft's world, since the company has invested a great deal into a rights-management system of its own."
