Kazaa to overtake ICQ downloads - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Kazaa to overtake ICQ downloads

By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia
May 23, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Kazaa-to-overtake-ICQ-downloads/0,130061791,120274800,00.htm

File-sharing software Kazaa will soon be the most popular free program on the Web as it surpasses ICQ, according to owner Sharman Networks.

Sharman Networks expects Kazaa to overtake AOL's chat software ICQ as the most popular free software sometime in the next 24 hours.

As of Thursday US time ICQ has been downloaded 229,363,307 times according to Download.com, which is owned by CNET Networks, the parent company of ZDNet Australia. At the same time Kazaa has been downloaded 229,150,955 times according to Download.com.

Sharman Networks said Kazaa has been receiving an average of 366,000 downloads per day, whereas the ICQ application has been receiving an average of 50,000 downloads per day.

"The entire Sharman Networks team thanks users worldwide for embracing Kazaa Media Desktop," said Sharman Networks CEO Nikki Hemming. "Our vision from inception was to develop and prove a model for the distribution of licensed content."

Peer to peer networks such as Kazaa received a boost last month when US Federal Court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that the networks were legal, saying the companies that distributed the software were not very different to those that sold video recorders. Some people are concerned that -- having lost the court case -- the record companies will resort to dirty tactics to discourage people from using the file-sharing software.

Sharman Networks offers licensed files including music, movies, games and software through its partnership with Altnet.