Forbes.com: Kazaa's Early Christmas

Kazaa to Team up With Bollywood

Forbes.com reports on a new deal between three dozen bollywood producers and Kazaa so that the file-sharing service can sell bollywood flicks online. The deal is being arranged by Sharman Networks (the parent company of Kazaa) and their partners Altnet and IndiaFM.com, a popular Bollywood entertainment site.

The deal will give Kazaa's claimed 60 million users worldwide access to a spate of Bollywood films starting with Supari (A Contract for Killing), a thriller made available for $2.99 last month. The file was programmed to self-destruct (just like in Mission Impossible) after being viewed and could not be copied. Thus Kazaa is providing protection against piracy for its clients in this case, while ordinarily it stands accused of aiding illegal swaps.

Bombay's Hindi cinema is at the center of India's movie industry, which churns out about 1,000 films every year, far more than Hollywood's major studios.

posted by sajit @ 11:07 AM