Who tookover for Kazaa and Limewire?

Unless you were living under a rock for the past 10 years, I'm sure you've heard about or perhaps used Kazaa or Limewire. These are the most popular P2P 'illegal' file sharing services on the internet. Limewire has indeed cleaned up its act a bit more since the early 'wild, wild, west' days of the net but they still are easily available and one can still find and download copyrighted content onto their computer. But their traffic has significantly decreased since then for a variety of reasons.

So, who is the 'King of Free Content' now? Who has taken over that mantle today? It used to be that you could mention the name 'kazaa' at any social function you might be attending and more than likely those around you would join in the conversation telling stories of what new movie or just released mp3 they just recently got. So, let's take a look...first, the legal ones:

Hulu

Hulu is probably the best of the 'free' legal alternatives to date. I'm not going to go into the pro's and con's here because much has already been written about these guys. They will continue to tweak the service as time goes on according to the ebb and flow of the current copyright policy on the web today and of course how their suppliers (studios) want their content offered.

iTunes

the 900 lb gorilla in this space, Apple's only flaw with this service is the DRM (digital rights management). And it's not Apple's fault, its just the way it is...TODAY. Their presentation and ease of use, coupled with their hardware (iPods) make them the 900lb gorilla. Remove the DRM, make a large part of their library 'free' (with ads) then you'll really see the potential of an online video store blossom.

Now, the not-so-legal ones:

First, the oldest one to appear is http://www.peekvid.com/ . Peekvid is a web based service, meaning unlike iTunes (and unlike Kazaa and Limewire), Peekvid does not ask you to download any software. You simply find a movie or TV show and click to watch. The quality is a bit spotty and the movies and TV show are flash files. Some better than others. BUT, Peekvid like Kazza has most all of the films that are currently in the theaters or have not been released yet on DVD. If you can dela with the quality issue, then the price is right.

Second, and the newest pirate around is: http://quicksilverscreen.com/ . This site almost looks legal. The quality is much better than Peekvid. Some of the movies are near perfect DVD quality. Web based just like Peekvid, its like iTunes without the fees or Hulu without the ads. The only difference is that QSS gets movies and TV shows BEFORE Hulu and iTunes does.




So, if you're the kind of person that wants to 'own' or keep a copy of the digital file on your computer (or external HD, in a cloud, on your home server, etc), then you are an iTunes person. But, if you don't care about amassing a digital library at home, then you'd be just as happy with QSS or Hulu. And in Hulu's case, the quality of the films are pretty darn good and better than most of these services. Once Hulu deploys hi-def films, I'll be watching.

Oh, and in case you are wondering how some of these guys are able to put up a server with such films and illegal content...well, their servers are simply NOT on American soil. When they WERE in the U.S. they got sued. Peekvid has since moved its servers offshore.