I'm sorry, but I don't think anybody downloads unkown songs from Kazaa.
From how I understand it work, you have to type in words to search for, either artist name, album name or song name. What do you search for if you're just fishing for unknown stuff?

No, Kazaa is Not a good way for unknown artists to distribute their work since nobody knows them, and therefore can't search for them... Sites such as MP3.com is a much better place for that.

mp3.com is nothing like Kazaa.... mp3.com lista artists who want to be listed there for free (artists must OPT-IN). Kazaa is not that way. Kazaa lets you search by genre (they call it category) however.

Here's a wha-if... I HATE mp3.com. but, I LOVE 303 Infinity (used to be mp3.com's poster-child and best grosser, maybe still?). I find out about them on mp3.com listen to a track or two. Noticed nearly all their tracks are free to download. can't get by the crappy speed on mp3.com so I kazaa-search for 303 infinity... tons of matches... check for 'freeness factor' against mp3.com and I can d/l away all the free, unknown artist I want.

I've also done the same with other free-mp3 promoters whose sites I don't really like much. hate the site, love the content... kazaa lets me get by just fine.

Ever hear the saying: "Don't kill the messenger"? It fits here... Kazaa is no more to blame for illegal stuff than VCRs are... both are a medium that is VERY widely misused... Anyone else remember the crap when VCRs first came out? It's the exact same thing that's happening now. Differnet media, same argument.

I've done eurodance and come up with some nice results on Kazaa.... it's lead me to one of my favorite artists E-Type (a swedish group)

Other great artists Kazaa has lead me to: Red Flag, Blumchen, Chris Issak, Monaco, Warsaw, Drunk Injuns... Others too... those are the ones that come to my mind...

Looking at those, most were found by searching for: ' cover' most of the aforementioned artists did covers of artists I do know.

also p2p is a good way to find things you just cant get anywhere else, like remixes, say Ghostbusters Vs BillyJean for example.

------------------------------------------------------------
My crime is that of curiosity, blah blah blah...
------------------------------------------------------------

I'm with elf on this one. I probably wouldn't have purchased 20% of the CDs I have now if I hadn't been able to listen to something first.

No that's not true at all. I've had Kazaa for over 2 years or so now, and never received one virus or it has never caused any problems on my computer. And if I were to get one Norton would get rid of it. <(^.^<)

I've used Kazaa 2 years... I also use Shareaza (for like 4 months...), mIRC before that and Napster for a little while...

total virus count: 0
total hacker problems: 0

finding stuff I'd have never found elsewhere: priceless.

p2p: With great power comes great responsibility.

it is good for stuff you'll never find elsewhere

if that's the case, then it would seem that they had a virus before kazaa.

Viruses by most definitions have to be self-replicating. They can do that in anything that is executed by the system (I've seen perl, vbscript, c/c++, visual basic viruses with frequency). Data is not usually handled by the OS and with the exception of script-based viruses (like the Melissa virus), data can't actually be a virus, it's handled by a diffenent program (which may be infected).

MP3/AVI virus hoaxes are rampant across the web, but they are just that... hoaxes. Take a brief stroll through f-secure (http://www.f-secure.com) and see all the BS that people blame on p2p programs...

problems I have seen are people infecting the p2p program itself with viruses, then redistributing them again... a simple virus scanner is more than enough to remedy that though.

any exes you download could very well have a virus... it's a risk people will take for a free program....

I've never had a real problem with a virus... nothing McAfee couldn't take care of...

UHRBid; data can have a virus written into it's header tags or readable areas, this happened recently with the MP3 virus scare with winamp (which has been acknowledged and fixed).

As long as the OS is reading a variable to memory it can be buffer-overflowed and cause the program to execute code that could compromise the system and then carry out whatever it wants (payload & replication etc...)

It's important to remember that although the file itself might not be executable, the software that reads it can be tricked into executing malicious corrupt code within the datafile (e.g. mp3, swf, mpg etc..)

It's a matter for the programmers of the software to fix the bug/exploit - but at the end of the day it's still classified as a virus all the same, and just as dangerous, sometimes even more so since the propagation method (in the case of MP3's) is the naive users themselves.

my CD Store doesn't let me listen.... Kazaa does... I refuse to give up Kazaa simple because some people use it illegally... I buy the CDs I like, I trash the MP3s I don't want enough to buy.

--BEGIN SARCASM--

But Paxx.... you're right, Kazaa is just evil... it lets people share stuff... lets ban mIRC too... wtf... lets also shut down Xerox... I've seen too many of my fellow students copying copyrighted info (and complete textbooks). They should all goto hell

--END SARCASM--