KaZaA comes back to life

Dutch-based file sharing service KaZaA has sold its website and software to an Australian company and has resumed file-sharing operations.

KaZaA had been the subject of a lawsuit in a Dutch court, which alleged that the service is used to exchange copyrighted material, but the sale to privately held Australian firm Sherman Networks has allowed downloads to resume.

KaZaA had to suspend downloads on 17 January, pending the court's decision, but it was unable to stop users who had already downloaded the software from using it.

The deal included a licence for FastTrack, the technology that underlies KaZaA and similar services such as Grokster and Morpheus. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Around 200 copies of the software were being downloaded every minute by early Tuesday morning, according to KaZaA's own website.

An announcement on the site read: "The original brains behind KaZaA have moved on to develop new innovative software. The team now running KaZaA will continue to deliver the best technology for finding, saving and transfering all the data you want: no limits.

"Get ready for the next version of KaZaA with even better performance and enhanced usability."

KaZaA was developed by 35-year old Swedish-born Niklas Zennstrom.