First media center with P2P support

Highly controversial

By Jan Libbenga • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 29th November 2005 12:07 GMT

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A Dutch company has launched a mediacenter under the name of Lamabox, which takes all its content from P2P networks such as Edonkey, Bittorrent, Fasttrack (Kazaa), Gnutella and Overnet.

The developers themselves admit the product is "somewhat controversial", as most movies and music downloaded from these networks are illegal copies. However, since the Dutch Supreme Court ruled long ago in favor of the once Netherlands-based Kazaa and only classifies the upload of copyrighted material as illegal, the developers do not expect too much trouble. Even so, the company has set some money aside for possible legal procedures.

The Mediacenter, which was presented last weekend at a consumer trade show in Utrecht, is basically a hard disc that plugs directly into your television and provides search and download support for all the major P2P services. A "P2P spider" is constantly looking for new content, so that users won't have to download movies or music manually. Users can select music or films on the television screen.

The first LamaBox (with 40 GB) will sell for € 279. A 400 GB version with a DVD burner will cost € 479.

The company says that there is already a lot of interest from foreign countries, but supply is limited, as all of the boxes are “handmade”.®

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