Sharman Networks Limited, an Australian multimedia company, yesterday announced its purchase from Dutch company KaZaA BV of assets including KaZaA.com, the web site which distributes the controversial file sharing software. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Included in Sharman's purchase of assets are the license for the FastTrack P2P Stack, the software on which KaZaA is based and which is licensed to other file swapping services including Grokster and MusicCity.

The popularity of the software is huge. Last week saw more than 1.6 million downloads of Morpheus, MusicCity's brand for the technology, according to Download.com. According to CNet, it is the most popular software download on the internet.

Sharman has resumed downloads of the KaZaA software. Downloads were stopped last week pending a decision by an Amsterdam court on the legality of the service although those who already have the peer-to-peer software cannot be stopped from using it.

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