Remember Kazaa - that adware-riddled application that allowed you to freely download MP3s back in the early noughties? Turns out, they're still alive, but also have done a Napster and have gone legit after numerous lawsuits and a very big one in Australia that saw it banned. But after Symantec identified it as adware (again), the new owners Brilliant Digital Entertainment are angry and have released a "Consumer Notice".

"Symantec had justified turning off the music for some of Kazaa customers by flagging files in the Kazaa music plug in application as high risk due to the files being used for serving advertisements," it said in its press release.

"As a result Kazaa customers or subscribers running Norton AV are having these files stripped from the application which prevents them from using the service" - however, I don't think there is a lot of people (dare I say, none at all) that use the service as many opted to use other legit ways that didn't have a history of providing adware that were hard to remove or forced us to actually reformat our computers.

To their defence, however, they have actually made mistakes like this in the past - one notable one was Spotify, a European-based service that allowed you to stream music, in January this year.

However, if I was you - stay away from Kazaa. It should have died a long time ago.

Seven has launched its new Catch-up television service - dubbed "PLUS7", offering streaming of shows including Castle, Home and Away, Criminal Minds, Heroes, Private Practise, Flash Forward and Parks and Recreation - with more content expected to be added from this year's television season.

However, the new catch-up service will follow the US method of placing advertising in the middle of shows, though there is no indication on which part of the stream. While Ten has placed ads where the ad breaks go in programming, it is usually because they broke the episodes up. As well, expect to see between 3-4 ads per show.

Content expiration does differ - those on NBC usually end ten days after appearing online; while ABC (US) shows stay up for 28 days. However, shows from Seven - including Home and Away - expire for 7 days. ABC iView offers all shows up for 14 days after broadcast.

While iiNet and Internode have offered to bring ABC iView unmetered, no word if they will extend that to this service.

"At this stage we're not offering Plus7 unmetered to our customers," an iiNet spokeswoman said in an e-mail.

No other ISPs have announced any similar deals.

A new law proposed by the Italian Government could see the citizens of Italy requiring a licence to upload videos to the Internet from the Communications Ministry, which could reduce the freedom of communications, according to lawmakers opposed to the new law.

If the law passes, this would make Italy the only country in Europe and the Western world to require government approval to upload videos -- even as simple as a cat playing a piano or sharing video recorded on a holiday to share with friends.

"Italy joins the club of the censors, together with China, Iran and North Korea," said Vincenzo Vita from the Democratic Party.

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AOL has announced that it will be laying off 1,200 employees as it failed to meet its target of 2,300 - or a third of total employees in the company - in reducing its workforce, as many refused to accept buyouts. According to spokeswoman Tricia Primrose, only 1,100 volunteered to leave the company. The cuts affect both its US and European operations; and layoffs are set to start today, though most will occur on Wednesday.

Cuts include shutting offices in Spain and Sweden, though it still have a presence in Sweden via Adtech AG. Other than that, the cuts have not been broken down, but is expected that many of the cuts could come from under-performing sites and its dial-up division.

At the height of the dot-com boom, AOL bought media conglomerate Time Warner, but that ended to be a disastrous merger as the merged company dropped AOL from its name, and after years of decline in its dial-up business, decided to revamp its business model to a content company - which has turned to be successful, as it owns popular blogs Engadget, Download Squad and Joystiq. Thanks to the acquisition of Weblogs Inc, the company has used the blogging technology to power its massive content network. AOL was spun off by Time Warner in December last year.

Guess what! Australia can now officially access VEVO.com! That would be great news, but there is a downside. While you can access the pages, you will not be able to play any of the content – mainly because of rights restrictions (meaning those living in Canada, US or Japan are allowed to view the videos).

However, there is a way to watch videos from VEVO – and that’s on YouTube; and it’s pretty simple. Just go to the end of the forward slash after youtube.com, write the artist’s first and last name (no space between) and add VEVO at the end of the name. It’s pretty much a hit or miss, because not all artists have a profile like this. You can still play the video from VEVO on the YouTube player, but it has to be an artist signed by Universal Music Group as others will be blocked.

I should also note, on my experience, it does stop to buffer a lot; and that you will not know how much has been already downloaded (that little red thing that progressively gets to the end of the seek bar).

In the biggest management shakeup in the media industry, GE and Comcast have announced the long rumoured deal that would see Comcast gaining a 51 percent majority stake of the media empire NBC Universal, after GE bought the final 20 percent of its original 80 percent holding of the company from Vivendi. GE will still hold a 49 percent stake.

Comcast will give approximately $6.5 billion to GE for the majority shareholding.

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Could Apple bring out (another) gaming console? That's what Analyst Jerry Johnson predicts, saying:

"In terms of predicting the 'next gen' of gaming hardware, Parker refused to be drawn on specifics, although he was keen to speculate that it would not be too surprising to see Apple launch a dedicated gaming console based around Intel's Larabee chip."

Apple has changed a lot since they tried (and epic failed) to release a gaming console called "The Apple Bandai Pippin". It was Expensive and inferior to the PlayStation and N64.But Apple have changed, All Mac "Fanboys" must have everything Apple. Look at the iPod and the iPhone.

Or could Apple use Apple TV as a base for a console?

No doubt if Apple were to make a console they would use iTunes to Sell Games. But Apple would need to see Big Game Developers to start developing games so it would not become a flop.

I personally think if Apple were to bring out a Gaming Console the Controller would incorporate a "Multi Touch" Pad(s).

I would like to know what you think. Leave your comments.

The BBC is said to be looking into offering a global service to its iPlayer service, currently available to the UK market only, with the help of its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. However, unlike the iPlayer in the UK, you are likely going to be charged to watch one single episode.

The iPlayer in the UK is paid by the license fee and is advertising free – mainly because of its charter states that no advertising is permitted on any of services. Rights issues, however, prevent its content to be viewed outside the UK, however, its radio content is available to be streamed via podcasts or heard live.

The main reason that resonates across the stories around the world is that it would allow its commercial arm to raise its prices for “premium content”, with executives saying that audiences around the globe will be prepared to pay $10 per episode for shows like Doctor Who, Torchwood and Spooks.

As well, if the service is launched, the content will most likely be a catchup service on the many BBC-owned international channels, including BBC America in the US and UKTV in Australia; or will be historical material from the BBC archives. Also, because of the nature of BBC America and UKTV’s programming, it will also include programming from its rival broadcasters ITV and Channel 4.

Talking to paidContent earlier in the month, managing director for BBC.com Luke Bradley-Jones said that users are willing to pay for such content. “Millions of people love Torchwood and would probably pay 10 bucks an episode rather than two bucks,” he said, noting the pricing that Apple sells the same content in its iTunes store.

Right. Though, I’m not sure I would pay $10 for an episode, where I could get it cheaper on iTunes, or free on your very own service (via a IP masker) or even via BitTorrent.