By Sue Zeidler

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Ice T, one of the few artists to support file-sharing and the now-defunct Napster, said on Wednesday he is making his music available for purchase to users of the controversial Kazaa service.

Under the deal, marking the service's first commercial distribution of music by a hit artist, Ice T's new album, "Repossession," will be available for $4.99 to Kazaa Media Desktop users through a secure platform for peer-to-peer services developed by Altnet, a unit of Brilliant Digital Entertainment Inc.

Since last year, Altnet has placed pay-content listings among Kazaa search results, leading to authorized, protected files instead of the unlicensed type normally traded on Kazaa.

While Kazaa's parent company, Sharman Networks, has touted the partnership with Altnet as a potential and legitimate revenue source for the music industry, the world's big record labels consider it a foe and have sued Kazaa for copyright infringement, hoping to shut it down.

So far, Altnet and its content partners have received payment for 18 million licensed content files, spanning music, software, games and videos.

But the songs Altnet embeds with copy protection are mostly obscure and make up a tiny fraction of the pirated files traded through Kazaa. Analysts say at any moment, about 4 million Kazaa users are sharing some 800 million movie, picture, music and pornography files, most of which are unauthorized.

Kazaa has argued in court that by incorporating Altnet, it has significant legal uses.

Kevin Bermeister, Altnet's chief executive, has said he has tried to establish a working relationship with music companies and was optimistic that signing on Ice T would help open the door to other distribution deals.

The deal also provides for future distribution of an additional 16 Ice T audio or video files.

"We are thrilled to have Ice T as the first multi-platinum artist using Altnet's technology," Bermeister said in a statement. "Altnet enables content owners to tap into the promotional and commercial power of a peer-to-peer environment."

Ice T, an outspoken critic of big record labels and an advocate for new distribution channels, said teaming with Altnet was an easy decision.

"With technology today, artists don't need to rely on the workings of a traditional label to get their music to consumers, and without the label being in the middle to get a stake, it enables artists like myself to generate more revenue through selling product ourselves," Ice T said in a statement.

Music executives note that while the powers behind Kazaa claim they are trying to build a legitimate business, they have refused to drop the free file-sharing, which brings them advertising and other revenues.

"Altnet is a company that has unfortunately built itself on the back of widespread piracy," said a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites).

A federal judge in Los Angeles recently agreed to hear the recording industry's lawsuit against Kazaa, determining that Sharman, based on a South Pacific island, is subject to U.S. copyright law. Sharman, whose main offices are in Sydney, Australia, countersued, accusing the entertainment industry of hoarding content in an illegal monopoly. photocopiers.

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Ice T is the dude from Law And Order SVU right? And the Copkilla guy. Ironic.

I don't really support rappers and I don't support Altnet's source of money. But still, very good news for the Resistance.

You know why he's gonna put it on the net because no one would buy his album anyway LMAO

this may be a bad place- but the forums get no attention!

i'm doing a research paper on copyright and the RIAA's quest to destroy p2p.

the direction that i'm going in suggests that the RIAA's reluctance to adapt to the changing market will result in the fall of the record industry.

can anyone recommend any good sources that are not found only online? they can be found online, but they need to be based on a journal or a scientific study.

graphs, graphics, and quotes are also welcome!

(again, sorry for the intrusion. Ice T has the right idea.)

well an good that hez doing it, but without doing that tha labelz hez with wouldnt promote hiz shit enough to sell many recordz in tha first place...
i'm glad hez doing it, but hiz best interest iz in mind too...

perhaps not the most ethical way to get it done, but anything that avoids the typical RIAA-gateway deserves recognition.

as for your paper, futureman, you might want to try contacting the webmaster of this site. if anyone here would have compelling data, that's where it'll most likely be. lots of magazines/journals would probably love to do articles on the matter, but we all know who runs them in one way or another (most are owned by aol), and no one would risk their career over any article these days. actually i remember something a while back that the rolling stone had a few things about the dying industry, too.

lol blackflame is right about nobody buying the album...

But good on Ice T for doing what he is doing/

futureman ---- there's a book out called "The Media Monopoly" that may be helpful for you, its in its sixth or seventh edition I think and you can get it and barnes and noble (or probably Amazon.com), its supposed to be a very interesting read. I haven't had a chance to get a copy myself, but I believe it has a huge bibliography in the back that may be of use to you if the book is not.. go down to your local bookstore and see if its what your looking for and if it isn't, see what sources its got in the biblio. and see if they are helpful.

Im not a fan of IceT but its a good gesture. The only reason the record industry is pissed off is because they arent getting a piece of the pie.

ya know "body count" was some tight work on ice T's behalf!

ice t fell of yrs ago, same as snoop, maybe all the ageing rappers will follow suit

He is doing this so he can sell records one way or another the artist will always win.

At least Ice-T wasn't (and isn't) a "useful idiot" for the anti-consumer, anti-technology dogmatists who run the multinational entertainment-media complex, in contrast to Dr. Dre who WAS (and IS).