By Drew Cullen for The Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
Metamachine's bosses, Sam Yagan and Jed McCaleb, have been told
to stop users from file-swapping through eDonkey 2000 network. And
there are still plenty of users around. According to this
interesting walk through
eDonkey's history, it is "generally accepted that eDonkey2000
has well over four million users at any given time".
Rubbing salt into its own wound, MetaMachine has also turned
over eDonkey's front page to
RIAA copywriters, who have penned the following.
The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer
available.
If you steal music or movies, you are breaking the law.
Courts around the world -- including the United States Supreme
Court -- have ruled that businesses and individuals can be
prosecuted for illegal downloading.
You are not anonymous when you illegally download copyrighted
material.
Your IP address is ********* and has been logged.
Respect the music, download legally.
Charming. Actually, you are anonymous when you download
material – until the RIAA subpoenas your ISP, at any rate. So
the lesson for determined freeloaders is to indulge in a little IP
theft of your own – by tagging your IP address to someone
else. For instance, offer PC lessons to an elderly neighbour,
preferably very old and very deaf in return for some internet time.
Plausible deniability, see?
Freeloaders, to boot
Today's ruling is a major victory for the record labels. Their
mouthpiece, the RIAA, has in effect closed or castrated all the
major file-sharing networks - with the exceptions of LimeWire and
The Pirate Bay. Napster and Kazaa, the most successful "illegals",
paid off the RIAA and are now unsuccessful legals. Grokster and
WinMX are dead and buried, while BitTorrent made friends with the
MPAA, before the MPAA made enemies with BitTorrent.
The developers behind LimeWire,
an open source project, will have their day in court soon enough.
Last month, the RIAA filed suit against this P2P operator and today
RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol namechecked its newest adversary in a
eDonkey victory press statement: "Our settlement with eDonkey will
make operations such as LimeWire that continue to break the law and
profit off the back of stolen copyrighted content all the more
conspicuous."
The record labels accuse Mark Gorton and Greg Bildson of
LimeWire LLC of exerting "substantial influence" over the software
project and of various copyright infringements. At first sight, the
charge of "substantial influence" seems eccentric, but this is
designed to get at the personal assets of people supposedly
protected by corporate limited liability. So far as copyright
infringements are concerned, the precedents look poor for the
LimeWire fellas.
Of course, people will continue to swap music, games and films
through unofficial channels, whatever happens to the P2P operators
There is simply too much P2P software out there, and too many
people willing to lend their servers to the DarkNet, for this to be
stamped out. However, the RIAA and the MPAA will consider that they
have won if they turn freeloading from an entertainment for the
masses into an esoteric art of the furtive techie.
© The Register
2006
