eDonkey Just Died
eDonkey has finally and unarguably lined up with other former independent commercial p2p companies which are now working with the RIAA. As we write this, “The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available,” says the site. If you steal music or movies, you are breaking the law. Courts around the world – including the United States [...]
eDonkey has finally and unarguably lined up with other former independent commercial p2p companies which are now working with the RIAA.
As we write this, “The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available,” says the site.
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 xx.xx.xx.xxx and has been logged.
Respect the music, download legally.
Goodbye Everyone.
Sam Yagan, MetaMachine president and developer of eDonkey, all but spelled it out in September last year when he told a US Senate Judiciary Committee Protecting Copyright and Innovation in a Post-Grokster World hearing he was “throwing in the towel”.
Now MetaMachine will pay the cartel, “$30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry, according to court documents quoted by the Associated Press.
BearShare, i2Hub, WinMX, iMex and Grokster are already down the tubes and, “With this new settlement, another domino falls, and we have further strengthened the footing of the legal marketplace,” AP has RIAA boss Mitch ‘The Don’ Bainwol saying.
Kazaa, now also officially on the other side of the fence, was in a league of its own, purporting to support the p2p community, at the same time trying to cozy up to the entertainment cartels.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is owned by Warner Music (US), Vivendi Universal (France), EMI (Britain) and Sony BMG (Japan, Germany) and, “Under terms of the latest agreement, MetaMachine and its top executives, Sam Yagan and Jed McCaleb, agreed to immediately cease distributing eDonkey, eDonkey 2000, Overnet and other software versions,” says the story, adding ominously, “The company also agreed to take measures to prevent file-sharing by people using previously downloaded versions of the eDonkey software.”
“Your IP address is xx.xx.xx.xxx and has been logged” is intended to con visitors into thinking their personal details have been revealed which is, of course, pure RIAA bullshit.
Far more seriously, what are the chances of the ‘confidential’ information relating to people who registered with eDonkey and the others remaining confidential?
Meanwhile, “In August, the recording companies filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the firm behind LimeWire,” says AP. “That case is pending.”
Warez P2P, Morpheus and Soulseek are still out there, as is Blubster, and as Drake Zamanov points out, “Older versions of eDonkey should still connect without a problem. eMule is free and is the most used application on the edonkey2000 network. Surprisingly, this development barely impacted the network as there are still 4.3 million users connected to legitimate edonkey servers.”
Stay tuned.
