eDonkey Pays the Recording Industry $30M

ColinPL writes, "MetaMachine Inc., the firm behind online file-sharing software eDonkey, has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry. The company also agreed to take measures to prevent file sharing by people using previously downloaded versions of the eDonkey software. The eDonkey application now displays the message, 'The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available. Please see eDonkey.com for more details.' After that message is displayed the uninstaller is launched automatically." If you visit edonkey.com, it logs your IP address. How much will the demise of eDonkey matter, given that most who access that P2P network do so using the open-source eMule?

Comments

It logs your IP address.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

If you visit edonkey.com, it logs your IP address

If you visit one my my sites, I'll log your IP address too. So what - are they following up on each one to see if they are potential pirates?

Never ending gravy train

[LiquidCoooled]

So, eDonkey wants to stay legit, good on them.
They want to put in place controls to limit copying, good on them.
They then give all their money to the bullys, bad move.
Paying of the artists might seem like a prudent course of action, but once you pay of one group, what about the next?

Theres the RIAA, MPAA and the BSA.
The guitar tab people and the knitting pattern folks and all the other American groups.
Thats not including all the individual software companies who want a piece of the pie, nor does it include all the groups from other countries (like FACT(Federation Against Copyright Theft) or CAAST(Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft)).

What happens when I find software from my company is available on limewire, where do I get my piece of the pie from, or is mine not big enough and is simply enough to get it added to the list of banned searches without any financial payback?

What makes my company different to the RIAA groups?

Let the copyright owners prove blatant infringement, let them show the service is doing illegal things and let the service fix itself.

Don't give into threats.