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eDonkey Pays the Recording Industry $30M

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sound-of-falling-dominos dept.

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?

16 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. recording industry? by doti · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The so called "recording industry" is just not needed anymore. Just get your fortune and invest in another productive area, and get over it.

    Go away. Please.

    --
    factor 966971: 966971
    1. Re:recording industry? by lymond01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Their tactics could use some updating certainly, but there's a lot of money to be made in creating the next big star. Recorded music is still a commodity, and what drives the price up of concert tickets? A: Who is most famous. How do they get famous? A: Recording industry promotes them.

      What would happen without the recording industry? A: They'd become popular by internet vote and word-of-mouth, someone would claim to have "made them famous" on their website and demand some of their earnings from concerts, videos, commercials. Other people would hop on that bandwagon, realize it's easier to promote people if they work together, and they'd call it the WMIA, World Music Industry Association, claiming rights throughout the world as an "international" (ie internet-based) company.

      You'd think the way people talk that big industries are just a bunch of small people being greedy. Well, you'd be right.

    2. Re:recording industry? by yaphadam097 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Music is an odd thing, in that one cannot 'sell' a piece of music in the same way one would sell a car. The customer either likes the piece of music he hears, or he does not. No amount of salesmanship will get him to change his mind, as it boils down to personal preference.

      I disagree with this fundamentally. A lot of people, especially young people, buy music for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the actual music but have more to do with a certain image or subculture. I grew up listening to punk, and while some of it actually does qualify as good music, much of it is less about the content and more about expressing an opinion on the culture (Kind of like /. ;-) Rap/Hip-hop music too is often about an image - the clothes, the cars, the attitude, etc. - and not about the quality of the music. All of these things are expressed outside of the music as well. e.g. by the artists appearances, actions, and speech on radio/television, live concerts, etc. This "artistic image" is a kind of marketing and has always been exploited and/or manipulated by the recording industry. In this regard, there is quite a bit of salesmanship in the industry, and the artists are to a large degree dependent on the industry to get that image out via appearances in other media.

    3. Re:recording industry? by talksinmaths · · Score: 4, Funny

      A lot of people, especially young people, buy music for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the actual music...

      You misspelled shallow. :)

      --
      Don't you have someone you'd die for?
  2. Good thing by Vampyre_Dark · · Score: 4, Funny

    Good thing they paid up. Uncle RIAA thought it would be a shame if "something should happen to their nice office building".

    1. Re:Good thing by pla · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Good thing they paid up. Uncle RIAA thought it would be a shame if "something should happen to their nice office building".

      For some reason you got modded down, but really, I have to wonder about the legality of this...

      "eDonkey, has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry". Not damages awarded by a court, not even to settle a pending suit - To avoid a potential lawsuit!

      If that doesn't meet the textbook definition of extortion, I don't know what would.

  3. It logs your IP address. by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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?
  4. Re:Morte d' Robertson by X0563511 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They call that a war of attrition. And they are indeed loosing (big lawsuits against few people wont work, they need small lawsuits against teeming crowds).

    But that's almost as impractical as SCO's lawsuit(s)

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  5. Never ending gravy train by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  6. Get this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It also logs the page you requested, when you requested it, and your browser. Everyday, they also rotate their logs and compress them for further statistical tracking at a future point!

  7. it's only natural everybody uses eMule by ranjix · · Score: 5, Funny

    historically speaking, eMule comes from eDonkey (eStallion) and eHorse (eMare)... Plus is sterile, RIAA likes that

    --
    I had another sig before, but this one is better
  8. I have a question.... by dcavanaugh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Where did eDonkey GET $30M to pay RIAA? Or is this a hyped-up announcement of a "settlement" that is never really collected?

    1. Re:I have a question.... by shark72 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "Where did eDonkey GET $30M to pay RIAA? Or is this a hyped-up announcement of a "settlement" that is never really collected?"

      From advertising.

      Many people mistakenly see the big players in the P2P game as "white knights" because they make it so easy to get so much music for free. But, make no mistake: they are not in it because "information wants to be free." They are not in it to "stick it to the man." They do it to make money. They are in the business of helping people pirate music, and business is goooood.

      It's funny that many of us justify our P2P usage by imagining some record executive in a $3,000 suit. The reality is usually different. The only record company owner I've met ran a ten-person label and paid himself $25K a year. Sam and Jed, the folks who brought you eDonkey so countless teens can "stick it to the man," likely made about $25K every week. The executives at Sharman are also multi-millionaires.

      So why are Sam and Jed rich, while my friend the indie record label owner could only afford to pay himself $25K a year? Because my friend paid artists, paid employees, and paid for the production of the music.

      --
      Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
  9. Let's not forget aMule... by urbanradar · · Score: 4, Informative

    And let's not forget... for Linux, there's the ever-excellent aMule client to access the network.

    --
    Basilisk Digital
  10. FUD! by robpoe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Plain old FUD .. EVERY friggin website in the world logs your IP address. It's only that, an IP address.

    I went there JUST so they would log my IP address. There! Sue me RIAA. I visited a public website. Boo friggin hoo..

    Next they'll be sending secret police to my house to @(*$fiu$#(NO CARRIER)

    --
    = Grow a brain...
  11. cool! by Supersonic1425 · · Score: 5, Funny

    now when I want to know my IP address, I can get a free threatening message with it! awesome.