Due to the recent Grokster decision coupled with a cease and desist order from the RIAA, it seems that eDonkey has made the regrettable (yet understandable) decision to shut down operations in an effort to avoid any expensive legal battles. In this snippet from testimony given to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Hearing on Wednesday, MetaMachine president Sam Yagan said his company was throwing in the towel.
The tenor of our conversations with content owners took a turn for the worse when MetaMachine received one of the previously described cease-and-desist letters from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). This threat of imminent litigation from the major music labels, coming in light of the Supreme Court's ambiguous ruling led us to conclude that, regardless of the virtue and lawfulness of our intentions and practices and our confidence that we never intentionally induced infringing activity, we did not have the resources to endure the protracted litigation that the RIAA letter presaged. Because we cannot afford to fight a lawsuit '“ even one we think we would win '“ we have instead prepared to convert eDonkey's user base to an online content retailer operating in a 'closed" P2P environment. I expect such a transaction to take place as soon as we can reach a settlement with the RIAA. We hope that the RIAA and other rights holders will be happy with our decision to comply with their request and will appreciate our cooperation to convert eDonkey users to a sanctioned P2P environment. |
If the page is back up (it was experiencing a lot of traffic) you can view the entire testimony here. We have to wonder if this is just the beginning of the end for P2P? Certainly the decision is quite ambiguous and it could be enough to cause other P2P developers to try and create other types software for sources of future income. We have to think it will be a factor for other companies at least those that are based in the United States. If you are a P2P fan or even just interested in legal issues and consumers rights, then you can feel free to discuss this in our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues Forum.
