Well, it seems that reports that said reports that eDonkey was going off line jumped the gun possibly jumped the gun. That makes sense yes?
Well, Reuters reported last week that popular P2P network eDonkey had gone offline and closed its New York offices following the sending of a cease-and-desist letter by the Recording Industry Association Of America. That letter cited the recent US Supreme Court ruling in the MGM v Grokster case which said technology companies could be held liable for the illegal file sharing their P2P software enables. Those reports, however, seemed to have jumped the gun because the eDonkey website is still live and it turned out they had moved out of New York months ago.
However, yesterday eDonkey boss Sam Yagan told a Senate committee on all things P2P that he planned to comply with the RIAA's demands, not because he thought he would lose a legal battle with the industry organisation, but because he didn't have the funds to fight it. He told the committee: "I'd like to make it clear to the Committee that we have replied to the RIAA's cease-and-desist letter. I have personally committed to [RIAA president Cary] Sherman, which I reiterate today, that we are in the process of complying with their request. I am not here as an active participant in the future of P2P, but rather as one who has thrown in his towel and with no interest in replaying past issues."
While on one level that news could be seen as a victory for the RIAA, you could argue that the latter comment makes that victory somewhat pyrrhic. Many in the industry now recognise that it is not really in their interest to have P2P networks like eDonkey closed down like they did with the original Napster. Rather, the industry should be working with those P2Ps with large existing subscriber lists to turn the networks and their users into the legit P2P subscribers, generating income for the content owners. Otherwise as one P2P network closes down the kids will jump ship to another offering free access to copyrighted music.
As Yagan told the Senate committee this week: "I fear that the winners in Grokster will not be the labels and the studios, but rather the offshore, underground, rogue P2P developers who will have just lost half a dozen of their biggest competitors".