Talking of downloading, an Israeli tech company has agreed to pay $4.1 million to the major record labels in compensation for the copyright infringement their iMesh file sharing software is estimated to have facilitated. Bridgemar Services, who own iMesh, also committed to rework their business model by the end of the summer to ensure their platform no longer enabled the illegal sharing of copyright music.
The deal, approved by a New York court, could be a landmark one because software companies who make file sharing platforms have generally sidestepped liability for copyright infringement providing the sharing of files does not go through their own servers. The iMesh deal could strengthen the record labels' legal case against other P2P software makers, such as Kazaa owners Sharman.
Bridgemar settled the copyright infringement dispute in a bid to placate the record labels who, they hope, will now make some kind of deal which would enable them to offer a legal P2P platform. While some reckon the majors would never give legitimacy to a P2P network, if Bridgemar could pull it off they would stand to make a killing with the only major label supported legal file sharing system on the market.